Comments, RE, transfers, etc

Toad Data Modeler
1

Hello,

I have connected to some old Postgres database. This used to be Postgres 8.0, then I migrated dump to Postgres 8.2 (loosing polish characters from database objects by the way). I turned TDM, did RE on this database, and converted RE Postgres 82 model into Logical Model. I lost all comments, since comments are Comments property, and only Notes property is translated from physical to logical model.
I wrote a script that copied all Comments into Notes, merged model to Logical, saved Logical and went to sleep. This logical model will be my boilerplate for all changes, and all changes will be distributed to various versions of my system. First, I started with MS SQL 2005 (Firebird will be next… when it will be implemented…). I have merged my Logical Model into MS05 physical model, and generated DDL script. But there were no comments in the script! All, right, I wrote a script to copy Notes to Comments (something strange, in MSSQL dialog there is a Description tab, but it shows Comments property…).
Again, I generated DDL… no comments again. The Verify window informed me that there is no owner to tables, so descriptions wouldn’t be generated. Oh, yeah. TDM forgot to add dbo schema , so I did it. After all of those troubles script was finally ok.

So now Enhancement request:

  1. Please, add some support from moving database comments between models. Maybe adding Comments in logical model will be ok? Database comments usually contain important information, so it is not so nice to have them lost in translation… For me notes are something like “This field to be removed, it sux”, while comments should contain real description of an object.
  2. It is funny, that comments are labeled “Comments” or “Description”, depending on DB model…
  3. Please, add default schema dbo when merging from Logical to MSSQL2005.

I know that all this can be done via scripting, but … you will write such script once, while new users will have to do it by themselves…

MB

2

Hi Michal,

thank you for your feedback. In general, comments should appear only in physical model, because comments are part of generated SQL script and can be stored in database. Notes represent logical information. People may use both comments and notes for various purposes… I guess this is exactly a matter that can be solved via scripting and I am very glad you managed to write scripts for copying notes to comments and vice versa. Great work!

To your enhancement request:

  1. I created a new CR for this enhancement request. CR# 44836. Thanks again for your suggestion!
  2. We wanted to name the tabs accordingly to target database specification. We will verify the names and do appropriate corrections.
  3. The next version will contain a new option - Schema/Owner/Database Assignment. This option will allow you to assign schema/owner to your model at one jump, or remove existing schema from your model. Also, the convertor/comparator will be improved and will include intelligent pairing of objects with/without owner/schema/database.

Regards,

Vaclav