Cesta tam a späť cez Sparx .qea
Čo je súbor .qea v skutočnosti, čo prežije cestu z jedného nástroja do Enterprise Architect a ktoré časti to nikdy nezvládnu.
6 min čítaniaXMI 2.5.12 z 3
01A database, not a document
The single most useful fact about a .qea file is that it is a SQLite database. Not a zip of XML, not a proprietary binary blob - a file you can open with any SQLite client and query. Inside it is Enterprise Architect's repository schema, the same schema Sparx uses when a team puts its repository on a shared SQL Server instead of a file.
That is why the format exists at all. The older .eap and .eapx files were Jet and Access databases, which tied the whole tool to Windows and to a database engine Microsoft stopped caring about. SQLite runs everywhere, which is what makes it possible for a browser-based tool to write a file Enterprise Architect will open.
02What a round trip preserves
| Element | Notation | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Elements | Preserved | Name, type, stereotype, notes and package placement, in t_object. |
| Attributes and operations | Preserved | Their own tables, keyed to the owning object. Types and multiplicity included. |
| Connectors | Preserved | Both ends, the relationship kind, and the role and cardinality on each end. |
| Diagram layout | Preserved | The reason to prefer .qea over XMI: coordinates are first-class rows rather than an extension. |
| GUIDs | Preserved | Every element keeps its identifier, which is what lets a later re-import update rather than duplicate. |
| Baselines and version history | Lost | A generated file is a first version. Nothing outside the tool can reconstruct a history it never had. |
The GUID row is the one worth dwelling on. Because element identifiers survive, a genuine round trip is possible in principle: export, edit elsewhere, re-import, and the tool can match the incoming elements to the ones it already has rather than creating a second copy of everything. Whether it does is a property of the importing tool, not of the file.
03Doing it without losing a Friday
Open the exported file in a SQLite browser before you open it in Sparx. Count the rows in t_object and compare against the number of elements you expected. A file that is missing elements is obvious in five seconds there and takes half an hour to notice in a modelling tool.
Keep the package structure shallow on the way out. Deep nesting is where foreign-key mistakes hide, and a flat set of packages that you re-organise inside Enterprise Architect afterwards is faster than debugging a hierarchy that arrived half-attached.
Do not expect the file to carry a process. Baselines, review comments, requirement traceability and project-management data are all real parts of an Enterprise Architect repository and none of them exists in a model that was built somewhere else. A generated .qea gives you the model; the process starts over.
In one line each
- 01A .qea file is a SQLite database holding Enterprise Architect's repository schema.
- 02It replaced .eap and .eapx to escape Access, which is why non-Windows tools can write it.
- 03Layout is preserved because coordinates are rows in the schema, not an optional extension.
- 04GUIDs survive, which is what makes a genuine round trip possible rather than a duplicate import.
- 05Baselines, reviews and requirement links are repository process, and no generated file has them.
04Časté otázky
Čo je súbor .qea?
Databáza SQLite so schémou repozitára Enterprise Architect. Nahradila súbory .eap a .eapx založené na Accesse ako predvolený lokálny formát Sparxu, a preto sa otvára aj v nástrojoch na macOS a Linuxe, kde staršie formáty nefungovali.
Aký je rozdiel medzi .eap a .qea?
Obal, nie obsah. Oba nesú tú istú schému repozitára; .eap a .eapx sú databázy Jet alebo Access viazané na Windows, kým .qea je SQLite a prenosné. Sparx medzi nimi vie konvertovať a model vnútri sa konverziou nemení.
Zachová cesta cez .qea rozloženie diagramov?
Áno, na rozdiel od XMI, pretože rozloženie je súčasťou schémy a nie voliteľného rozšírenia. Objekty diagramu nesú svoje súradnice v tej istej databáze ako prvky, ktoré zobrazujú, takže správne zapísaný súbor sa otvorí aj so svojimi pohľadmi.
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