Designing & Engineering PostgreSQL
Databases New in Release
2.6
Introduction
PostgreSQL is the world's most advanced OpenSource database software. Visual Case provides
full support for the most used features and can also facilitate
the migration from or to other database types.
Using
Visual Case to Design PostgreSQL Databases
A PostgreSQL
database can be built in Visual Case using the design tools or by
reverse engineering an existing database. If a design already
exists for a database of a different type it can be converted to
PostgreSQL.
For an
introduction to database design, visit our database design
tutorial.
Columns These are built in
the table property page. Select a standard or user defined data type from the
list.
Data-types Visual Case
supports all the standard data types.
Custom Data-types
- User-defined data-types can be easily defined from the
database property page and are both forward and reverse
engineered.
Autonumber/Identity
Fields
Select a sequence from the drop down and Visual Case will build the
necessary default value to implement the column as an autonumber column.
New sequences can
be created in the database property page or in the column
property page.
Sequences These are defined
on the database property page. They can be used to create
autonumber columns.
Indexes
Indexes are supported including primary,
unique, ignore nulls, and clustered.
Foreign Keys These supported with restrict, set null,
default or cascade on delete. On update can restrict or cascade.
Setting the child cardinality will
synchronize the "allow null" option on the foreign key
columns and create a
unique index if the cardinality is "one only". Create foreign keys
from the child table's property page or by dragging a link between two
tables on your database diagram.
Views These are
defined in the database property page. Undock the editor to edit a
long view.
Rules These
are defined in the database property page and can be bound to
user-defined data types.
SQL Editor
This editor is automatically activated for editing script and is
aware of the standard language features and names of dictionary
objects.
Engineering PostgreSQL Databases
Visual Case's database engineering wizard will forward and
reverse engineer all database attributes that can be defined in your
Visual Case design of a PostgreSQL database.
The
wizard allows you to compare the differences between your database
design and the physical database before completing either the
forward or the reverse engineer.
The
forward engineer builds a transact-SQL script that can be saved and
manually run at a later time.
You
can quickly forward-engineer a single entity (table, stored
procedure, etc.) from its right-click menu or from its property
page.
For
more information about forward and reverse-engineering databases,
please visit our database engineering
tutorial.
Migrating to PostgreSQL
Visual Case will convert any
supported database type to PostgreSQL. Visual Case will also reverse
engineer most ODBC or JDBC data sources to PostgreSQL, even if the physical
database is not a type directly supported.
Because of differences
between database data types conversion is usually a one-way process.
For example, converting a SQL Server varchar(300) column to Access
will produce a column of type memo as Accesss text data type is
limited to 255 characters. Converting back to SQL Server will
produce a column of type text as a memo column can be quite
long!
Free Trial Download
Finally, download the 30 day free trial of
Visual Case and get started.
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