All DBMS definition files have the same structure made up of a number of categories, each of which may contain items or other categories. The items, and their values are different for each DBMS. Each item is present only if it is relevant to the DBMS. Each value is a SQL statement or other parameter to define how to model, generate and reverse engineer for the DBMS.
Each DBMS file has the following structure:
General - contains general information about the database, without any categories (see General Category). All items defined in the General category apply to all database objects.
Script - used for generation and reverse engineering. Contains the following sub-categories:
SQL - contains the following sub-categories, each of which contains items whose values define general syntax for the database:
Syntax - general parameters for SQL syntax (see Syntax Category)
Format - parameters for allowed characters (see Format Category)
File - header, footer and usage text items used during generation (see File Category)
Keywords - the list of SQL reserved words and functions (see Keywords Category)
Objects - contains commands to create, delete or modify all the objects in the database. Also includes commands that define object behavior, defaults, necessary SQL queries, reverse engineering options, and so on (see Script/Objects Category).
Data Type - contains the list of valid data types for the specified DBMS and the corresponding types in PowerDesigner (see Script/Data Type Category).
Customize - Retrieves information from PowerDesigner Version 6 DBMS definition files. It is not used in later versions.
ODBC - present only if the DBMS does not support standard statements for generation. In this case the ODBC category contains additional items necessary for live database connection generation .
Transformation Profiles – contains group of transformations used during model generation when you need to apply changes to objects in the source or target models. For more information, see Transformations and Transformation Profiles (Profile) and Core Features Guide > Linking and Synchronizing Models > Generating Models and Model Objects > Generating Models > Model Generation Options Window > Applying Model Transformations.
Profile - allows you to define extended attribute types and extended attributes for database objects. For more information, see Profile Category (DBMS).