What is DBLGen?
DBLGen is a simple plugin-based code generator for database layers that uses StringTemplate as engine for its main export plugin. With DBLGen, you can create custom templates for any programming language based on a database schema.
There are many other code generators out there, but most of them use programming logic to define the template. And although it makes the template very flexible, it also makes it very complicated to understand and change.
When I had the idea for DBLGen, I wanted to create something simple, but powerful enough to generate the complex templates. StringTemplate has a lot of features that make template design very easy, and get you free of the problems of indentation, loops and other stuff that makes code-based templates very complex.
Current Status
As of 2008-06-24, latest version of DBLGen is 0.4.0.0-alpha.
Improvements in this version includes:
- Major UI redesign, now using icons (thanks to Mark James - www.famfamfam.com)
- Allows to create and delete tables/columns from the UI using the context menu
- Errors from StringTemplate are now listed if you have an error in your template
- Import plugins now use a custom interface instead of the old property grid
- Fixed most of the problems when importing data from SQL Server
- Easier to map database types to .NET types using the Type Mapper and XML files
If you have suggestions or problems, please provide feedback on the forum and tracker on the project page.