When run from the trunk of a Rails project, produces DOT output which can be rendered into a graph by programs such as dot and neato and viewed with Graphviz (an Open Source viewer). I use the Mac OS X version, but there's a Darwinports (aka, Macports) version, too. Or get the source and build it yourself. You can also import a DOT file with OmniGraffle, but it doesn't support all the edge decorations that I'm using.
- DOT format:: http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/lang.html
- Graphviz license:: http://www.graphviz.org/License.php
- Mac OS X Graphviz:: http://www.pixelglow.com/graphviz/
- Darwinports Graphviz:: http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/darwinports/dports/graphics/graphviz/Portfile
- Graphviz source code:: http://www.graphviz.org/Download.php
This is certainly a work-in-progress.
rake model_graph
Or call the executable directly:
model_graph
then open tmp/model_graph.dot with a viewer. Using model_graph --debug
will write a bunch of the raw information obtained from reflecting on the
ActiveRecord model classes into the output as comments (including some things
that don't actually affect the final graph).
See the documentation for ModelGraph#do_graph for some additional options.
The ordering within DOT is based on the tail-to-head relationship of edges, but these are somewhat arbitrarily determined by the current reflection on ActiveRecord associations. The use of the EDGES= and NODES= options is only a partial fix.
- deal with :as in a better way (now made dashed)
- deal with :polymorphic better (now make bold and blue)
- handle indirect descendants of ActiveRecord::Base? (at least make it clearer how they're filtered out of the graph)
- models that have no (outbound) associations are depicted in red, but sometimes these are just confused by an overridden class (even with :as)
Inspired by: Matt Biddulph at August 2, 2006 02:57 PM URL: http://www.hackdiary.com/archives/000093.html
This is released under the MIT License. Please send comments or enhanncement ideas to Rob[at]AgileConsultingLLC[dot]com or Rob_Biedenharn[at]alum[dot]mit[dot]edu
Copyright (c) 2006-2009 Rob Biedenharn
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