Chapter 5 Managing Models

Defining name/code conversion

You can set conversion scripts in order to generate the name of an object from its code or the code of an object from its name using specific macros and conversion tables. You must select the Enable name/code conversions check box in the upper part of the Naming Convention page of the Model Options dialog box for this feature to be available. Name/code conversions can be applied to all named objects in a model or for each type of object individually.

The category Other Objects in the tree view lets you define name and code conversions for models and all objects that are not visible in the tree view.

Enable name/code conversion option	Name/code behavior
Selected	Use of conversion scripts and conversion tables to generate a code from a name or a name from a code together with the application of naming conventions
Unselected	Names are copied from codes or codes are copied from names together with the application of naming conventions

Name to Code mirroring mode

When you create an object in PowerDesigner, you may have to type a name and click the Equal button after the Code box to set the code equal to the name because the Name to Code mirroring mode may not be selected in the General Options dialog box.

You can select this operating mode to automatically set the code equal to the name and thereby apply the conversion scripts you defined to both names and codes.

For more information on the Name to Code mirroring option, see section Defining dialog box operating mode in chapter using the PowerDesigner interface

Conversion scripts allow you to alternatively generate a code from a name and a name from a code. You define conversion scripts from the corresponding tabs in the Naming Convention page of the Model Options dialog box. Usually name into code conversion is the most commonly used:

Tab	Description
Name To Code	You use it when you want to generate a code from a name
Code To Name	You use it when you want to generate a name from a code

Each tab allows you to:

Define a conversion script in the Script conversion edit box to generate the name from the code or the code from the name using macros
Select a conversion table from the Conversion table dropdown listbox. This allows you to convert an expression to another, when using the .convert_name or .convert_code macros. For more information on macros, see the "Using a conversion script" section. The use of conversion tables is optional