Automate PowerDesigner Using Microsoft Powershell Script — Part One

We can use programming language C#, C++ ,Visual Basic and JAVA to automate PowerDesigner. But these languages are very complicated. It may take

a professional programmer days or weeks to get job down. In addition, we have to install Microsoft Visual Studio or Eclipse as development tool, which

is not always available to everyone.

Microsoft Powershell, by contrast, is simple, powerful and available to almost all Windows users. Powershell 2.0 is already installed  on Windows 7.

Plus a lot of automation solutions are already available in Powershell community.

I’m going to separate the topic in three parts:

Part one        Create a model

Part two         Emulate mouse and keyboard to control Powerdesigner GUI

Part three      Automate Powerdesigner Portal Server login process

In this article, I’m going to work on part one.

I’m on Windows 7 64bit with PowerDesigner 16.5.4 64bit.  I have not tested 32bit PowerDesigner.

First of all, for those who are unfamiliar with Powershell, go to Internet, search for Powershell, you’ll get tons of information and tutorials.

Here we only need learn three commands:

new-object              this command allows us create a new object

add-type                we use this command to load external assembly files.

get-member           given an object, list all its member functions

Windows 7 64bit has both 32bit and 64bit Powershell installed. But by default, it runs 64bit version.
Let’s start Powershell 64bit.

Click Start button. search for Windows PowerShell . Click the Windows PowerShell tile

OR

Click Start button. Click Run…  Type powershell.  Click OK.

Powershell window pops up.

At command prompt, type or paste the following code and hit Return

$PowerDesigner = new-object -com powerdesigner.application

Powerdesigner starts.

In command prompt, type or paste the following code and hit Return

$Powerdesigner | Get-Member

The output lists all functions $Powerdesigner COM object owned.

   TypeName: System.__ComObject#{57c91ea5-68ef-4877-bb3e-757b12ecae55}

Name                     MemberType Definition
—-                     ———- ———-
BeginTransaction         Method     void BeginTransaction ()
CancelTransaction        Method     void CancelTransaction ()
ConvertToUTF16           Method     void ConvertToUTF16 (string, string)
ConvertToUTF8            Method     void ConvertToUTF8 (string, string)
CreateModel              Method     BaseObject CreateModel (int, string, OpenModelFlags)
CreateModelFromTemplate  Method     BaseObject CreateModelFromTemplate (string, OpenModelFlags)
CreateModelWithDialog    Method     BaseObject CreateModelWithDialog (int, string, OpenModelFlags)
EndTransaction           Method     void EndTransaction ()
EvaluateNamedPath        Method     string EvaluateNamedPath (string, bool, bool)
ExecuteCommand           Method     string ExecuteCommand (string, string, CommandExecutionMode)
FileImport               Method     BaseObject FileImport (string, string, int, string, OpenModelFlags)
GetModuleForModelFile    Method     BaseObject GetModuleForModelFile (string)
IsKindOf                 Method     bool IsKindOf (int, int)
MapToNamedPath           Method     string MapToNamedPath (string)
NewGUID                  Method     string NewGUID ()
newPoint                 Method     APoint newPoint (int, int)
NewPtList                Method     PtList NewPtList ()
NewRect                  Method     ARect NewRect (int, int, int, int)
OpenModel                Method     BaseObject OpenModel (string, OpenModelFlags)
Output                   Method     void Output (string)
ProfileSnap              Method     void ProfileSnap (string, bool, int)
Progress                 Method     BaseObject Progress (string, bool)
Rtf2Ascii                Method     string Rtf2Ascii (string)
Rtf2Html                 Method     string Rtf2Html (string)
ShowHelp                 Method     void ShowHelp (int)
ActiveDiagram            Property   BaseObject ActiveDiagram () {get}
ActiveGlossary           Property   BaseObject ActiveGlossary () {get}
ActiveModel              Property   BaseObject ActiveModel () {get}
ActivePackage            Property   BaseObject ActivePackage () {get}
ActiveSelection          Property   ObjectSet ActiveSelection () {get}
ActiveWorkspace          Property   BaseObject ActiveWorkspace () {get}
CheckPermissionsMode     Property   bool CheckPermissionsMode () {get} {set}
EclipseWorkspace         Property   string EclipseWorkspace () {get}
ExternalClientAdapter    Property   IDispatch ExternalClientAdapter () {get}
HomeDirectory            Property   string HomeDirectory () {get}
InteractiveMode          Property   InteractiveModeValue InteractiveMode () {get} {set}
LicenceParameters        Property   string LicenceParameters () {get}
LicenceStatus            Property   string LicenceStatus () {get}
Locked                   Property   bool Locked () {get} {set}
MainWindowHandle         Property   LONG_PTR MainWindowHandle () {get}
MetaModel                Property   BaseObject MetaModel () {get}
Models                   Property   ObjectSet Models () {get}
PicturesTransparentColor Property   OLE_COLOR PicturesTransparentColor () {get} {set}
RegistryHome             Property   string RegistryHome () {get}
RepositoryConnection     Property   BaseObject RepositoryConnection () {get}
ScriptInputArray         Property   Variant ScriptInputArray () {get}
ScriptInputParameters    Property   string ScriptInputParameters () {get}
ScriptResult             Property   string ScriptResult () {get} {set}
ShowMode                 Property   bool ShowMode () {get} {set}
UserDataDictionary       Property   IStringDataDictionary UserDataDictionary () {get}
UserName                 Property   string UserName () {get}
ValidationMode           Property   bool ValidationMode () {get} {set}
Version                  Property   string Version () {get}
Viewer                   Property   bool Viewer () {get}

The list is very helpful. It tells user which function is available and for what purpose.

Next, in order to create a PDM we need load two Powerdesigner COM assemblies

Interop.PdCommon.dll

Interop.PdPDM.dll

By default, all PowerDesigner COM assemblies are located at PowerDesigner Home folder.

But you can move them to other place. In my case, I put them in D:\PD folder.
Type or paste the following code and hit Return:

add-type -path “D:\PD\Interop.PdCommon.dll”
add-type -path “D:\PD\Interop.PdPDM.dll”

The assemblies are loaded.

We want to create a PDM, which contains a table with a column.
Type or paste the code below. Don’t forget hit Return.

$model=$PowerDesigner.createmodel([PdPDM.PdPDM_Classes]::cls_Model,”|DBMS=ORACLE Version 11g”,0)
if ($model -eq $null )
{
  [Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show(“Cannot create PDM”)
}
else
{
  $model.name =”PDMexample”
  $model.code =”PDMexample”
  $diagram=$model.PhysicalDiagrams.Item(0)
  $tbl=$model.createobject([PdPDM.PdPDM_Classes]::cls_Table,”” , -1, $false)
  $tbl.Name=”Customer”
  $tbl.Code=”Customer”
  $tbl.Comment=”Customer table”
  $tbl.Description=”The customer table stores customer data”

  $coln=$tbl.Columns.createnew([PdPDM.PdPDM_Classes]::cls_Column)
  $coln.Name=”ID”
  $coln.Code=”ID”
  $coln.DataType=”integer”
  $coln.Primary=$true
  $diagram.AttachObject($tbl)
}

A PDM with a table is created. It uses Oracle 11g as DBMS.

You can copy above code in notepad and save as, say CreatePDM.ps1(ps1 means Powershell script). In PowerShell prompt, go to the same folder where

CreatePDM.ps1 located, type

.\CreatePDM.ps1

The program will do its job.

Attached is CreatePDM.ps1.

Enjoy coding!