Attribute

Syntax

An attribute definition is composed of the following elements :

• name

• ":" (separator)

• type (attribute "neutral type" )

• further information (optional) defined between "{" and "}"

  • annotations (optional)

  • tags (optional)

• ";" (end of definition)

Syntax :

name : type { annotations and tags } ;

An attribute or link definition can span multiple lines. Example :

name : type { 
            annotations 
            tags } ;

Name

The name can be composed of : letters, numbers and "_" (underscore). Other characters are not allowed. By convention the name usually starts with a lower case character.

Each name must be unique in the entity.

Examples of valid attribute names :

• age

• firstName

• first_name

• flag12

Examples of invalid attribute names :

• flag#12 ( "#" not allowed )

• first-name ( "-" not allowed )

• $code ( "$" not allowed )

Attribute type

An attribute is a simple and unitary piece of data such as a string, a number, etc.

Its type is defined by a "neutral type" independent of any programming language.

Each "neutral type" will be converted into the target language type during generation.

Telosys offers automatic conversion for most used languages (Java, C#, etc, see Target languages).

Available types

String or text type

string	standard "string" type

Numeric types

byte	8-bit integer range: -128 to +127
short	16-bit integer range: -32,768 to +32,767
int	32-bit integer range: -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647
long	64-bit integer range: -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to +9,223,372,036,854,775,807
float	single-precision 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point
double	double-precision 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point
decimal	arbitrary precision decimal number, not limited to 32 or 64 bits like float or double

Temporal types

date	to store a date year, month and day
time	to store a time hour, minute, second, and optionally nanosecond without time zone
datetime (since ver 4.3.0)	to store a date with the time year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and optionally nanosecond without time zone
datetimetz (since ver 4.3.0)	same as "datetime" but with "Time Zone Offset"
timetz (since ver 4.3.0)	same as "time" but with "Time Zone Offset"
timestamp	synonym for "datetime", deprecated since ver 4.3.0

Other types

boolean	to store "true"/"false" value
uuid (since ver 4.3.0)	"Universally Unique Identifier" (128-bit number used to uniquely identify information)
binary	to store a sequence of bytes