Alternative meta data sources

Applies to ✅ Open Source Edition   ✅ Express Edition   ✅ Professional Edition   ✅ Enterprise Edition

Most code generation configurations will reference an actual RDBMS connection using a JDBC URL to connect to a real RDBMS instance for meta data reverse engineering. The main benefit is that an actual database product is used, similar to what is going to be used in production. As such, all vendor specific features are available and code generation isn't limited.

But there are valid reasons for using an alternative meta data source, or "source of truth" for meta data. For example, there may be a pre-existing migration using DDL scripts (such as used by Flyway). Or, you may work with JPA annotated entities and wish to use those as a source of truth.

The following sections illustrated your options in this area.

Table of contents

5.7.1.

JPADatabase: Code generation from entities

5.7.2.

XMLDatabase: Code generation from XML files

5.7.3.

DDLDatabase: Code generation from SQL files