I responded on this thread before suggesting xCase. At $495 for an IB
only version ($795 for all the DBs they support), xCase performs all of
the functionality mentioned below. Granted some of these are via code
generation templates that I have written, but I have offered them in
this forum before and continue to do so. These templates let you do
almost anything because they use TCL (text-generation-oriented scripting
language) to control all SQL that is created. They also let you add
your own templates to do anything you like including generating Delphi
DataModules (I don't use this feature, but it is in the product out of
the box). There is a trial version (limited # of tables) on their web
site, I believe: www.xcase.com <http://www.xcase.com/> .



I will also say that my response here is flavored by the fact that this
is the tool that I use and have used for years.



Louis Kleiman

SSTMS, Inc.



-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Murdoch [mailto:ram5@...]
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 12:00 PM
To: ib-support@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ib-support] Database Diagram



At 10/17/2002 08:39 AM, you wrote:

> > I've had pretty good luck over the past month with PowerDesigner 9.5

from

> > Sybase.
>Isn't it pretty expensive?

You can get the Physical Architect (doesn't do Conceptual models) for
$995. That's a little pricey in my book, but it's definitely cheaper
than
ErStudio and I'm pretty sure it's less than Erwin. It's a whole lot
cheaper in the long run than my spending my time updating Visio models
<g>.

I've tried a bunch of modeling tools, and I've found PD to match my
needs
the most. As I mentioned, it's takes a little tweaking of the db
definition, but once that's done I can do things with it that I don't
think
I've seen in other products.

Some of those things are:
o The ability to assign a generator to a column (called a Sequence in
PD),
which will cause a before insert trigger to automatically be created for

the table. This trigger will include the common 'if (new.id is NULL)
then
new.id = gen_id(<gen name>, 1);'
o The ability to enforce referential integrity via triggers rather than

FK's (necessary when a table has a bunch of status columns referring to
items in small lookup tables to avoid creating a very non-selective
index
on that column). I'm pretty sure I've seen this in other products, but
the
triggers generated by PD are much more thorough.
o The ability to create a comment on a
table/column/trigger/view/etc...,
and have an insert statement automatically created to add this comment
to
the appropriate RDB$ table. This was a big one for me, because I use
this
feature of IB quite a bit for maintaining the documentation of the
database
with the database.

The product does take a little getting used to, and there are definitely

some quirks to it. However, it is still the best tool that I've found
for
myself.

Bob M..






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