Thanks to David Rathburn for pointing out my mistake… It was an inner join I was trying for not outer, and as he quite rightly points out Bob does perform an outer join, and synchronises the dimensions, making #EMPTY’s equal the value from the other DP… much to my annoyance as I could not force it using filters on dummy values, logic variable or any other trick I could think of.
So let’s try again… Shouldn’t business objects allow an ‘INNER’ (hooray!) type of operation when linking data providers?
P.S. I have had times in the past with synchronised dimensions used in sections where the synchronisation seems to fail… instead of a value from the other DP, or even an #EMPTY I seem to get a true null value. I do know a good workaround for this however.
Phil Morris
Analyst Programmer
BITS dept.
Tarmac Heavy Building Materials UK Ltd.
PO Box 8
Ettingshall
Wolverhampton
West Mids
WV4 6JP
In a message dated 98-08-07 16:57:41 EDT, you write:
So let’s try again… Shouldn’t business objects allow an ‘INNER’
(hooray!) type of operation when linking data providers?
Yes!
I agree that this would be a useful feature. When defining the link it would be amazingly useful to be able to specify which sides of the link would be “required” or “optional”. They would probably need to use words other than “inner” or “outer” as the tool is aimed at non-IS type users.
Since they (BusObj) are already doing the hard part (outer joins) you would think that it would be easy for them to implement an inner join, or even a standard outer join (where data is missing only from one side, not from both).
Assume two data providers DP1 and DP2
Assume a column from each, DP1.ID and DP2.ID When defining the link, there are four options:
I may have my “left” and “right” backwards, but the idea is sound. Also, unfortunately, totally theoretical at this time. Chalk up my vote for the enhancement request!
Regards,
Dave Rathbun
Integra Solutions www.islink.com See you in Orlando in… a few weeks!