SQLHelp - DBDocumentor™ Comparison

If you are an existing SQLHelp user, you may be interested in upgrading from SQLHelp to DBDocumentor. The following chart details some of the differences between SQLHelp versions, and DBDocumentor. Special upgrade pricing is available, please contact sales@pikauba.com with your SQLHelp version if interested.

Feature	SQLHelp 2.x	DBDocumentor™ 3.x	DBDocumentor ™ 4.x
SQL Parser	Third generation SQL parser able to work with complex SQL	Forth generation SQL parser able to work with the most complex SQL, including support for dynamic SQL	Fifth generation SQL parser able to function with multiple SQL dialects.
SQL Dialects	Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and below	Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and below	Multiple SQL dialects are supported: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Sybase SQL Anywhere (ASA) 10 and below Firebird 1.5 and 2.0 Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Dynamic SQL control	None	None, but includes rules based processing of dynamic SQL	Can specify if dynamic SQL is to be processed, and if processed the types of data to be included
Temporary object processing	None	Flag to indicate if temporary objects should be processed	Can specify if temporary objects are processed, and if so how they are treated in the output
Objects documented	Stored Procedures	All SQL Server objects are documented. Data views Stored procedures User defined data types User defined functions Tables Indices (Indexes) Constraints Security roles Generic (Ad-Hoc) SQL batches System messages	All SQL Server objects are documented. Data views Stored procedures User defined data types User defined functions Tables Indices (Indexes) Constraints Security roles Generic (Ad-Hoc) SQL batches System messages Beginning with version 4.20, DBDocumentor can process Microsoft Reporting Services RDL.
Support for ALTER and DROP	Yes, on stored procedures only	Yes, and DROP can be optionally ignored	Yes, and DROP can be optionally ignored
Support for RAISERROR	Yes	Yes	Support for dialect specific error and exception handling
Support for SQL Server 2000 enterprise manager object descriptions (extended properties)	Only for stored procedures	Yes, and includes specialized Pikauba Software extended properties	Support for dialect specific extended properties and meta data. If the SQL dialect supports user defined values, Pikauba Software extended properties can be used.
Colorization of output	Yes	Yes, and user can extend colorization to include SQL contained in descriptions and examples.	Yes
Support for external file lists	Yes	Yes	Yes
Linkage between source files and summary documentation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Object hyperlinking (Cross references)	Called and calling procedures are hyperlinked	Hyperlinks are present between all documented objects. For example, to find all the objects making use of a table, simply open the table description in the output document and a list of all objects linking to the table are displayed. If the object is in the project, a hyperlink will be present.	Hyperlinks are present between all documented objects. For example, to find all the objects making use of a table, simply open the table description in the output document and a list of all objects linking to the table are displayed. If the object is in the project, a hyperlink will be present.
Support for object ownership rules	No	Yes, from version 3.30	10 SQL objects
Evaluation limits	10 Stored procedures	10 SQL objects	XML output is optional and follows the SQLDocumentation schema, updated for version 4.x
XML output file	No	XML output is optional and follows the SQLDocumentation schema	Full HTML output option
HTML output option	No table of contents	No table of contents	Yes, version 4.10 exposes a configuration check box. Output has been verified with Internet Explorer 6.0, Firefox 1.0 and Opera 8.50
Command line operations	No	Yes	Yes
Parsing errors abort	A parsing error will skip to the next batch script		A parsing error will skip to the next batch script

DBDocumentor and SQLDocumentation are trademarks of Pikauba Software.