Generate table relationship diagram from existing schema (SQL Server) [closed]

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Is there a way to produce a diagram showing existing tables and their relationships given a connection to a database?

This is for SQL Server 2008 Express Edition.

Predictory answered 3/10, 2008 at 20:23 Comment(2)

a free tool named SchemaSpy can do that like charm. But, needs a little setup. I have detailed the step here: blog.kmonsoor.com/generate-er-diagram-from-sql-database – Commonable 1/12, 2015 at 21:48

nice one: 60 DB Reverse engineering tools (see filter on the left) - dbmstools.com/categories/database-diagram-tools/sqlserver – Hildagarde 26/2, 2020 at 9:40

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Yes you can use SQL Server 2008 itself but you need to install SQL Server Management Studio Express (if not installed ) . Just right Click on Database Diagrams and create new diagram. Select the exisiting tables and if you have specified the references in your tables properly. You will be able to see the complete diagram of selected tables. For further reference see Getting started with SQL Server database diagrams

Materiality answered 3/10, 2008 at 20:23 Comment(2)

Any way to do this with SQL Server Compact 3.5? – Inexpressible 12/5, 2009 at 21:33

One should be able to see all the existing relationships as well once you add all the necessary tables. – Saturation 29/8, 2018 at 7:17

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Try DBVis - download at https://www.dbvis.com/download - there is a pro version (not needed) and a open version that should suffice.

All you have to do is to get the right JDBC - database driver for SQL Server, the tool shows tables and references orthogonal, hierarchical, in a circle ;-) etc. just by pressing one single button. I use the free version for years now.

Cosmotron answered 3/10, 2008 at 20:30 Comment(5)

This was very easy to set up, and produced a much more readable diagram than the SQL Server tools do. +1 – Paleozoic 12/1, 2011 at 19:34

Very easy to set up iff you're already running JDBC. Otherwise potentially in all to familiar config heck. – Retention 16/6, 2014 at 15:42

Works nicely if you have proper foreign key relationships. – Dissonancy 23/7, 2018 at 22:35

In addition to this answer; if you face connection problem check this dba.stackexchange.com/questions/62165/… the. The other JDBC info dbvis.com/features/sqlserver-database-drivers and for updated JDBC driver look at this microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=57175 – Gasconade 21/1, 2019 at 21:24

When specifying the Database port, I used the Dynamic Port of the sql server instead. The regular port 1433 does not work for me. – Marylnmarylou 26/2, 2019 at 4:10

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SQLDeveloper can do this.

http://sqldeveloper.solyp.com/

Botany answered 5/10, 2008 at 1:53 Comment(1)

This link now redirects to the home page: solyp.com. Seems deprecated. – Keg 12/11, 2019 at 14:23

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For SQL statements you can try reverse snowflakes. You can join at sourceforge or the demo site at http://snowflakejoins.com/.

Cate answered 7/5, 2011 at 21:10 Comment(1)

Doesn't do the task (visualizing the database schema) but is still pretty cool though. I wish there were something like this to generate a tidy diagram of a computer network from a textual description... – Kiker 27/4, 2013 at 3:4

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Why don't you just use the database diagram functionality built into SQL Server?

Imprimatur answered 3/10, 2008 at 20:24 Comment(2)

It is not always available.. some versions of SSMS and SQL do not allow of due to licensing. – Cardona 31/7, 2012 at 13:21

Or you can, you know be on GNU/LInux or Macos actually without any license, just with connection credentials. – Chinese 25/2, 2020 at 16:12

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Visio Professional has a database reverse-engineering feature if yiu create a database diagram. It's not free but is fairly ubiquitous in most companies and should be fairly easy to get.

Note that Visio 2003 does not play nicely with SQL2005 or SQL2008 for reverse engineering - you will need to get 2007.

Gosse answered 3/10, 2008 at 20:36 Comment(1)

This feature has unfortunately been removed in Visio 2013. – Formaldehyde 4/4, 2013 at 14:21

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DeZign for Databases should be able to do this just fine.

Squiffy answered 11/1, 2012 at 11:48 Comment(0)

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SchemaCrawler for SQL Server can generate database diagrams, with the help of GraphViz. Foreign key relationships are displayed (and can even be inferred, using naming conventions), and tables and columns can be excluded using regular expressions.

Thyme answered 11/5, 2010 at 2:43 Comment(2)

"Foreign key relationships are inferred, using naming conventions" - totally inapplicable for in the most of real business cases. – Kiker 24/4, 2013 at 20:33

You'd be surprised how often this is needed. – Dissonancy 23/7, 2018 at 22:37

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MySQL WorkBench is free software and is developed by Oracle, you can import an SQL File or specify a database and it will generate an SQL Diagram which you can move around to make it more visually appealing. It runs on GNU/Linux and Windows and it's free and has a professional look..

Counterpoison answered 23/3, 2013 at 12:55 Comment(3)

It doesn't seem to support DBMSes other than MySQL any more. Also, its diagram auto-layout is dreadful. – Kiker 23/4, 2013 at 22:39

the auto layout simply stacks everything on top of another, you must then drag each table to the appropriate position, it might be dreadful but I doubt any algorithm would be smart enough to order everything neatly. As for SQL support I use it with H2 server queries and it works, I think they support most SQL-92 compliant SQL so if your code doesn't comply to SQL-92 it might be a good occasion to check it. – Counterpoison 24/4, 2013 at 9:43

The incompatibilities lie everywhere from very basic things like quotes/brackets usage to huge differences in DDL (tables/keys/constraints/indices definition language) and fundamental differences in types (like using a separate type for Unicode strings). – Kiker 27/4, 2013 at 20:17

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