Documenting database schemas (FileMaker Pro Advanced)

Using FileMaker Pro Advanced > Documenting database schemas (FileMaker Pro Advanced)

Use the Database Design Report feature to document the schema of your database and publish it in to an HTML or XML file.

With the Database Design Report, you can:

•produce reports for any databases that are currently open

•gather statistics on the structure of your database

•use the information in the report to re-create the structure of your database if you lose the original database files

•examine a textual representation of your database schema

•choose which elements (fields, relationships, scripts, and so on) and tables of the database to document

•troubleshoot missing references, broken relationships, calculations, and more

A Database Design Report in HTML format includes a Report Overview that provides a snapshot of most of the elements in each database file. The Report Overview contains hyperlinks to details about elements in each database file.

A Database Design Report in XML format contains information about the elements in each database file, and is ready to be transformed into the format you require. You can create tools that can use the Database Design Report XML to analyze or process the structure of databases. For more information, see FileMaker Pro Advanced Database Design Report XML Output Grammar.

To create a Database Design Report:

1. Open all database files for which you want to produce a Database Design Report.

You must have full access privileges for any file for which you want to produce a Database Design Report and the file must be open in FileMaker Pro Advanced.

2. Choose Tools menu > Database Design Report.

3. In the Available Files list, clear any files that you want to exclude from the report by clearing the checkbox associated with the file.

4. If there are any files that contain tables that you want to exclude from the report, select the filename in addition to the checkbox in the Available Files list.

5. From Include in report, clear elements that you want to exclude from the report.

6. If you prefer to publish the report in XML format instead of the default HTML, select XML in the Report Format section.

7. Click Create, then Save to save the database design report.

Note The information provided in the HTML report is a subset of the information provided in the XML version.