[scotchy]

I am using MySql without InnoDB (Foreign Keys are not parsed or stored) does this mean that the ER Diagram tool will not display relationships between two tables? Is there any way to draw a relationship between two tables?

Thanks
Scotchy

[Brian Fernandes]

Scotchy,

Sorry, at this point there is no way to draw relationships manually.
We know about this issue, and user drawn relationships might make a future release. 🙂

Thanks,
Brian.

[scotchy]

I was afraid of that. Like what I see so far.

Thanks

[dhonig]

How do you work around this or is this going to be fixed in the future?

[Scott Anderson]

At present, there is no workaround as all we intended to provide is a viewer. We’re still investigating the demand for full ER diagram editing. To help gather support for it, please post an enhancement request in the “Feature Requests” forum stating what you’d like to see and asking other users to comment.

[cjohan]

Can one actually save the E-R diagram? After I edit and save, I can’t find the .erm file and can’t figure out how to reload it.

[Brian Fernandes]

cjohan,

When you create an ER Diagram from the DB Explorer View – you are given a choice regarding what the diagram file is to be named and where it is saved. This file is saved as soon as the diagram is created – you don’t need to explicitly save it initially.

If you don’t type in an extension – the default extension is “mer” <b>not</b> erm. Eclipse will only associate files an “mer” extension with the ER Designer.

So, perhaps you are looking for an erm file which does not exist; or, your erm file is not associated with the ER Designer – rename it to mer and things should be fine, (or you could change file associations)

Hope this helps,
Brian.

[cjohan]

Hi Brian,

“erm” was just a typo. I was searching for “*.mer” in Win 2000. Tried again today. Searched my Eclipse project folder in directory “workspace”, the eclipse folder, the MyEclipse folder, the entire E drive, the entire C drive. No luck. The MyEclipse IDE appears to be trying to save a file after creating the E-R diagram, yet no file actually results that I can detect. It looks like it ought to save the .mer file at the top level of one’s project folder, but, when I look, there is no .mer file there. Is that not where it should end up?

Any suggestions?

Regards,
Craig

[Brian Fernandes]

Craig,

When creating the ER diagram, did you notice any errors?
Does the daigram look okay? Can you see tables, columns and relationships (if your DB supports FK constraints)?

Try repeating the process with another schema.

Please make a note of the filename and the location you specify during creation – the ER Designer will only attempt to save the diagram in the exact location you specify, nowhere else. So you really don’t need to search allover for your file only the location you specified during creation. The “mer” extension will be appended to the file name if it isn’t already present.

Could you tell me what DB you are using?
Also, can you check your log file for any related exceptions?

[cjohan]

Hi Brian,

When creating the ER diagram, there were no noticeable errors, though the directory selection seemed “stuck” on a very limited set of choices. It would let me choose only the project name and not any folders within the project, but it did correctly list all the projects in the workspace.

I’m using MySQL 4.1.7-nt on Win 2000. I’ve tried it with my own very simple schema consisting of only two tables, one with a foriegn key to the other table. The diagram looked fine. I also tried it with the jpetstore schema, which also looked fine. I checked the Eclipse log file and the only errors related to the web browser being out of handles (file handles, I presume). I got four instances of this sort of error:

eclipse.buildId=M200409161125
java.version=1.4.2_06
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=en_US

!ENTRY org.eclipse.webbrowser 2 0 Jan 04, 2005 23:29:32.823
!MESSAGE Internal browser is not operational
!STACK 0
org.eclipse.swt.SWTError: No more handles
    at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2717)
    at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2616)
    at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2587)
    at org.eclipse.swt.browser.Browser.<init>(Browser.java:146)
    at org.eclipse.webbrowser.internal.WebBrowserUtil.isInternalBrowserOperational(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.webbrowser.internal.BrowserManager.addInternalBrowser(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.webbrowser.internal.BrowserManager.loadBrowsers(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.webbrowser.internal.BrowserManager.getWebBrowsers(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.webbrowser.internal.WebBrowserUIPlugin.stop(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleContextImpl$2.run(BundleContextImpl.java:994)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleContextImpl.stop(BundleContextImpl.java:990)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleHost.stopWorker(BundleHost.java:502)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.AbstractBundle.stop(AbstractBundle.java:437)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.BundleStopper.basicStopBundles(BundleStopper.java:73)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.BundleStopper.stopBundles(BundleStopper.java:62)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseAdaptor.frameworkStopping(EclipseAdaptor.java:551)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.Framework.shutdown(Framework.java:457)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.SystemBundle$1.run(SystemBundle.java:182)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)

Regards,
Craig

[Brian Fernandes]

Craig,

The exception trace in your log seems unrelated to the problem you are facing. The SWT handles are not file handles.

Right now, I have no clue what’s going wrong. Can you do the following, to help me track this down?

Close all editors
Close Eclipse
Delete the log file
Start Eclipse and try to create the ERD.
Inspect the log for exceptions

Hope this turns up something,

Thanks for your patience,
Brian.

[cjohan]

Hi Brian,

I have figured out what I was doing that was a problem, though I would consider it a bug that MyEclipse does not detect or complain about the problem. What was happening was that I had all projects closed, though I had the DB Browser open. It mostly works fine like that.

I think that when all projects are closed and one creates an ER diagram, selecting a project to which to save the .mer file doesn’t actually work. Selecting the project name from the list of projects puts the project name into the edit control OK, but it fails to get any directory name for the project (presumeably since the project is closed). After that, it just silently fails to save the diagram anywhere.

The workaround (or correct user behavior, depending on your perspective) is to ensure that the project to which one wishes to save the ER diagram is actually open prior to attempting to create the ER diagram.

Thanks for your assistance, Brian. We eventually sorted it out. I realize this was a difficult one to reproduce since you were missing the critical fact that all my Eclipse projects were closed. I am amazed myself that this was the case each time I tried to create a diagram. Somewhat improbable, but it happened.

Cheers,
Craig

[Brian Fernandes]

Craig,

Glad you got it working. I really should have taken a hint from your inability to choose subdirectories within your project 🙁

All the same, there should have been a log entry if the save failed for any reason.

I’ll look it up and swing it from here.

Thanks,
Brian.

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