I implemented a short python script using the graphviz library which parse a given documentation and automate the rendering of a simplified ER Diagram.
I achieved to render the entities and their relations, but the resulting layout is not optimal:
I would like something more human readable, landscape-oriented, like:
I tried to play with some of the attributes from the Graphviz documentation like size
or ratio
, and ended up with a script of this form:
digraph G {
graph [overlap=false rankdir=LR ratio=3 size="5,8!" splines=true]
node [fontname=Verdana fontsize=10 shape=record]
edge [arrowhead=crow style=dashed]
Tbl1 [label=<
<table border="0" cellborder="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<tr><td bgcolor="lightblue">Tbl1</td></tr>
<tr><td port='0' align='left'>id <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='1' align='left'>field2 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='2' align='left'>field3 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[date]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='3' align='left'>Tbl2Id <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
</table>
> margin=0 shape=none]
Tbl2 [label=<
<table border="0" cellborder="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<tr><td bgcolor="lightblue">Tbl2</td></tr>
<tr><td port='0' align='left'>id <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='1' align='left'>field2 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='2' align='left'>field3 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[str]</i></td></tr>
</table>
> margin=0 shape=none]
Tbl3 [label=<
<table border="0" cellborder="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
<tr><td bgcolor="lightblue">Tbl3</td></tr>
<tr><td port='0' align='left'>id <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='1' align='left'>field2 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[int]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='2' align='left'>field3 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[str]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='3' align='left'>field4 <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[str]</i></td></tr>
<tr><td port='4' align='left'>Tbl2Id <i style='margin-left: 4px'>[str]</i></td></tr>
</table>
> margin=0 shape=none]
Tbl1:3 -> Tbl2:0
Tbl3:4 -> Tbl2:0
}
Is there something to do to achieve this? Should I use subgraphes? Some other graph or nodes attributes?