Supported CDM/LDM Notations

PowerDesigner supports the most popular data modeling notations in the CDM and LDM. You can choose your notation by clicking Tools > Model Options and selecting it in the Notation list.

Entity/relationship Notation

In the Entity/relationship notation, entities are represented as rectangles and divided in three compartments: name, attributes, and identifiers.



The termination points of relationships indicate the cardinality as follows:



(Note that the Merise notation uses associations instead of relationships):



Inheritance symbols indicate if they are complete and if they have mutually exclusive children:

Complete

Mutually exclusive

Symbol

No

No



Yes

No



No

Yes



Yes

Yes



IDEF1X Notation

In the Idef1x notation, entity names are displayed outside the symbol, and dependent entities are drawn with round corners.



Relationship symbols indicate the cardinality as follows:



Inheritance symbols indicate if the inheritance is complete:

Complete

Symbol

Yes



No



Barker Notation

In the Barker notation, entities are drawn with round corners, and inheritances are displayed by placing children inside the parent entity.



Only attributes are listed and a symbol specifies whether each attribute is a key, a mandatory or an optional attribute as follows:



Relationship symbols indicate the cardinality as follows:



The line style specifies if a relationship is mandatory: