Documenting and searching a schema

Hi experts,
is there any external tool or feature within SQL Server 2005, which
enables a searchable documentation of schemas?
What I would like to do is to add descriptions to tables, columns and
foreign key relations describing their meaning in detail. By the term
"description" I do not mean a meaningful name, but (where required) a
longer, formatted text. Additional a google-like keyword search would
be nice, to be able to find matching elements, like e.g. all tables or
columns containing "customer" in the description text. The list of
search results should list the matching elements and show the first
few words of the description (very similar to the way google lists its
search results). If an element from the list is choosen, then the full
description should become visible. If the found elements could then be
dragged and dropped directly to a query builder - that would be
perfect!
As I don't think that I'm the first one thinking about enabling
documentation and search on database schemas, there should be tools
already existing for that purpose. But as I don't know any of them -
could you please suggest me some?
Kind regards,
Max
(send.me.all.email@.googlemail.com) writes:
> is there any external tool or feature within SQL Server 2005, which
> enables a searchable documentation of schemas?
> What I would like to do is to add descriptions to tables, columns and
> foreign key relations describing their meaning in detail. By the term
> "description" I do not mean a meaningful name, but (where required) a
> longer, formatted text. Additional a google-like keyword search would
> be nice, to be able to find matching elements, like e.g. all tables or
> columns containing "customer" in the description text. The list of
> search results should list the matching elements and show the first
> few words of the description (very similar to the way google lists its
> search results). If an element from the list is choosen, then the full
> description should become visible. If the found elements could then be
> dragged and dropped directly to a query builder - that would be
> perfect!
> As I don't think that I'm the first one thinking about enabling
> documentation and search on database schemas, there should be tools
> already existing for that purpose. But as I don't know any of them -
> could you please suggest me some?
You could look into SQLDoc from Red Gate (http://www.red-gate.com/). The
tool permits you to enter extended properties per table (not on column
level), and you can then generate a web site or HTML Help from the database.
Since HTML Help is searchable, this may be what you are looking for. You
can download a 14-day eval to have a look.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx
|||Get a copy of Doc from ApexSQL (www.apexsql.com).
TheSQLGuru
President
Indicium Resources, Inc.
<send.me.all.email@.googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1184095671.151380.170660@.o61g2000hsh.googlegr oups.com...
> Hi experts,
> is there any external tool or feature within SQL Server 2005, which
> enables a searchable documentation of schemas?
> What I would like to do is to add descriptions to tables, columns and
> foreign key relations describing their meaning in detail. By the term
> "description" I do not mean a meaningful name, but (where required) a
> longer, formatted text. Additional a google-like keyword search would
> be nice, to be able to find matching elements, like e.g. all tables or
> columns containing "customer" in the description text. The list of
> search results should list the matching elements and show the first
> few words of the description (very similar to the way google lists its
> search results). If an element from the list is choosen, then the full
> description should become visible. If the found elements could then be
> dragged and dropped directly to a query builder - that would be
> perfect!
> As I don't think that I'm the first one thinking about enabling
> documentation and search on database schemas, there should be tools
> already existing for that purpose. But as I don't know any of them -
> could you please suggest me some?
> Kind regards,
> Max
>