Reverse engineering is the process of generating a PDM (or certain PDM objects) from an existing database schema. You can reverse engineer into a new PDM or an existing PDM from one or more script files or from a live database.
Reverse Engineering from Scripts
PowerDesigner can reverse engineer a PDM for one or more SQL script files. The script will normally be the script used to generate the database but can also include other scripts.
Reverse Engineering from a Live Database
PowerDesigner can reverse engineer a PDM from a live database connection. You must specify a data source and connection information. You can select to use administrator permissions in order to be able to select the system tables that are reserved to a database administrator.
Reverse Engineering Options Tab
When you reverse engineer a database schema using script files or a data source, you can define rebuild options after reverse engineering.
Database Reverse Engineering Selection Window
When you reverse engineer a database from a live database connection, you can choose to populate your PDM with a subset of the available objects by selecting them in the Database Reverse Engineering Selection window.
Reverse Engineering Target Models Tab
External shortcuts depend on their corresponding target objects located in different models. When you need several models to design a single database, you can use shortcuts to share objects between models. The Target Models tab displays the list of detected target models containing target objects for shortcuts in the current model to reverse.
Reverse Engineering Database Statistics
You can reverse engineer statistics for an existing database, such as the number of distinct or null values in a column or the average length of a character field. These can provide helpful information when optimizing a design.