Re: tool for DB design - Mailing list pgsql-general
| From | William Bug |
|---|---|
| Subject | Re: tool for DB design |
| Date | |
| Msg-id | 00756915-EB84-413C-9FE6-9C42648D8D47@drexel.edu Whole thread Raw |
| In response to | Re: tool for DB design (Tino Wildenhain <tino@wildenhain.de>) |
| List | pgsql-general |
Hi Nikolay,
Were you able to get any closer to your objective on this email thread?
I spent quite a bit of time researching the web on this question back in June - Is there an Open Source option for doing "round trip" data modeling for PostgreSQL?
As far as the E-R or UML diagramming, Dia and Umbrello are definitely the tools I liked the best, with ArgoUML coming in 3rd. Dia is Gnome-based, Umbrello uses KDE and ArgoUML is Java Swing based.
Of these, only Dia appears to have "relatively" complete machinery for turning UML diagrams --> PostgreSQL DDL SQL and visa/versa.
The major options are listed here:
Basically, these are a collection of scripts - PERL, PHP & Python, for turning the Dia UML objects (saved as XML in a Dia file) into DDL SQL. The following tools were specifically capable of handling PostgreSQL's DDL SQL dialect:
Dia UML --> PostgreSQL DDL SQL
teDia2SQL
Dia2SQL
Dia2Postgres
(dia2PgSQL - this one I've lost and can't find it on the web anymore)
PostgreSQL DDL SQL --> Dia UM
PostgreSQL_AutoDoc
In the end, I chose teDia2SQL (http://tedia2sql.tigris.org/), though it doesn't do everything I needed, it seem to get me closest.
In the end, I started using ideas I got from reading the teDia2SQL code to write my own truly "round trip" scripts in Ruby to go back & forth easily between Dia & PostgreSQL DDL SQL. Unfortunately, I had to move on to other tasks, before getting very far along on this, but I do hope to get back to it eventually.
I'm kinda hoping one of the Open Source UML tools - Umbrello, Neptune or ArgoUML/PoseidonUML will get to this task before I do. If they added full "round trip" translation between their diagrams/models and PostgreSQL DDL SQL, and they all adopt the XMI file format, so that UML & E/R diagrams can be stored as SVG-like XML instances that any tool can open and edit, then we'll be set.
I expect we're still at least 1.5 - 2.0 years from there, yet.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Bill
On Nov 25, 2005, at 6:22 AM, Tino Wildenhain wrote:
Nikolay Samokhvalov schrieb:dbvis isn't the thing what I need. Or I'm blind and cannot find whereI can draw ER/UML diagram then transform it to physical, then obtainSQL code. Or, just physical->SQL. Please correct me if I'm wrong.Well, I mentioned DIA for this - reread my mail please ;)I said DIA for ER -> SQL and dbvis for physical -> ER.physical -> SQL is covered by pg_dump.On 25/11/05, Tino Wildenhain <tino@wildenhain.de> wrote:Am Freitag, den 25.11.2005, 02:25 +0300 schrieb Nikolay Samokhvalov:Please, suggest any free/opensource tool for DB design under Linux. Ineed following: ER (or UML)-diagram -> physical diagram -> SQL code (Idon't even dream about reverse transformation...) Quite good exampleof such tool is Sybase PowerDesigner (which supports Postgres), butAFAIK it runs only under win and costs $...dia can do this and I guess a lot of other tools.For the reverse check out db visualizer (dbvis)Which has a very nice ER-view.(With autorouting, which many tools, even the $$$-onesmiss)++Tino--Best regards,Nikolay---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Bill Bug
Senior Analyst/Ontological Engineer
Laboratory for Bioimaging & Anatomical Informatics
www.neuroterrain.org
Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy
Drexel University College of Medicine
2900 Queen Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19129
215 991 8430 (ph) - 215 843 9367 (fax)
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