Re: Intro and Questions -- (SQL Generation)

[Tim Ellis <Tim Ellis gamet com>]

> > I'd
> > like to be able to write a schema to convert the Dia produced file to
> > a schema for a MySQL database.
>
> For this, I suggest you look at Tedia2SQL
> <URL:http://tedia2sql.tigris.org> or the other SQL-generating programs
> listed on the Dia site.  That particular wheel has been reinvented many
> times. 

The biggest need for tedia2sql is a Dia modification and perhaps you can
help us with this, Rudye. We do not use the ER shapeset, but the UML
shapeset, which although contains a very large subsection of options
needed for ER diagramming, doesn't contain them all, and has some
arbitrary (arguably, STUPID) substitutions. To get an idea of the hoops
you have to jump through, read the tedia2sql documentation. To get an idea
of proposed solutions, see the tedia2sql mailing list. Great example: to
define a column as being a member of the primary key, you set a class
attribute to be PRIVATE (DBAs should now say "WTF?")

What is VERY MUCH desired is a new shapeset using the Dia StdProps method
of creating a shapeset w/ dialogues. The documentation for this is
currently in flux at http://faemalia.org/wiki/view/Technical/DiaEditor.

If a new ERD shapeset could be created specifically for ER diagrams, then
we could fix a few of the fundamental flaws of tedia2sql and allow to
create ER diagrams for more databases with a lot less wierd if/else logic
in our SQL generator script.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that tedia2sql just this
weekend got some patches to support MySQL InnoDB. Now tedia2sql will
support PostgreSQL, Sybase, Oracle, DB2, Ingres, and MySQL. It is
hypothesised that it also supports MS-SQL Server, but this is uncertain
;)

The patches are in CVS version of tedia2sql, but the current output
contains known errors (and known fixes) which I need to get into CVS. I
expect to do this sometime this week, unless someone patches it for me
earlier :)

As usual, the wonderous list of links!

tedia2sql:
        http://tedia2sql.tigris.org
screenshots:
        http://tedia2sql.tigris.org/sampleImages/BigERD.png
        http://tedia2sql.tigris.org/sampleImages/TestERD.png
current (broken) MySQL InnoDB SQL output:
        http://tedia2sql.tigris.org/innodb-testerd.sql
mailing list archives:
        http://tedia2sql.tigris.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=users

-- 
Tim Ellis
Senior Database Architect
Gamet, Inc.