Question

I am using MySQL Workbench 5.2.37 and I find it a great tool for database development.

I did create all the tables, fields and relationships and I also did document (adding a comment for every field with their functionality, same for relationships and tables).

I would like to export just this documentation. I mean, not the SQL scripts but the metadata I did put for the table and its fields.

Something like:

Table: Customers

Comment: Represent the customers of the system

Fields:

id (INTEGER not null, unique): The customer unique identifier

name (VARCHAR[100] not null, unique): The customer name

…

Does anybody know if extracting such a report is possible?

Answer 1

I’m guessing that you have the community edition of MySQL Workbench?

I would think that documenting the database by CREATE statements would be close enough to what you are trying to achieve.

Select all tables in your schema (SQL Editor View), right-click and select ‘Send to SQL Editor’ -> Create Statement.

You could then save a file which consists of every table in your database.

Example:

CREATE TABLE `country` (
  `Code` char(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `Name` char(52) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `Continent` enum('Asia','Europe','North America','Africa','Oceania','Antarctica','South America') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'Asia',
  `Region` char(26) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `SurfaceArea` float(10,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0.00',
  `IndepYear` smallint(6) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Population` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `LifeExpectancy` float(3,1) DEFAULT NULL,
  `GNP` float(10,2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `GNPOld` float(10,2) DEFAULT NULL,
  `LocalName` char(45) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `GovernmentForm` char(45) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `HeadOfState` char(60) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Capital` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Code2` char(2) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  PRIMARY KEY (`Code`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1$$


delimiter $$

CREATE TABLE `countrylanguage` (
  `CountryCode` char(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `Language` char(30) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `IsOfficial` enum('T','F') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'F',
  `Percentage` float(4,1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0.0',
  PRIMARY KEY (`CountryCode`,`Language`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1$$

If you happen to have the standard edition (commercial) there are some features which might be right up your alley :

http://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/features.html