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I'm wondering if there is a utility that exists to create a data dictionary for a MySQL database.

I'm considering just writing a php script that fetches the meta data about the database and displays it in a logical format for users to understand but I'd rather avoid that if there is some pre-built utility out there that can simply do this for me.

Sathyajith Bhat
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Casey Flynn
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  • I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean to document your database? – Pekka Jan 14 '11 at 14:25
  • In my understanding a data dictionary lists all the tables and columns with their data types, limits, default values etc, so yeah, documentation. – Dai Jan 14 '11 at 14:28
  • Yeah, that's basically the gist of it. We want a utility that would show/explain our database schema/structure to someone unfamiliar with it as best as possible. If you have any ideas that would be great. – Casey Flynn Jan 14 '11 at 14:35
  • I believe MySQL Workbench will map an existing db. http://wb.mysql.com/ – dnagirl Jan 14 '11 at 14:46

4 Answers4

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Have you looked into HeidiSQL or phpMyAdmin?

Also, MySQL Admin.

Edit#1 fixed typo, added more info

Nishant
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Take a look at https://stackoverflow.com/a/26703098/4208132

There is a db_doc.lua plugin for MySQL Workbench CE

[EDITED]

It seems that the LUA plugin support was discontinued. So I wrote a plugin in Python to generate data dictionaries. It is available at: https://github.com/rsn86/MWB-DBDocPy

Community
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rsn86
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Looks like MySQL Admin is now MySQL Workbench and you need the Enterprise version to get their reporting tool called DBDoc. It explains a little about customizing DBDoc reporting templates at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/dbdoc-templates.html

Bill Thayer
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The easiest thing to do is Download Toad for MySQL, which is free, and create your own query against the mysql information_schema internal database. You can add columns you want to the query below. Then select all results and export as csv using TOAD.

use information_schema;

desc columns;

select c.table_name, c.column_name, c.data_type from columns c where c.table_schema = "mydatabaseinstance";

bjm88
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