Names for Model Elements

Names for Model Elements

When you define a model element, you specify a logical name for it (the Name field in the Architect). This name is used in MDX queries and also is the default display name for that element. This section discusses requirements and suggestions for these names. If you attempt to define a non-compliant name, the system will notify you of the error and prompt you to enter a different name.

The logical names must follow these rules:

• The first character must be either a letter (in the Latin-1 character set), a number, or the underscore character (_).

• The other characters must be either letters, numbers, spaces or underscore characters. InterSystems IRIS versions 2020.1.1 and later also support periods and colons in element names.

  Note that if you use spaces in a name, you must enclose the name within square brackets when writing MDX queries.

• The name must not be an MDX reserved keyword. Reserved keywords are not case-sensitive in MDX.

• To be considered unique, element names cannot differ in case alone. For example, zipcode and zipCode are not considered unique names.

The logical names must also follow these additional rules:

• Within a given InterSystems IRIS namespace, each cube name must be unique.

• Within a given cube, each dimension name must be unique.

• Within a given dimension, each hierarchy name must be unique.

• Within a given hierarchy, each level name must be unique.

  Note:

  Level names do not have to be unique within a cube. If you do have multiple levels with the same name within a cube, however, you must specify the Field name in fact table option and ensure that each level has a unique name in the fact table. See Specifying Field Names in the Fact Table.

• Within a given level, each property name must be unique. If the cube class definition manually defines <member> elements for a level, a property cannot have the same name as any <member> element within that level.

• Names of intrinsic properties are case-insensitive reserved keywords and cannot be used as names of your properties, with one exception. The exception is that you can create a property named Name (in any case), if that property also has the option Use as member names enabled.

  For a list of intrinsic properties, see Intrinsic Properties.

• Within a given cube, each measure name must be unique.

• If an Expression element is defined such that it returns an object rather than a single value, its logical name must not include the full-stop (“.”) character. In these cases, InterSystems recommends using the underscore (“_”) character instead.