Microsoft SQL Server Database Documentor

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Introduction

This project uses Crystal Reports to generate a database schema listing on a Microsoft SQL Server database. The listing includes extended column information including column descriptions. This project requires Visual Studio 2003 or 2005, .NET Framework 1.1, and the Crystal Reports for Visual Studio component.

The generated report lists column names, data types, size, description, etc. Primary key columns are preceded by an asterisk. Columns names are italicized when the column is allowed to be NULL in the table.

Background

One day I set out to document a database that I had been studying. Using the Table Designer in Enterprise Manager, I began entering descriptions of the columns of each table. Later on, I discovered that there is no way to print out the column descriptions using EM. I did a little research and discovered how to get the descriptions out of the sysobjects table.

Using the Code

The project can be built and run with just a little setup. To install the project, unzip it to a directory of your choosing, for instance c:\projects\dbadoc. Create a virtual directory in IIS and set the path to c:\projects\dbadoc\client.

Open Visual Studio and build the project. If you are using VS 2005, the project should convert with no problems. That's it!

Points of Interest

• Don't ask me why I used VB for the code-behind and C# for the data classes. No, really, don't ask.
• I don't know the configuration steps or failure characteristics when Crystal Reports is not installed and configured with Visual Studio. If you go through this setup, kindly email me and I'll update with those directions.