Database Table Schemas

The Property Loader step type includes a plugin to support importing and exporting properties to and from a database. This topic describes the table schemas that the database plugin requires and creates when exporting properties.

Note
  • The database plugin is responsible for establishing a connection with the database. There is no such dependency on the step, unlike with the Legacy Property Loader step.
  • The Property Loader step also supports importing and exporting limits from .csv, .txt, and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel) file types. Refer to the Property Loader Plugins - File Formats topic for more information about storing limits in these files.
  • See the Legacy Property Loader Step - Loading Limit Values from Databases topic for more information about database table schemas for the Legacy Property Loader step.

GROUPS_DESC Table Structure

The following table describes the schema that defines the property groups, their names, and their values. Some columns are optional and can be null, meaning that they do not have to contain values.

Column Name Data Type Can Be Null? Purpose
GROUP_ID Primary Key, String No Unique value that identifies each entry in the table.
NAME String Yes Stores the name of the property groups.
DESCRIPTION String Yes Stores a description of the properties.

See the following image for an example of a GROUP_DESC table. Each row represents a different property group. In this case, there is only one group, called New Properties.

PROPERTIES Table Structure

The following table describes the schema that defines the columns used by the Property Loader. Some columns are optional and can be null, meaning that they do not have to contain values.

Column Name Data Type Can Be Null? Purpose
ID Primary Key, Number No Unique value that identifies each entry in the table
GROUP_ID Foreign Key, String No The corresponding GROUP_ID column of the GROUP_DESC table.
SEQUENCE_FILE_NAME String Yes Indicates the name of the sequence file in which the property exists.
SEQUENCE_NAME String Yes Indicates the name of the sequence that each property will be imported into. If the sequence name for a property is blank, the property will be imported into all sequences within the sequence file.
CATEGORY String No Indicates the location of each property. The location can be one of the following literal values.
  • {StationGlobals}—Indicates that the property is a station global variable.
  • {FileGlobals}—Indicates that the property is a file global variable.
  • {Locals}—Indicates that the property is a local variable within a sequence.
  • {Parameters}—Indicates that the property is a sequence parameter.
  • {Attributes}—Indicates that the property is a sequence attribute.
If the category is not one of the above values, CATEGORY must specify a value the can uniquely identify the step property. Typically, that is either the name or ID of a step, and the columns to the right specify the property of the step. See the example PROPERTIES table image below for more information about step name and ID formats.
PROPERTY_LOOKUP String No Indicates the lookup string of the property whose value will be updated. If the lookup is specified using an alias, the alias name is represented within <>. Refer to Rows 2, 3, 5, and 6 in the example image below for an example of alias name representation.If the lookup is for a container, the name of the container is enclosed in [] and suffixed with .Type. The VALUE column is null in this case. Refer to column 13 in the example image below for an example of array representation.If the database was exported with type information, values in this column will also contain the type information after the lookup string, enclosed within {}.
VALUE String Yes Indicates the value of the property to be imported.

See the following image for an example of a PROPERTIES table. When the PROPERTIES table contains data associated with step properties, either the step name, step ID, or both should be specified in the CATEGORY column. Rows 1-6 demonstrate valid ways to specify these values.

ALIAS Table Structure

The following table describes the schema that defines alias names for the Property Loader step. The Property Loader step allows you to optionally specify alias names for properties within the database table. Aliases allow you to refer to properties within the database with meaningful names, rather than a property lookup string. When a PROPERTIES file contains aliases, a corresponding ALIAS table must be associated with the PROPERTIES table.

Note   Use of an ALIAS table is optional.
Column Name Data Type Can Be Null? Purpose
ALIAS_NAME Primary Key, String No The alias name.
PROPERTY_LOOKUP String No The lookup string that maps the alias name to the property.

See the following image for an example of an ALIAS table that shows the mapping between alias names and their lookup strings. Note that the alias name PowerOnLimitLow is used in the PROPERTIES table example above.