Generate documentation

Model documentation is an important output of data modeling.  Models are enriched with descriptions, comments, constraints to be consulted by application stakeholders.

 

Hackolade easily produces a customizable report, and allows also to output just the diagrams.

 

This feature is also available via the Command-Line Interface.

 

Currently the following formats are available:

- PDF for all editions

- Markdown for the Pro editions (free 14-trial and paid)

- HTML for the Pro editions (free 14-trial and paid)

 

Documentation can be configured using 2 sets of controls:

 

Parameters in Tools > Options > Documentation

Users may control the different sections to include in the documentation:

 

and select a company logo to appear at the top of the reports.

 

As documentation generation can be lengthy, they can set a time limit.  A custom logo can also be selected:

 

When you generate documentation, it is first saved to the file system, and it will open automatically.  The file contains:

1. Model 

a. Entity Relationship diagram

b. properties

2. For each container

    a. hierarchical schema view

    b. properties

    c. fields, and for each field:

        1. sub-tree diagram

        2. properties

3. For each relationship

    a. relationship diagram

    b. properties

 

Object selection in File > Generate Documentation

Before generation of the documentation, you're given the opportunity to filter objects and select only the desired ones:

 

 

Known issue on Linux Debian when generating the documentation as PDF

If you get a "write EPIPE" error:

 "stack": "Error: write EPIPE\n    at WriteWrap.onWriteComplete [as oncomplete] (internal/stream_base_commons.js:83:16)",

 

It may be due to an open issue documented here and here.

 

As a workaround, you should execute the following command:

export OPENSSL_CONF=/etc/ssl/

 

which will allow the generation of documentation as PDF.