Utility to create a "data dictionary" for MySQL database

Question

I am wondering if there is any utility to create a data dictionary for MySQL database.

I am considering writing a php script that extracts metadata about the database and displays it in a logical format for users to understand, but I would prefer to avoid it if there is some kind of pre-built utility that can just do it for me.

Answer 1

Have you looked at HeidiSQL or phpMyAdmin ?

In addition, MySQL Admin .

Edit # 1 fixed typo, more info added

Answer 2

It looks like MySQL Admin is now a MySQL Workbench, and you need an Enterprise version to get your reporting tool called DBDoc. It explains a little bit about setting up DBDoc report templates at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/dbdoc-templates.html

Answer 3

Take a look at fooobar.com/questions/1335559 / ...

There is a db_doc.lua plugin for MySQL Workbench CE

[Changed]

It seems that support for the LUA plugin has been discontinued. So I wrote a plugin in Python to create data dictionaries. It is available at: https://github.com/rsn86/MWB-DBDocPy

Answer 4

The easiest way to do this is Download Toad for MySQL, which is free, and create your own query to the mysql information_schema internal database. You can add columns for the query below. Then select all the results and export as csv using TOAD.

use information_schema;

desc columns

select c.table_name, c.column_name, c.data_type from c columns where c.table_schema = "mydatabaseinstance";