Database HTML Documentation Template

Hey all,

Jason - thanks! I was going to do something similar but now I don't have to...

One thing I've been thinking about is how to provide documentation for stored procedures. I'd like to come up with some sort of standardized approach to commenting these and then have those comments transferred to my DAL procedure wrapper methods. Of course the problem here is that there's no extended property support for stored procedures - at least not an easy way as far as I am aware of. I'd be delighted if I was wrong about this point.

My current thought is to use a standardized commenting format as follows:

-Oskar

Post Edited (Oskar Austegard) : 12/8/2003 1:13:37 AM GMT

Oskar,

There is absolutely support for extended properties on stored procedures and every other SQL Server object as well. Jason and I are actually working to really build out his db documentation templates to include just about everything that SchemaExplorer provides access to. This includes going through Northwind and documenting everything with the MS_Description (this extended property is automatically mapped to the Description property of every schema object by the SqlSchemaProvider) extended property including sprocs, sproc parameters, tables, table columns, views, view columns, etc.

Thanks,
Eric J. Smith

OK - yeah I guess the syspproperties allows entries for any object with an id (including stored procedures) and "sub- objects" with a smallid/colid (including stored procedure parameters). But is there any easy way to add/edit these properties? I'm primarily looking for a way to add comments, but I can imagine there are many other useful properties (like flags, attributes, etc). Again, I don't know of an easy way to do this using SQL Enterprise manager at least...

I'm looking forward to whatever you and Jason are coming up with...

-Oskar

Oskar,

Enterprise Manager does not allow access to editing these. Query Analyzer will allow you to manage extended properties on pretty much any database object though. Also, I hope to have the ability to manage these extended properties from the Schema Explorer tool window in CodeSmith Studio soon.

Thanks,
Eric J. Smith

Jason,
I just ran it on my DB.
Very nice!

Suggestion: can you put the tables in alphabetical order?
My list came out all jumbled.

Hey, thanks Joe!

Jason,

I subsequently see that the columns code doesn't quite work... so it was fruitless to move that parameter to a property.

Jason has made a ton of improvements to these templates including fixing the column code. I will talk to him about getting the new version posted.

Thanks,
Eric J. Smith

Hey Jason ,
I want you to help me , when I run this template I found this error message as follows.
System.NullReferenceException: 並未將物件參考設定為物件的執行個體
at _CodeSmithTemplate.dbdocs_cst.PrintDatabaseDocumentation(DatabaseSchema database)
at _CodeSmithTemplate.dbdocs_cst.__RenderMethod1(TextWriter writer, Control control)
at CodeSmith.Engine.DelegateControl.Render(TextWriter writer)
at CodeSmith.Engine.Control.RenderChildren(TextWriter writer)
at CodeSmith.Engine.CodeTemplate.Render(TextWriter writer)
at CodeSmith.Engine.CodeTemplate.RenderToString()
at CodeSmith.Gui.CodeTemplateGenerator.GenerateCodeButton_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)

Had you ever meet this ? and how can I fix it?
thanks,
Oliver

Hi Oliver,

I had the same problem but it resolved when I downloaded CodeSmith 2.5 and ran the same script.

Quinton

Ok, Eric finally kicked my butt and made me finish putting the templates together and posted.

Thanks for the good words, everyone! I really appreciate it. Luckily, I had lots of help and support. It's nice when you actually work with Eric and can pester him face-to-face. :)