Hi there–
I’m posting this again in the hopes of encountering anyone who has successfully used UNION in the way Robert Schmidt describes below. I experimented further, and have the same results. And, when I look at the SQL I get even more confused - the SQL viewer window basically looks like:
Union
Join
Select 1 = this was actually only one select
Select 2 statment as far as I was concerned…
Union
Join
Select 1
Select 2
Union
Join
Select 1
Select 2
Interestingly when I try the unions more simply, without the dummy or NULL user objects, the SQL appears as I would expect, with the SQL for the first query, then UNION, second query, etc., all in one window.
And Robert - if you can provide any more help I’d be most grateful (I just wanted to open this up in the hopes that others may have had similar experiences). And yes, I did like your User II book. 
Thanks -
Amy Miller
Robert -
Thanks for your reply. As a matter of fact, I tried (I think!) exactly what you suggested. As I said, the lineup of results returned by the first union worked fine. But when I used two unions, and three columns, staggered as you show below, it turned up as follows (with the result objects still ordered to appear in what I hoped would be your order):
Dimension_1 Num_1 NULL NULL1
Union
Dimension_1 NULL NULL1 Num_2
Union
Dimension_1 NULL NULL1 NUM_3
I even tried making all the “NULL” objects have different names (still type number), and the same problem resulted. Interestingly, when I used only one union, but still three columns, the result was still
Dimension_1 Num_1 NULL NULL1
Union
Dimension_1 NULL NULL1 Num_2
even though the result objects for the second query were actually ordered NULL Num_2 NULL.
Any suggestions? Has anyonedone this with multiple unions and had it work?
Thanks!
Amy Miller
At 12:52 PM 05/28/1998 -0400, you wrote:
Hi Amy:
You might try creating several NULL objects of type number in the universe.
In the Select clause enter NULL and type it as a number. These objects will
not parse, but they will work fine when combined with other objects in a
query.
Take these objects and use them as holders in your union query.
Dimension_1 Num_1 NULL NULL1
Union
Dimension_1 NULL Num_2 NULL1
Union
Dimension_1 NULL NULL1 NUM_3
When this data is inserted into a report, it should aggregate.
Did you like the User II book? I wrote it… BusinessObjects is supposed to
be acknowledging this fact by sending letters to everybody, but they haven’t
yet. Oh well…
Robert
www.bobooks.com
Schmidt Interactive Software, Inc.
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