Tool Mentor: Reverse Engineering Databases Using Rational XDE Developer - .NET Edition
Purpose
This tool mentor describes the use of reverse engineering in the Rational XDE
software tool to generate a Data Model from an existing database schema or DDL
script file.
This section provides links to additional information related to this tool
mentor.
Overview
The following steps are performed in this tool mentor:
In Rational XDE, you can build a model of the physical database design through
reverse engineering of the database or a Data Definition Language (DDL) file.
Refer to
in the Rational XDE online Help for an overview of how the reverse engineering
process works.
You initiate the reverse engineering process using the Rational XDE data modeling
Reverse Engineering Wizard. (See
.) The Reverse Engineering Wizard reads the database schema or DDL and creates:
- A package containing the tables, columns, constraints, relationships, stored
procedures, and views. See
.
- A package containing the domains. See
.
- A database containing a realization relationship for each table. See
.
To reverse engineer a database, Rational XDE must be able to establish a connection
to the database. (See
.) Note that the results of the reverse engineering process might vary
with each DBMS.
Refer to the following topics in the Rational XDE online Help for further details
on reverse engineering databases for a specific DBMS:
For more information on establishing database connections for a specific DBMS,
consult the following topics in the Rational XDE online Help:
Once a database has been reverse engineered to create a model of the physical
database design, you can optionally decide to transform the tables into classes
that can become part of the logical database design in the Design Model or in
a separate Logical Data Model. (See
.) You can transform one table or all the tables contained in a package or realized
by a database. (See
.) The package must contain all of the participants in a relationship to transform
that relationship to the Logical Data Model.
For additional details on designing and modeling a database, see Tool
Mentor: Designing and Modeling Databases in Rational XDE.
Refer to the following topics in the Rational XDE online Help for further
details on the table-to-class transformation process:
After a Data Model has been created through the reverse engineering process,
updates to the Data Model and database must be controlled and managed. Rational
XDE provides a Compare and Synchronize feature to assist the database designer
in managing change. (See
and Tool Mentor: Managing Databases in Rational XDE.)
Use of the Compare and Synchronize feature is recommended over periodic reverse
engineering, since using the reverse engineering process multiple times on the
same model can cause duplicate tables and relationships in the Data Model.
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