Chapter 4 Extending your Models with Profiles

Extended Attributes (Profile)

Extended attributes allow you to define additional metadata for your objects, and can be defined for metaclasses, stereotypes, and criteria, in order to:

Control generation for a given generation target. In this case, extended attributes are defined in the target language or DBMS of the model. For example, in the Java object language, several metaclasses have extended attributes used for generating Javadoc comments.
Further define model objects in extended model definitions. For example, in the extended model definition for Sybase ASA Proxy tables, the extended attribute called GenerateAsProxyServer in the DataSource metaclass is used to define the data source as a proxy server.

Extended attributes in property sheets
By default, extended attributes are listed on a generic Extended Attributes tab in the object property sheet. You can customize the display of attributes by inserting them into forms (see Forms (Profile)). If all the extended attributes are allocated to forms, the generic page will not be displayed.

To create an extended attribute:

Right-click a metaclass, stereotype, or criterion in the Profile category and select New→Extended Attribute.

Specify the appropriate properties.

Click Apply to save your changes.