DBDocumentor 4.0 and higher supports the parsing of multiple SQL dialects using the same core parsing engine. Since the core engine does not require any active database connection, there are no compatibility problems with SQL libraries, or security concerns about providing a login to a database simply for the purposes of documenting the database. The documentation for each dialect has been customized for the dialect being documented. This results in an output which is expressed in terms specific to the dialect.
If you are familiar with versions of DBDocumentor prior to version 4.00, you have already seen the output style used for SQL Server 2000 and before. While there have been some overall enhancements to the parser, the core capabilities of the SQL 2000 parser are essentially unchanged. If you pass SQL Server 2000 batches to the SQL Server 2005 parser, no processing errors will occur, but you may notice some colorization of keywords which were not colorized in SQL Server 2000. In addition to supporting the native TSQL and standard database objects, DBDocumentor 4.20 also supports Reporting Services RDL reports.
Firebird is an open source database derived from Borland Interbase. Firebird is maintained by the Firebird Foundation, which can be found on the Internet at: http://www.firebirdsql.org/. DBDocumentor processes Firebird SQL files in the same manner as it does for Microsoft SQL Server 2000. In order to invoke the Firebird parser, you must select 'Firebird 2.0' as the SQL dialect. If you pass a Firebird 1.5 or 2.0 SQL batch to the default SQL Server 2000 parser, DBDocumentor will take significant time to complete the parsing and the output will be largely inaccurate.
Note: At present there is no processing of the RDB$DESCRIPTION description tag contained in Firebird 1.5. If you wish to utilize metadata documentation, you have two options available to you. The first is to upgrade to Firebird 2.0, and the second is to create a separate SQL source file containing the Firebird 2.0 COMMENT statements, and instruct DBDocumentor to process this file.
Sybase SQL Anywhere is a product of iAnywhere (http://www.ianywhere.com/), a Sybase company. SQL Anywhere databases can be coded in a subset of Transact SQL used for Adaptive Server Enterprise (and Microsoft SQL Server), Watcom SQL or a combination of the two. DBDocumentor processes Anywhere SQL files in the same manner as it does for Microsoft SQL Server 2000. In order to invoke the Anywhere parser, you must select 'Sybase SQL Anywhere (ASA) 10 and below' as the SQL dialect. If you pass an Anywhere SQL batch to the default SQL Server parser, Watcom SQL commands will not be correctly processed, and subtle errors will be present in the output document.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 builds upon the capabilities of SQL Server 2000. Some of the features are extended from SQL 2000 and others are completely new. DBDocumentor is able to correctly process SQL Server 2005 batches. If your SQL batch makes use of SQL Server 2005 specific functionality, an accurate document will only be generated by selecting 'SQL Server 2005' as the SQL dialect. If you pass a SQL Server 2005 batch to the default SQL 2000 parser, the features and functionality of SQL Server 2005 SQL will not be processed. SQL Server 2005 Express is a supported dialect. In order to process SQL Server 2005 Express projects, all that is required is to select "Microsoft SQL Server 2005" as the dialect. In addition to supporting the native TSQL and standard database objects, DBDocumentor 4.20 and higher also supports Reporting Services RDL reports.
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