erd-generator

This is a basic entity relationship diagram (ERD) generator designed for data models that include the row key/column family/column qualifier structure (e.g. HBase, Accumulo). It generates a graphviz (.gv) file from .yaml/.yml files with Javascript, which can then be parsed using graphviz (dot and neato) into a png file.

Dependencies

Node Modules

• js-yaml
• DOMBuilder

Other Dependencies

• graphviz

YAML Description Format

Each table is generated from a separate YAML file (.yaml or .yml), parsed based on the format described below. There are four root level elements: table, rowKey, columnFamilies, and connections. Each file must start with a --- and end with a ....

table

The table element includes two subproperties: label and description. The label element is required, but the description element is optional and currently unimplemented. For a sample table which holds articles for a news outlet, the table property might look like this:

table:
    label: Article
    description: Information about the articles published by our news source	# Currently unimplemented

rowKey

The rowKey element includes one subproperty per piece of information that is contained in the element. This format includes three parts: the name (e.g. title), the type (e.g. string), and a description of the property (e.g. The title of the element). The name and type are required, but the description is optional. Each subproperty employs one of the following two formats, depending on whether the description is included or not:

name: type - description
name: type

The rowKey for an article for a news outlet might look like this:

rowKey:
    articleTitle: string - The title of the article
    articleAuthor: string - The author of the article

columnFamilies

The columnFamilies element holds the structure of the table itself and has subproperties which are the names of the column families that are contained in the table. Each column family in turn has a subproperty for each column qualifier which is contained within that column family. The column qualifier properties are structured in the same manner as the properties within rowKey described above with name, type and description (optional) portions.

A sample columnFamilies property from an article for a news outlet:

columnFamilies:
    Content:
        rawText: string - The raw text of the article
        htmlText: string - The html-formatted text of the article
    Metadata:
        author: string - The author of the article
        postTime: long - The UNIX timestamp for the post-time of the article
        lastUpdateTime: long - The UNIX timestamp for the time when the article was last updated

Column families with no column qualifiers are also acceptable, though unusual in practice.

connections

The connections element holds a set of properties which show the relationships between this table and other tables. Each connection to another table is specified by a subproperty which holds the name of the table to connect to and a description of the relationship between them. They follow the format:

tableName: quantifier -> quantifier

Each quantifier can hold one of three values, many, one or none. Anything else is assumed to be none, and no arrowhead is drawn. Going back to our article example, if we had another table holding multiple Comments on each Article, there would a one to many relationship between the Article and Comment tables, and the following connections property in the Article table:

connections:
    Comment: one -> many

This poses a potential problem. If I identify the relationship from the opposite direction in my Comment table, would there be two relationships drawn? In short, no. The two are identified as duplicates, and only one arrow is drawn.

Overall Article YAML File

---
table:
        label: Article
        description: Information about the articles published by our news source        # Currently unimplemented

rowKey:
        articleTitle: string - The title of the article
        articleAuthor: string - The author of the article

columnFamilies:
        Content:
                rawText: string - The raw text of the article
                htmlText: string - The html-formatted text of the article
        Metadata:
                author: string - The author of the article
                postTime: long - The UNIX timestamp for the post-time of the article
                lastUpdateTime: long - The UNIX timestamp for the time when the article was last updated

connections:
        Comment: one -> many
...