DB Sniffer

db-sniffer is a tool for introspecting databases and output the results in diffenrent formats. This is done by 'sniffing' the database, converting the data to an intermediate structure, and then using a generator to output the introspected data as requested.

Usage

First of all, we need a database to sniff. Right now, db-sniffer supports sniffing MySQL and MS SQL Server databases. (MariaDb should also work, but is not tested yet). Let's assume we have a MySQL database running on localhost with the name test_db, and a user test_user with password abc123..

To sniff the database, we can use the following command:

sniffer sniff \
  -u mysql://test_user:abc123.@localhost:3306/test_db \
  -m 1 \
  -o src/main/java/com/example/entities

• -m option specifies the mode to use. This 1 creates Hibernate XML mapping files for the entitie that will be also generated.
• -o option specifies the ouput and, in general, it is the path where the generated files will be stored. Note that, when generating .java files, the ouput path should containd a src or java folder so the tool can detect the package structure.
• -u option specifies the database connection string. The format is db_type://user:password@host:port/db_name.
  • For MySQL the valid db_type is mysql.
  • For MariaDB the valid db_type is mariadb.
  • For MS SQL Server the valid db_type are mssql and sqlserver.

To display the help message, you can use the following command:

sniffer help