Developers use object-oriented programming languages to develop business objects that will be stored in a database. PowerDesigner provides various properties to give you precise control over the generation of persistent objects into a data model.
Sometimes, the class and attribute codes in object-oriented programming languages (specified in the Code field under the Name field on the General tab of their property sheets) are different to the codes used for tables and columns in the data model representing the database.
In these cases, you can specify an alternative, persistent, code in the Code field in the Persistent groupbox on the Detail tab of classes and attributes. These codes will be used in place of the standard codes during generation of a data model and also facilitate round-trip engineering by recovering object codes from the database.
The other properties in these Persistent groupboxes, help you control how classes will be generated in data models (see Class Properties) and the data types to be used for attributes (see Attribute Properties)