How to Create Data Dictionary Report

Doc. Composer is a powerful document generator which allows user to output the details of the models using customized templates. In this article we will create customize template to generate a data dictionary for the class models and its attributes in your project.

To generate data dictionary for the class models:

1. Go to Tools > Doc. Composer > Manage Template XML.
   

   Manage Template XML

2. Select Project scope at the combo-box in Manage Template XML.
   

   Select Project Scope

3. Right click on any template and select Duplicate… from popup menu.
   

   Duplicate any template

4. Name the template as Data Dictionary, and choose Description as its icon.
   

   Name the template and picking the icon

5. Replace the content of the template as follow.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <ProjectBaseInitiationBlock>
     
     <Text style="@heading+">Data Dictionary</Text>
     <ParagraphBreak/>
     
     <HasChildElementChecker allLevel="true" modelType="Class">
       <IterationBlock allLevel="true" modelType="Class">
   
         <!-- Print out the name of the class-->
         <Property property="name" style="@heading+"/>	
         <ParagraphBreak/>
   
         <!-- Attributes (Summary) -->
         <HasChildElementChecker modelType="Attribute">
           <IterationBlock modelType="Attribute">
             <Property property="name" style="@heading+"/>
             <ParagraphBreak/>
             <Property property="description" style="Description"/>		
             <ParagraphBreak/>		
           </IterationBlock>
         </HasChildElementChecker>				
       </IterationBlock>
     </HasChildElementChecker>
     
   </ProjectBaseInitiationBlock>

6. Press Save button and close the Manage Template XML dialog.
   
7. Now go to Tools > Doc. Composer.
   

   Create Doc. Composer

8. Select Build from Scratch.
   

   Select Build Doc. from Scratch

9. Select project root node in Model Explorer tree.
   

   Select project root node in Model Explorer

10. Select Data Dictionary template and drop it to the document editor.
    

    Drag & drop Data Dictionary template to document editor

Now all the classes and its attributes and descriptions are being print to document.

Data dictionary document generated

Explanation of the template

In the template we first check do the project contain any Class model using the HasChildElementChecker. Since the class may organized under package therefore we have to specify allLevel=”true” to checker to make sure it will recursively query throughout the project.

<HasChildElementChecker allLevel="true" modelType="Class">

If the project containing class models we will using the IterationBlock to loop through the classes. Again we need to specify allLevel=”true” in order to retrieve the classes inside packages. We then printout its name.

<IterationBlock allLevel="true" modelType="Class">

  <!-- Print out the name of the class-->
  <Property property="name" style="@heading+"/>	
  <ParagraphBreak/>

After that we use the HasChildElementChecker again but this time look for the attributes of the class. If attributes found than we loop through the attributes using IterationBlock and printout its name and description.

<!-- Attributes (Summary) -->
<HasChildElementChecker modelType="Attribute">
  <IterationBlock modelType="Attribute">
    <Property property="name" style="@heading+"/>
    <ParagraphBreak/>
    <Property property="description" style="Description"/>		
    <ParagraphBreak/>		
  </IterationBlock>