Marius: I'm trying to get to know XFM mechanism.
Excellent idea! Everyone should get to know XFM. Perhaps something like XFM may appear one day in MicroStation, not just the Geo enhancements.
Marius: Now I'm working in PowerMap. I have created new element using Command Manager (choosing my feature). I can see its properties in Feature section of Element Info dialog. I see that they are displayed in the same way like real database fields. But I haven't got any database connection. I suppose these properties are stored in DGN file. I'd like to know how to get them using MDL.
I'd like to know how to get them using MDL.
XFM is built on the mdlXMLFragment_xxx API. XML fragments are small pieces of XML data. An XML fragment is stored in a DGN model. It may be attached to an element, or standalone as model data. With XFM, you're looking at XML fragments attached to an element.
Regards, Jon Summers LA Solutions
The XFM (XML-Based Feature Modeling) capabilities available in both Bentley Map and Bentley PowerMap products, provide support for persistence of properties (e.g. attributes) as XML fragment elements (as Jon correctly states) as well as RDBMS properties using any of the MicroStation supported databases. The ability to read and write properties for both forms of persistence is encapsulated within the XFM API available for MDL* and VBA** developers. Please refer to the "Bentley Map XFM Programmers Reference Guide" and "Bentley Map VBA Programmers Reference Guide" documentation for additional information.
* Please note that MDL development on the Bentley PowerMap platform requires BDN (Bentley Developer Network) membership.
** Use of VBA for XFM development on the Bentley Map and Bentley PowerMap platforms can be accomplished using the XFT (XFM Feature Toolkit) delivered with each product.
Regards,
Jeff Bielefeld [Bentley]