The difference between model and petal files

IBM staff (dwinfo@us.ibm.com), Staff, IBM, Software Group

This article brought to you by IBM staff.

Summary: from The Rational Edge:

Date: 08 Mar 2004
Level: Advanced
Activity: 105 views

DOCUMENT	3232
TITLE:	What is a petal file vs a model file?
PRODUCT:	Rose
OS:	ANY
DEFECT #:	N/A
PATCH #:	N/A
REFERENCES:	N/A
CREATED:	11-DEC-1995
REVISED:	N/A

Question

What is the difference between *.mdl and *.ptl files?

Answer:

"Petal" is the name of the platform-independent syntax Rose uses to store one or more model components in a file. All files created by Rose's File:Save, File:SaveAs, and File:Export commands, and the analyzer's Action:ExportToRose command utilize the petal syntax, and can properly be referred to as "petal files". Just be sure your articulation is crisp if you choose to utter this phrase in public.

Rose's File:Export command places a petal description of the selected component(s) into the designated file. This provides a fine-granularity means of moving or copying components from one model to another. Files created by this command are given a .ptl extension.

In a "monolithic" model - one not broken into controlled units for team development - Rose's File:Save and File:SaveAs commands place a petal description of the entire model into the designated file. Such files are referred to as "model files" and are given the extension .mdl to indicate their content.

In a model broken into controlled units, File:Save places the petal for the model kernel into a file with an .mdl extension; this is also referred to as a "model file", though it really doesn't contain a petal description of the entire model. Each kind of controlled unit - category, subsystem, process diagram, property sets - has its own unique filename extension used when a petal file is created for storage.

Let me repeat:

Model (.mod or .mdl), category (.cat), subsystem (.sub), process (.prc), and properties (.prp or pty) files are all Petal files that hold a single CM unit and are managed by Rose's CM feature. .ptl files are also Petal files. They can contain the Petal for almost any model unit, e.g., a class, a category, a module, or a complete model, and can be loaded into Rose or imported into another model, but not managed by CM.

For more information, contact Rational Software Technical Support.

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This article brought to you by IBM staff.

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