Messages

1

General Board / Search and Replace

« on: June 18, 2008, 02:34:04 am »

In building a database schema in EA I managed to designate a whole buch of data coumns with the wrong data type.  I was hoping there was a way to search and replace without manually editing or at least manually opening each class / table to do it.  I figured out how to use the search to locate the misnamed data types, but I am not seeing and alternative to manually changing them all.

Am I correct about this or am I missing something?

2

General Board / Re: Associations in Data Modeling

« on: June 17, 2008, 05:38:59 am »

I was working on the premise that you don’t mess with primary keys after they are created.  I could be totally off base with this assumption.  I know that it was true in some databases that I have worked with in the past.  I was creating an intermediate table to allow a many-to-many relationship between people and phone numbers.  If changing the primary key is not a problem my primary key would be a combination of two integers, (person_id and phone_id).  Then if I switch a person from one phone number to another phone number already in the phone table, all I have to do is to alter the phone_id.  
But for some reason, I thought that was not allowed, so I created a separate id field as the primary key.  

Another issue though ...  I want to build a foreign key check constraint.  From what I have read so far, I would do this through the class operations, using a stereo type of  check.  Beyond that, I am not sure what I should do next.  The following code is an example of the code I would like Enterprise Architect  to generate when I generate the DDL.

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[property]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_property_property_def] FOREIGN KEY([property_def_id])
REFERENCES [dbo].[property_def] ([id])

In this sample, the property table uses the integer column property_def_id as part of its primary key.  But I want to ensure that whatever integer is inserted already exists in the property_def table.

3

General Board / Associations in Data Modeling

« on: June 15, 2008, 12:55:22 pm »

I am working on my first attempt to use Enterprise Architect to do data modeling for my application database.  So right now, all my classes are stereotyped as tables and I am using associations stereo typed as links to try to build foreign keys.

One thing that I have noticed is that in the association properties dialog the source tab gives me the names of all the fields, but the destination tab only gives me the names of primary key indexes or unique indexes.  Even if I build a secondary index on other fields, that index does not show up as an option in the destination dialog.  What I don't understand is why the dialog doesn't show the columns.  If I build a foreign key manually that is what I am going to use to build it.

What am I missing here?

4

General Board / Setting Default Line Styles

« on: June 15, 2008, 12:36:29 pm »

I am still inexperienced in working with EA, but one thing I know that I want to do is to set the default line style for associations to routed lines.  Some may like the direct style, but I would be much happier with routed lines.

When I chose Diagram\Layout Diagram from the menu, not only did the application rearrange all my classes, but it changed all my line styles from routed back to a default direct styles.

Is there a way to prevent this?

5

General Board / Displaying at Different Levels of Abstraction

« on: June 15, 2008, 12:46:49 pm »

Is there a way in which you can add the details to different data elements such as classes or tables, etc. and yet choose to display these elements at different levels of abstraction?

I would like to be able to control the level of detail displayed in a diagram such as showing only object names as opposed to showing names, properties, attributes, and methods.

For certain diagrams I don't need the details and don't want to show all of them. This is what I am calling abstraction as far as the diagram is concerned.

6

General Board / On Printing Diagrams

« on: June 15, 2008, 12:26:27 pm »

I would like to be able to scale different diagrams so that I could print them on a single page per diagram.

I haven't used Enterprise Architect enough yet to know if that is possible.

7

General Board / Has EA been used with SQL Server 2005?

« on: March 18, 2006, 12:35:31 pm »

I used the corporate script to create an Enterprise Architect DB using SQL Server 2005.

Then I create an ODBC System DSN for that DB

Then I start EA and tried to transfer an eap file to the DB just to see if it could be done.  

I set the values for transfer, I test the connection successfully, but when I hit the transfer button I get the message "Could not open target database".

I am still running on a evaluation system, but I wanted to test this functionality.

Can someone guide me through this?

8

Uml Process / Activity Diagrams

« on: March 16, 2006, 08:47:11 pm »

I am trying to evaluate enterprise architect right now and I am trying to do some simple diagrams.

Beginning with an Analysis Diagram.  My issue is that I can't  find some of the diagram artifacts that I think I should see in the toolbox...

For example when I look at help "Working with UML diagrams" under the Activity diagrams I see a "Recieve Symbol"  ... I don't see that symbol in the tool box anywhere that I can note.  The same goes for the send symbol and the event symbols, etc.

Some of these symbols are used in the Example project. I just don't know where they got them from.   ???If I can't find them in the tool box, how can I add them to the diagram?

What am I missing?