Better foreign keys handling, slightly change SQL clues syntax
[erdiag.git] / README.md
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1# erdiag: Entity-Relationship Diagrams Generator
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3Inspired by [this repository](https://code.google.com/archive/p/merisier/).
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5This parser reads ER diagrams definition files, and produces two types of diagrams + SQL code.
6[Graphviz](https://www.graphviz.org/) is used on server side to translate parsed graph descriptions into SVG objects.
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8-----
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10An entity is defined as follow
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12 [Entity]
13 #attr1 (*)
14 attr2 (*)
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16with (\*) = optional SQL indications, and # denoting a (part of) a key.
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18A relationship is defined in this way
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20 {Relation}
21 Entity C1
22 Entity2 C2
23 --
24 attr1 (*)
25 attr2 (*)
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27where attributes are optional, and C1 (resp. C2) = cardinality for entity 1 (resp. 2).
28Defining relationships with more than two attributes is easy: just add entities.
29Cardinality dictionary:
30 * \* = 0..n
fe021b27 31 * \+ = 1..n
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32 * 1 = 1..1
33 * ? = 0..1
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35Special cardinalities are also available to indicate relative identification: `?R` and `1R`.
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37And, in case of a self-relationship, symbols '>' and '<' can indicate the sense, as in
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39 {manage}
40 Users *>
41 Users 1<
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525c4d2a 43To mark a weak entity, just surround its name by extra-brackets
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525c4d2a 45 [[WeakEntity]]
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525c4d2a 47In the same way, a weak relation can be written
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525c4d2a 49 {{WeakRelation}}
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51The syntax for these two last is then the same as in the non-weak versions.
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53To indicate an inheritance relation, proceed as follow
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55 is_a
56 Animal Cat Fish
57 Planet Mars Venus
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3ca1e50c 59Finally, blocks must be separated by new lines. For a usage example, see example.html (it should render as seen in example\_\*.svg)
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60
61Note that the "drawMcd" method can take a second argument, which indicates the type of graph.
62 * "bubble" draws the standard graph, as seen [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity%E2%80%93relationship_model#/media/File:ER_Diagram_MMORPG.png) for example
63 * "compact" (default) use the same box for an entity and its attributes
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64
65-----
66
67**TODO** list:
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69 - functional integrity constraints (CIF)
70 - inter-relations constraints (or, and, xor...)
71 - inheritance with the right symbol (triangle)
72 - put online somewhere (user enter graph description and get SVG + SQL)
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74*Implementation note:* temporary dependency to [underscore](http://underscorejs.org/); good library but used so far only for its shuffle() method.