Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress Dynamics Basic Development

Entity mnemonic

The entity mnemonic is simply the database dump name for the table. This name must be unique across all databases used together in an application. The framework uses this as a key to identify the table in a number of general-purpose operations. For example, the framework combines the Object ID field (or if there is none, the Key Field) and the entity mnemonic to associate Comments and Audit records with individual records from any application database table. It also uses this string as the first part of all automatically generated names for objects.

For example, for the Customer table shown above, the Object Generator creates a SmartDataObject™ named customerfullo.w, a dynamic browser called customerfullb, and a dynamic viewer called customerviewv. If you are designing a new database or are otherwise in a position to assign dump names for your tables, you might want to create a naming convention for them with this in mind. The standard naming convention for Progress Dynamics uses a five-letter dump name combined with standard abbreviations for object types, resulting in ten-character object names, a manageable size. The framework generates the value for this field directly from the dump name, and you cannot modify the value.

Entity Mnemonic Short Description

The Entity Mnemonic Short Description field contains a short reference used in lookups for the table and in other places where it is useful to display the table name as part of a longer string, such as a message. The framework derives the default value from the table name, minus the prefix if any, and with the designated separator character (or “upper” for separating based on mixed case) replaced by a space. For example, a table name of customer_header with a separator of underscore, or CustomerHeader with a separator of “upper,” both become “Customer Header.”

Entity Tablename

The Entity Tablename field contains the full table name, including any prefix.

Entity Dbname

The Entity Dbname field contains the logical database name for the table.

Entity Mnemonic Label prefix

The Entity Mnemonic Label Prefix field contains an optional prefix the framework uses to selectively replace the first word of screen labels for fields in the associated table. Progress Dynamics primarily uses this prefix for tables in the framework Repository to provide more meaningful labels. For example, a table gsm_region in a specific application can be used for suburbs and have a label prefix of suburb rather than region. The label prefix actually replaces the first word in the field label defined on the database. Where the table has more than one meaning, for example, a gsm_person can be a member, a contact, a practitioner, and you can define the label elsewhere.

Entity Object Field

If there is a standard Progress Dynamics object ID field, then the framework sets the value of the Entity Object field to that field name and sets the Table Has Object Field flag. Progress Dynamics uses this information, among other things, to allow the Object Generator to follow joins when creating SDOs to include descriptive fields from related tables.

Entity Key Field

If there is a Character field holding a meaningful unique code value for the table, the Entity Key Field is assigned that field name. Otherwise, you should assign the name or comma-separated list of names of fields in a unique index that can identify records in the table.

Entity Description Field field and Entity Description Procedure

The Description field is discussed in the previous section on Entity Import. The Entity Description Procedure field contains the name of a procedure to run in order to work out the description of the entity. This field is only required in the event that the entity description spans multiple fields (potentially from related entities). If this field is specified, it overrides the entity description field. You must include a relative path to the procedure. The procedure you write must take the object ID as an input parameter and output a single character string containing the object description.

There is a call in the General Manager, getEntityDescription, that you can use to return the description for any record in any table, given the object ID and table name mnemonic, if the Description field or Description procedure is defined.

Replicate Entity and Replicate Key fields

The Replicate Entity and Replicate Key fields correspond to the user-defined properties ReplicateFLA and ReplicateKey in the ERwin Progress Dynamics template, and are initialized accordingly for databases forward-engineered from ERwin. ReplicateFLA should indicate the unique table code (FLA or five-letter-acronym) of the primary table being versioned. The Replicate Key is the field name in the table used to join to the primary table being versioned, for example, the object ID field. They are not actively used yet in the entity table, but are there to capture the ERwin settings. If the corresponding ERwin user-defined properties are set, then appropriate replication trigger code is generated for the table.

SCM Field Name

For source code management, only set the SCM Field Name on the primary table being versioned. It is the unique field for the data that is also used as the object name in the SCM Tool. In Progress Dynamics, this is only set on the ryc_smartobject table and would have a value of object_filename. Setting it in entity maintenance does not do anything. Like the Replicate fields, the setting in the entity table can only reflect what has already been set in ERwin, and without the ERwin setting, the trigger code is not generated to support the use of the field. So generally the use of this field, as well as the UDP (user-defined property), is not appropriate or meaningful for application databases.

Entity Narration

Progress Dynamics gets the Entity Narration value from the table description in the application database schema.

Auditing Enabled

Progress Dynamics provides for a generic auditing capability to log all changes to any record to a table in the Repository. The Auditing Enabled toggle box setting determines whether auditing is enabled for the selected table. You should only enable auditing where required so as not to adversely affect the performance of the application.

Deploy Data and Version Data

If you select the Deploy Data toggle box, you should deploy the data in the selected table with the application. What data is deployed and how it relates to other data is specified when you set up deployment data sets. In the Progress Dynamics Repository itself, a considerable amount of data is required as part of a deployment package, because much of the data represents the application components themselves, including dynamic object definitions. In ordinary application databases, normally you need to deploy relatively little data with the application. Some examples are: code values needed by the application, messages not stored in the Repository, and other information that needs to be a basic part of the application setup.

If you also do not check the Version Data field, all the data in the selected table is deployed, regardless of what changed since the last deployment dataset was generated.

Select the Version Data toggle box in addition to the Deploy Data toggle box if the data in the table should be versioned, to allow only modified data to be deployed. However, the writing of the versioning records to the Record Version table in the Repository depends on a replication trigger generated by the Progress Dynamics macro code when the ERwin model is forward-engineered. Therefore, unless you set the equivalent user-defined property VersionData in ERwin, the trigger is not needed, and if you set this flag in the entity maintenance, it will not, in and of itself, do anything. For details on using ERwin, see the deployment white paper at http://psdn.progress.com/library/dynamicswp.htm.