Boost Your DB Docs: How Screw Auto‑Generates Database Documentation

Hello, I'm TJ, a programmer who often writes documentation besides code.

If you still write database table documentation manually, consider using Screw, an automatic documentation generator.

Why the name "Screw"?

The author was inspired by the spirit of Lei Feng's screw, symbolizing a small but essential component.

Screw currently supports many databases, including MySQL, MariaDB, TiDB, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Cache DB, and in development: H2, DB2, HSQL, SQLite, etc.

The generated documentation can be output as HTML, Word, or Markdown.

Below are example outputs:

Using Screw is simple in two steps:

1. Add Maven dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>cn.smallbun.screw</groupId>
    <artifactId>screw-core</artifactId>
    <version>${lastVersion}</version>
</dependency>

2. Add Java code to configure and execute documentation generation:

/** Document generation */
void documentGeneration() {
    // Data source
    HikariConfig hikariConfig = new HikariConfig();
    hikariConfig.setDriverClassName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");
    hikariConfig.setJdbcUrl("jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3306/database");
    hikariConfig.setUsername("root");
    hikariConfig.setPassword("password");
    // Enable table remarks
    hikariConfig.addDataSourceProperty("useInformationSchema", "true");
    hikariConfig.setMinimumIdle(2);
    hikariConfig.setMaximumPoolSize(5);
    DataSource dataSource = new HikariDataSource(hikariConfig);
    // Engine config
    EngineConfig engineConfig = EngineConfig.builder()
            .fileOutputDir(fileOutputDir)
            .openOutputDir(true)
            .fileType(EngineFileType.HTML)
            .produceType(EngineTemplateType.freemarker)
            .fileName("CustomFileName")
            .build();
    // Ignore tables
    ArrayList<String> ignoreTableName = new ArrayList<>();
    ignoreTableName.add("test_user");
    ignoreTableName.add("test_group");
    ArrayList<String> ignorePrefix = new ArrayList<>();
    ignorePrefix.add("test_");
    ArrayList<String> ignoreSuffix = new ArrayList<>();
    ignoreSuffix.add("_test");
    ProcessConfig processConfig = ProcessConfig.builder()
            .designatedTableName(new ArrayList<>())
            .designatedTablePrefix(new ArrayList<>())
            .designatedTableSuffix(new ArrayList<>())
            .ignoreTableName(ignoreTableName)
            .ignoreTablePrefix(ignorePrefix)
            .ignoreTableSuffix(ignoreSuffix)
            .build();
    Configuration config = Configuration.builder()
            .version("1.0.0")
            .description("Database design document generation")
            .dataSource(dataSource)
            .engineConfig(engineConfig)
            .produceConfig(processConfig)
            .build();
    new DocumentationExecute(config).execute();
}

The project is hosted at https://gitee.com/leshalv/screw.