Using Preserve Hierarchy

The 'Preserve Hierarchy' option on the 'CSV Import/Export Specification' dialog includes fields generated by Enterprise Architect to embed/reconstruct the Package hierarchy in a CSV import or export.

When selected, the 'Preserve Hierarchy' option inserts two fields into the CSV specification that are:

automatically populated by Enterprise Architect on export and
used to reconstruct the exported Package's hierarchy upon import

It is highly recommended that you do not change these fields if they have been automatically generated by Enterprise Architect's CSV exporter.

Inserted Fields

Field	Action	See also
CSV_KEY	A unique identifier for the current element. This key is unique per export; subsequent exports produce different keys for the same set of elements.
CSV_PARENT_KEY	The corresponding CSV_KEY of the current element's parent. If the field is left blank or references a non-existent CSV_KEY, the element is added to the top level of the Package.

Field

Action

See also

CSV_KEY

A unique identifier for the current element.

This key is unique per export; subsequent exports produce different keys for the same set of elements.

CSV_PARENT_KEY

The corresponding CSV_KEY of the current element's parent.

If the field is left blank or references a non-existent CSV_KEY, the element is added to the top level of the Package.

External Data

If you intend to import hierarchical information from a spreadsheet that was not populated by exporting data from Enterprise Architect, you must add these two fields to your spreadsheet as the last two columns, and populate the columns yourself. For example: