Rational Programming Patterns

How to create a User Entity description

In this tab, you complete the fields of the User Entity whose structure is defined in the Meta Entity it is related to.

About this task

There are several possibilities to complete the fields of the User Entity. You can either add all the fields in a Data Element description or add the fields one by one? You can also enter the required fields only with a cardinality 1-1.

Procedure

  1. Open the Description tab of a User Entity.
  2. When you open a new User Entity, the structure table is empty. If you click Add all Fields, the structure that is defined in the Meta Entity is duplicated. The root Data Aggregate is displayed at the top level of a tree structure, and the other Data Aggregates at lower levels with all their Data Element descriptions.
  3. The other possibility is to add the fields one by one as follows:
    1. Click Add Field to display the root Data Aggregate.
    2. Click Add Field again. It opens a selection box in which you can select the child Data Element Aggregate of your choice.
    3. Click Add value. Then, click either Add all Fields to have all the fields that are defined in the Meta Entity for this Data Aggregate description, or click Add Field to select one field in the selection box. If mandatory fields are defined in your Meta Entity, click Add Required Fields to have them displayed in your Data Element Aggregate, otherwise, an error is notified. You can duplicate a Data Aggregate and the fields it contains by using Copy and Paste in the menu.
  4. Enter values that fit the description of the Meta Entity, otherwise, it can create errors. To do so, click the field and then the value column, and enter a value.
    • The lines that contain unique, sort, or identifier fields, or whose type is string, byte, or reference in the Meta Entity, include a button that is displayed when you click their value column cell. It is used to enter a series of values or to select an entity for a field that is identified as a reference. Two other buttons are displayed on the reference field lines. Click the first one to export the field to a file in your browser, or click the second one to import a file from the browser to the field.
    • For a Data Aggregate, the column value automatically shows the mandatory fields and their values.
    • If you want to display a selection of fields in the User Entity content, enter their names followed by a space in Field Path Filter. Select Show field name to see the labels and names of the fields that are displayed in the User Entity.
  5. A table shows up in the Description detail section for each Data Aggregate Description containing multiple values. Simple fields only are displayed (integer, decimal, date, string, float, byte, timestamp, reference with a maximum cardinality to 1) in the Data Aggregate Description. Each column corresponds to a description. If you click a column cell, the default value that is indicated in the Meta Entity is displayed. However, it can be modified by entering directly another value or by opening a dialog box for longer values. Click + to add other lines in the table or − to delete them.

Results

Figure 1. Example of Description Detail table with multiple values for simple fields in a Data Aggregate Description Table used to enter/modify the values in the simple fields of a Data Aggregate Description with multiple values

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