Chapter 2 Resource Editor Reference Guide

What Is a Resource File?

PowerDesigner ships with resource files for customizing and extending your models.

Target languages

Among the resource files, the target languages can be attached to certain model types upon creation. These languages provide PowerDesigner with the syntax and guidelines for generating objects and implementing stereotypes, scripts and constants.

When you create a model, you choose a target language, which can be linked to the model from an external file, or copied locally to the model. The definition for a target language can be edited from its property sheet, and modifications made to a linked target language are available to all models using that target language.

The following types of resource files/target languages are available:

The process language (files with the .XPL extension)
The object language (files with the .XOL extension)
The DBMS (files with the .XDB extension)provides the syntax and guidelines for generating databases, triggers, and procedures, appropriate for a target DBMS or ODBC driver
The XML language (files with the .XSL extension)

For more information on DBMS files, see the "DBMS Reference Guide" chapter.

For more information on object language files, see the "Object Language Reference Guide" chapter.

For more information on process language files, see the "Process Language Reference Guide" chapter.

For more information on XML language files, see the "XML Language Reference Guide" chapter.

Extended Model Definitions

Extended model definitions also allow you to expand object definitions. To do this, an extended model definition is created and saved as a file with the XEM extension. You can create or attach one or several extended model definitions to a model.

For more information on extended model definitions, see the "Extended Model Definitions Reference Guide" chapter.

Report templates

A report template resource is an independent and reusable file saved on your hard disk, which gives the overall structure of your report. You can create this file to generate model reports or multi-model reports. You use the Report Template Editor to create and modify a report template.

Report Languages

A report language resource is a file in XML format saved with the .XRL extension. It contains all the printable texts of a report and their default values. You use it when you create your report and later generate it whatever the output. A report language resource file is stored in a central area and can be shared by any report to guarantee data consistency and save time to the user.

For more information on report languages, see the "Using the Report Editors" chapter in the Reports User's Guide .

Conversion Tables

Conversion tables provide a way to define a correspondence between the name and the code of an object or the code and the name of an object.

Conversion tables are stored into separate CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files and are shared by all models.