Why do PowerDesigner XML files contain non-ASCII characters?

[GeorgeMcGeachie]

I'm trying to import a PD LDM (16.7.7.2 7583) into ER/Studio using their metadata import bridge. It's four years since I last tried this and it used to work. Now it fails and I think this log message points to the cause:

<WARNING> This file contains unsupported binary characters. Replacing them with spaces

Surely enough, VS Code also warns me about the content.

[Ondrej_Divis · Accepted solution]

Hi George,

your model seems to be called LDM_DATA_MODEL_BIN. Are you sure you haven`t saved it in binary format? That would be pretty good explanation for binary characters presence in the model...

If binary characters are present even in the XML format of the model, that would indeed be quite strange. The only scenario I can think of is manual insertion (copy-paste) directly into the file, meaning neither using the PD GUI nor the PD API.

Regards,

Ondrej Divis

[GeorgeMcGeachie · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Ondrej. Now why didn't I think of that? The original model is 12 years old - I must have been experimenting with performance at the time. Anyway, I resolved it by doing Save|As into the same file name in xml format instead of binary.

[GeorgeMcGeachie · Accepted solution]

That line now reads - signature="LDM_DATA_MODEL_XML" version="16.7.7.7583"?>