Object, Process, and XML Language Definition Files

Language definition files provide PowerDesigner with the information necessary to model, reverse-engineer, and generate for a particular object-oriented, business process, or XML language. PowerDesigner provides definition files for many popular languages. You select a language when you create an OOM, BPM, or XSM.

Language definition files have an .xol, .xpl, or .xsl extension and are located in install_dir/Resource Files. To view the list of languages, select Tools > Resources > Object Languages > , Process Languages, or XML Languages. For information about the tools available in resource file lists, see PowerDesigner Resource Files.

Note: The PDM uses a different form of definition file (see DBMS Definition Files), and other model types do not have definition files but can be extended with extension files (see Extension Files).

All target languages have the same basic category structure, but the detail and values of entries differs for each language:

Settings - contains data types, constants, namings, and events categories used to customize and manage generation features. The types of items in this category differ depending on the type of resource file.
Generation - contains generation commands, options, and task.
Profile - contains extensions on metaclasses.

The root node of each file contains the following properties:

Property	Description
Name / Code	Specify the name and code of the language definition file.
File Name	[read-only] Specifies the path to the language definition file. If the target language has been copied to your model, this field is empty.
Version	[read-only] Specifies the repository version if the resource is shared via the repository.
Family / Subfamily	Specifies the family and subfamily of the language, which may enable certain non-default features in the model. For example, object languages of the Java, XML, IDL and PowerBuilder® families support reverse engineering.
Enable Trace Mode	Lets you preview the templates used during generation (see Templates (Profile)). Before starting the generation, click the Preview page of the relevant object, and click the Refresh tool to display the templates. When you double-click on a trace line from the Preview page, the Resource Editor opens to the corresponding template definition.
Comment	Specifies additional information about the target language.

Settings Category: Process Language
The Settings category contains the following items used to control the data types, constants, namings, and events categories used to customize and manage BPM generation features:
Settings Category: Object Language
The Settings category contains the following items used to control the data types, constants, namings, and events categories used to customize and manage OOM generation features:
Settings Category: XML Language
The Settings category contains the Data types category that shows a mapping of internal data types with XML language data types.
Generation Category
The Generation category contains categories and entries to define and activate a generation process.
Profile Category (Definition Files)
The language definition file Profile category can contain Stereotypes, Extended attributes, Methods and so on, to extend the metaclasses defined in the PowerDesigner metamodel.