Accessible database modeling software

[Tim Chase]

On November 26, 2013, Tom Masterson wrote:
> Does anyone out there know of an application that is accessible for 
> modeling/designing database under linux?  Preferably it would allow
> for those pretty pictures that managers seem to like.

While it's somewhat language/framework specific, I can really only
speak to what I know:  If you're using Django (the Python
web-framework[1]), you define database models in Python code which is
pretty easy to read.  You can then use the GraphModels extension[2]
which will make GraphViz output files.  Those can be churned through
the GraphViz program to make a variety of outputs (SVG, PNG, GIF,
etc).

A little digging around suggests you might also try SchemaSpy[3]
which is a Java program that can be run on the command-line,
attaching to a DB, extracting metadata, and building a .dot file that
GraphViz can turn into your favorite visual outputs.

Hope that gets you a couple options.

-tim


[1] http://djangoproject.com/

[2] http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/wiki/GraphModels

[3] http://schemaspy.sourceforge.net/