Working with Data Models › Forward Engineering

Forward Engineering

Forward engineering is a process that generates the physical database schema from the data model. Use the Forward Engineering feature to design and create your database without writing a single SQL CREATE TABLE or CREATE INDEX statement.

When you generate a schema, you can choose to generate:

• Tables
• Triggers
• Stored procedures
• Indexes
• Constraints
• Physical storage objects
• Other database features supported by your target DBMS

Using forward engineering, you can choose to generate a script file, which you can use to update the database using a database administration tool, or you can directly connect to the database catalog. Either way, most of the work is done for you by generating the script for your target server.

Before you forward engineer, you can view the schema, which is a text-based representation of the database objects that will be created in the database from the script. The data definition language (DDL) specific to the target database is used to write the script. Each time you add an object or property to your data model, the script file is automatically updated to reflect the change to the data model.