Sql2diagram-sxd - generate ER diagrams from SQL

© 2003, 2004 by Jarno Elonen

Example diagrams

Cleaned struct:
cleaned ER diagram
Cleaned ER:
cleaned ER diagram
Generated struct:
raw structure diagram
Generated ER:
raw ER diagram

Download sql2diagram-sxd 1.0.5 [GPG sig] | Read the source code

Sql2diagram-sxd is a free Python tool for reverse engineering ERD (Entity-Relationship Diagrams) and to generate UML-style table structure diagrams from SQL CREATE statements that contain appropriate FOREIGN KEY specifications. The program outputs OpenOffice.org Draw (.sxd) files, so the results are editable.

It is Free Software / Open Source, licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Output formats

In fact, you generally have to edit the results manually because the the program doesn't do any kind of intelligent layouting: if you have more than a few foreign keys, the result will be a messy mesh that you have untangle by hand before the diagram is of any practical use. See the "Generated" screenshots.

The program can also output a machine readable textual explanation (examples: ER, table struct.) of the diagram it is writing, which you might want to try and convert to other diagram formats as well.

Building

To build sql2diagram-sxd, you have to run sql2diagram-sxd.g through yapps2. The makefile usually does this automatically but here's how to do it manually, in case you have to:

$ python yapps2/yapps2.py sql2diagram-sxd.g
$ cp yapps2/yappsrt.py ./
$ chmod a+x sql2diagram-sxd.py
$ sql2diagram-sxd.py --help

Development

The SQL parser was originally written for MySQL but has been verified to cover at least basic PostgreSQL as well. It is based on YAPPS2 parser generator by Amit J. Patel.

sxd-template.sxd is a template file that the program uses for generating the SXD files. Don't touch it unless you really know what you are doing - in particular, don't try to modify it with OOo, it will most likely not work after that. If you are still curious, however, try unzipping it (yes, OOo documents are actually ZIPs) and look into content.xml.

Please note I have currently no further development plans for this program. For me, it has done it's job for now. If you find it useful, I would welcome contributions in form of patches or even brances.

(This page and images on it count as documentation of the software and are thus under the same license as the program itself.)