I want to define and document attributes and relations in Sparx/EA in a manner analogous to ERwin's Domain functionality. Don't see how to do this.
In ERwin a user can define a Domain; e.g., "Name", declared as Varchar(123) and defined "Name is a classword used to designate an attribute as . . . " Then, the user can define another Domain; e.g., "Short Name" which inherits the type declaration and definition from its parent "Name". Inherited characteristics can be modified. The definition of sub-Domains is open-ended; e.g., a child of "Short Name" might be "Default Short Name".
The foregoing domain technique also applies to keys. E.g., you can define a generic domain "Id"; then a sub-Domain such as "Parent Id"; then a sub-Domain such as "Paternal Parent Id". Then, when you draw a relation between entity PARENT vs. CHILD, the FK Attribute can be defined to be of sub-Domain "Parent Id" or "Paternal Parent Id".
This scheme of attributes (including FKs), defined in terms of a hierarchy of Domains, is very good for managing consistancy and conciseness of documentation. Once you have done a very good job of explaining the root notion of "Name" or "Id", you can concentrate on the notion of "Short" or "Parent" when defining "Short Name" or "Parent Id" and so forth.
It appears from my use of Sparx/EA so far that each attribute and each relation is an artifact independent of any other artifact. I see that there is a notion of a "Stereotype". Among the numerous Stereotypes I can select from are "FK" and "ERD_Relationship". I have the impression that "Stereotype" is probably the analoge to ERwin's Domain that I should be using. However, I'm not clear on exactly how to use "Sterotype".
Perhaps there is not much to it. E.g., for a simple attribute, I define a Stereotype named "Name"; then another Stereotype named "Short Name" and another Stereotype named "Default Short Name". Yet, for a relation, I suspect there is more to it.
We are naming our relations with the string we want for the FK's name. E.g., in the relation between PARENT vs. CHILD the relation is named "Parent Id". PARENT has no class attribute named "Id". Instead, we have a script which introduces a column "ID" into every Table for every Class. Then, for every relation, such as "Parent Id" we have a script that names the FK according to the name of the relation, e.g., "PARENT ID" or, perhaps, "PATERNAL PARENT ID".
How, exactly, do we use Sparx Stereotypes correctly so that our DDL generation includes the declared Oracle Domain DDL?
thanks
Mark
