Creating a Conversion Table

Conversion tables are .csv files containing a list of strings that may appear in object names matched with equivalent (generally shorter) strings with which to replace them when generating object codes.

For example, each instance of the word customer could be converted to cust. To review the example conversion table provided with PowerDesigner navigate to and open install_dir/Resource Files/Conversion Tables/stdnames.csv.

  1. Select Tools > Resources > Conversion Tables to open the List of Conversion Tables. To review an existing conversion table, select it in the list and click the Properties tool.
  2. Click the New tool, enter a name and click Save to create the file and open the Conversion Table dialog.
  3. Click the Add a Row tool and then enter a name and the code into which you want to convert it:

    You can create as many conversion Name-Code pairs as required. The values in these columns are not case-sensitive.

    Note: It may be that several different names are converted the same code. For example, client and customer may both be converted to CUST. If a table containing these lines were used to convert codes to names, then the first value encountered in the Name column is always used and there is a risk that multiple objects will be given the same name.
  4. Click OK to return to the list of conversion tables, and then click Close to return to your model. Your conversion table is now available to be selected in the Model Options dialog.