ERD software that is manageable by git

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Chris
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ERD software that is manageable by git

Post by Chris »

Does anyone know of a good way of maintaining a database structure alongside a diagram, that can be maintained easily across a team using git, subversion or mercurial? Currently my team uses Navicat, which has great structure and data synchronization utilities. But I would love it if we could maintain a nicely laid out diagram rather than having to reverse engineer the database every time. As a simple diagram can sometime help a huge headache of trying to figure out which column relates to which key.
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Jackolantern
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

Post by Jackolantern »

Oh man, someone on my team was talking about a tool that did something like this a few weeks back. Maybe not 100%, but I will ask him about it on Monday.
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Chris
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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Jackolantern wrote:Oh man, someone on my team was talking about a tool that did something like this a few weeks back. Maybe not 100%, but I will ask him about it on Monday.
Any news? I would really appreciate it.
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Jackolantern
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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Oh sorry I had forgotten about this. Alright I will ask tomorrow.
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Chris
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

Post by Chris »

Any luck Jack?
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Jackolantern
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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I spoke with them, but we weren't quite sure what you meant by "can be maintained alongside a diagram"? Do you just mean that the diagrams of the DB structure continue to change as the database is altered? Because I do believe I had misunderstood what you had meant when I thought someone had talked about it (I was thinking you meant more of a way to persist and share DB migrations). However, my team does have 3 really good DB people that know about a lot of different products so I can see if they know of anything.

EDIT: Also, what RDBMS are you using? My team's experience is mostly centered on SQL Server, but most of them have worked with others as well.
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Chris
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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RDBMS primarily spread sheets, doesn't really matter, at the end of the day it's all rows and columns. We work with all different types of SQL.

I want to be able to manage an ERD which I can engineer into a database, and be able to share changes to the diagram with git. We currently do it the other way round, every time we reverse engineer the database into a diagram, we loose the diagram structure.

Navicat, mysql workbench, I don't care about the tool at the end of the day it's all the same thing.
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Jackolantern
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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So by being git-compatible, you are looking for something that would be text (perhaps JSON) format? And also, what do you mean by "reverse engineer the database into a diagram"? You mean generate a diagram from the database?

I still feel like I am missing something. Many systems like SQL Server can generate ERDs on demand.
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Chris
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

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I want the opposite way round, engineer the diagram into the database structure. I know there are loads of systems that will allow you to do so, but the diagram layout is never saved. It could be any format, JSON, XML or whatever, as long as a vcs can manage and merge changes to the diagram between team members. That way we can put the database diagram into our projects and if you want to make changes you simply commit them to the rest of the team.

Currently we use Navicat which has great structure and data sync features which is very usefull, but generating the diagram everytime we loose the layout, and it isn't obvious at a glance which columns relate to other columns, which you see instantly in a diagram, saving a lot of hastle.

I find it very handy to make a simple diagram and engineer it straight into model logic so I can instantly program my views and controllers, saving a lot of time. I prefer this method to things such as redbean where the database structure is generated on the fly, simply because of the diagram.

If you're familiar with MySQL workbench you can forward engineer a diagram straight into a database with the whole shebang such as mock data, the constraints are generated for you simply by connecting one table to the other. You can also add comments to the columns etc. The only disadvantage to workbench is that it goes pretty slow on a lot of slower PC's and crashes a lot for no apparent reason.

I will ask the question again. Is there a way to manage an ERD with git? I know you can't do this with a workbench diagram as it's saved in a binary format, not XML or something of the sort.
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Jackolantern
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Re: ERD software that is manageable by git

Post by Jackolantern »

Okay, I have got it now. I will see what I can find out.
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