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Hierarchy Expressions (MDX)

This section describes how to create and use hierarchy expressions in InterSystems MDX.

Details

In InterSystems MDX, a hierarchy expression has one of the following forms:

  • A hierarchy literal, which is a direct reference to the hierarchy as follows:

    [dimension_name].[hierarchy_name]
    

    Where:

    For example:

    [gend].[h1]
    
  • A reference to a dimension:

    [dimension_name]
    

    For example:

    [gend]
    

    The system interprets this as a reference to the first visible hierarchy of that dimension.

  • An expression that uses an InterSystems MDX extension to refer to a hierarchy in another cube, via the following syntax:

    [relationship_name].hierarchy_expression
    

    Where relationship_name is the name of a relationship in the cube used by the query and hierarchy_expression refers to a hierarchy contained in that relationship.

Uses

A bare hierarchy expression returns all records; this expression is equivalent to an All member. (Note that you can use a bare hierarchy expression even if the dimension does not formally define an All level.) For example:

SELECT MEASURES.[%count] ON 0, colord.h1 ON 1 FROM patients
 
                             Patient Count
                                      1,000

Also, you can use a hierarchy expression as an argument to any of the following functions:

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