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DBDesigner and PostgreSQL

This document provides a step by step instruction how to use DBDesigner along with PostgreSQL . I've modified XSLs provided by Thomas - member of DBDesigner's forum, then these files were finally improved by Maciej Blizinski.

I'm using Windows NT so this is Windows/DOS version only, however the idea would be the same.

Copy files xml2postgresql.xslt and xml2html.xsl into directory where you save your models, for example c:\Program files\fabFORCE.

Generating SQL script based on your model

You need a XSLT processor. I've downloaded Instant Saxon (home page) and unzipped it into c:\saxon

Assume that your model is saved as my_model.xml in C:\Program files\fabFORCE.

Start - Run - cmd <enter>

c:\> cd "program files\fabforce"
c:\Program files\fabFORCE> c:\saxon\saxon -o my_model.sql my_model.xml xml2postgresql.xslt

File my_model.sql contains script for PostgreSQL. Don't be surprised by a lot of empty lines at the beginning. Columns marked as Auto Increment are defined as SERIAL.

Displaying your model as HTML

Insert a line

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="xml2html.xsl"?>

as a second line of my_model.xml then open my_model.xml in Internet Explorer.

Yet another way

If you have Ant and JDK installed then you may use Ant to build your SQL script and HTML documentation. Put a file build.xml into directory where you save your model, change 'my_model' into yours model name and then:

c:\> cd "program files\fabforce"
c:\Program files\fabFORCE> ant

Enjoy!

Tomasz Judycki