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Diagramming Tool For SQL Select Statements

alxtoth writes "Snowflake is a new BSD-licensed tool that parses SQL Select statements and generates a diagram. It shows parts of the underlying SQL directly in the diagram. For example: x=30, GROUP BY (year), SUM (sales), HAVING MIN (age) > 18. The primary reason for the tool was to avoid Cartesian joins and loops in SQL written by hand, with many joined tables. The database will execute such a statement, if syntactically correct, resulting in runaway queries that can bring the database down. If you sit close to the DBAs, you can hear them screaming... "

5 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bring a database down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Terrabyte? A planet byte?

  2. In tablespace, no one can hear you scream... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you sit close to the DBAs, you can hear them screaming...

    I've noticed that when things go horribly wrong, you don't actaully have to sit that close. To be fair, as a Unix SA who has to deal with Windoze systems, I've done my fair share of screaming. :-)

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  3. I'm screaming from the summary. by sootman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can we have that in English please? Possibly with a diagram?

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  4. Re:Bring a database down? by NerveGas · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, you don't put an untested query on a production server. Great. What happens when someone changes data in such a way that your query now explodes? :D

    In the last case I had to deal with that, one boneheaded programmer had his code set to send him an email if it couldnt' find a good match in the DB. Someone changed the data, and with the amount of traffic, his code, spread across our web serving farm, had injected almost a million messages into the email queues. Programmers are awesome.

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  5. Re:Bring a database down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    so you're a linux user. what else would you like to tell us?