[drupal-docs] [feature] Database structure documentation

[puregin]

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/25204

 Project:      Documentation
 Version:      <none>
 Component:    Admin Guide
 Category:     feature requests
 Priority:     normal
 Assigned to:  Anonymous
 Reported by:  jparets
 Updated by:   puregin
 Status:       active

Thanks for your suggestions - better documentation of the database
structure and a better organization for this documentation is indeed a
good idea.


There are a number of tools which attempt to automatically generate
structure diagrams of various kinds directly from the database, or the
SQL definition files.   I'll have a look at whether these might be an
acceptable way to address this problem.


I agree that documenting contributed modules w.r.t. their
extensions/use of the database is another issue we should look at.


It would be nice to have clear, easy to find and easy to use
documention for common database tasks.
(e.g. sharing a database among multiple installations,  dealing with
complications from upgrading, ...)


Djun




puregin



Previous comments:
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June 17, 2005 - 02:54 : jparets

Dear friends. I am a Drupal "user/administrator" for few months. I
developed a project which involves one main portal and some satellite
portals. I decided that the administration should involve only the main
portal in order to increase the maintainability.
Probably the biggest problem in doing that was to split the database,
sharing some tables and duplicating  others in the satellite portals.
Things work but I had a lot of problems in deciding what tables could
be shared and what should be duplicated. And I doubt about de future
dependencies between tables and modules
A better documentation of the database structure could facilitate this
kind of "different views of the database".
So I propose different possibilities in order to have this
documentation:
- An UML diagram of the database. I think is difficult to maintain in a
collaborative effort.
- A simple description of each table which could be made for each
project involved in drupal. The items could be very simple: table name,
project/modules, purpose of the table, table dependencies. This could be
made as documentation tables in the drupal database or as a
collaborative document. Probably including this as a metadescription of
drupaldatabase in the drupal database is a good solution.
What dou you think? I do not know all the internal details of drupal
but from an administrator point of view the dependencies beetween
tables difficutl the task (for instance: If you want to have different
image galleries in the satellite portals using taxonomies in the main
portal you have to duplicate the gallery taxonomy in the main portal,
manually modify the filed image_nav_vocabulary in table variable and 
IMPORTANT:duplicate the table vocabulary_node_types in order to avoid
the diferentt taxonomies for an image. Obviously this is a complex
structure but the other posibility which is to duplicate the taxonomies
 in all the portals implies to maintain a big amount of duplicate
taxonomies).


Please, if you decide to document the tables I could provide a first
approach of my (provisional) experience.
Thank you. jparets at ugr.es