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Subject:RE: Hiding Columns in ER diagrams in Visio From:John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> To:'Karen Casemier' <karen -dot- casemier -at- provia -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 12 Sep 2003 13:54:43 -0400
>The problem is that some of the tables have over
>100 columns, so it becomes hard to work with the
>entity shapes. In the final diagram that is...
Karen...as we speak, I'm documenting exactly what you describe. However, I'm
not using Visio, but CA ERwin.
I reverse engineer the database, then use the Report Builder to create a
report that I import into Excel with Table Name, Column Name, Column
Datatype, Column Null Option, PK, and FK.
A table might look like the following:
Entity Column DataType NullOption PK FK
----------------- ---------------- ------------ --------- -- --
"ActivityDetail" ActClusterNo tinyint NOT NULL No No
ActivityDetail ActivityAmount money NOT NULL No No
ActivityDetail ActivityCode char(3) NULL No No
ActivityDetail ActivityQty smallint NOT NULL No No
ActivityDetail AddDtime datetime NOT NULL No No
The first occurence of table name (in quotes)is hyperlinked to another FM
document that contains the Entity Relationship diagram for only that entity,
including the header that shows the columns that have keys, and I also show
all other tables with which that table has a relationship. I have to capture
them individualy...if I printed the diagram as created by ERwin, it would be
wall size...we have some very big databases.
I capture the images using Snagit. BTW...by using Snagit, I can capture some
of the long ER diagrams in multiple pieces arrange the pieces how I want.
John Posada
Information Hunter-Gatherer
Special Projects; Information Technology
Barnes&Noble.com
NY: 212-414-6656
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