From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
To: Shahaf Abileah <shahaf@redfin.com>
Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Cc: psql-novice@postgresql.org
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [DOCS] Documenting a DB schema
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 07:05:27 -0800
Message-ID: <20080305150527.GK19860@fetter.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <082D8A131DF72A4D88C908A1AD3DEB22023B34F2@mail-1.rf.lan>
References: <082D8A131DF72A4D88C908A1AD3DEB22023B34F2@mail-1.rf.lan>
On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 12:02:27PM -0800, Shahaf Abileah wrote:
> I'm looking for a systematic way to document the schema for the database
> behind our website (www.redfin.com <http://www.redfin.com/; ), so that
> the developers using this database have a better idea what all the
> tables and columns mean and what data to expect. Any recommendations?
You can and should be using COMMENT ON for the important database
objects.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-comment.html> It would be great if the documentation could be kept as close to the
> code as possible - that way we stand a chance of keeping it up to
> date.
If your schema is changing substantively (i.e. anything other than
adding/dropping table partitions) with any frequency, that's a sign of
a broken design process which you need to fix.
> So, in the same way that Java docs go right there on top of the class or
> method definitions, it would be great if I could attach my comments to
> the table definitions. It looks like MySQL has that kind of capability:
See above re: COMMENT ON :)
> create table table_with_comments(a int comment 'this is
> column a...');
>
> (see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/create-table.html)
>
> However, Postgres doesn't support the "comment" keyword.
Actually, it does :)
> Is there an alternative?
Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com
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To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Cc: david@fetter.org, shahaf@redfin.com, pgsql-admin@postgresql.org, pgsql-docs@postgresql.org, pgsql-general@postgresql.org, psql-novice@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [DOCS] Documenting a DB schema
In-Reply-To: <20080305150527.GK19860@fetter.org>
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