Parent Child Dimension

[terryd]

Hi All,

I am trying to load a dimension with parent child hierarchy as such:

• Child Parent
  ALL
  Asia Pacific ALL
  Central Europe ALL
  North America ALL

This is what I get when I load it into Architect using TI, since the Parent of "ALL" is Blank, I get a # sign.

• #
  ALL
  Asia Pacific
  Central Europe
  North America

Any idea how to get rid of the "#" on top of the hierarchy? I must keep the ALL row in my dimension data since I am using a star schema.
Any help is much appreciated!

Regards,

Terry

[Alan Kirk]

Hi All,

I am trying to load a dimension with parent child hierarchy as such:

• Child Parent
  ALL
  Asia Pacific ALL
  Central Europe ALL
  North America ALL

This is what I get when I load it into Architect using TI, since the Parent of "ALL" is Blank, I get a # sign.

• #
  ALL
  Asia Pacific
  Central Europe
  North America

Any idea how to get rid of the "#" on top of the hierarchy? I must keep the ALL row in my dimension data since I am using a star schema.
Any help is much appreciated!

It would be useful to see the actual code relating to this process.

However I suggest that you also double check your data source content for I do not think it is what you think it is. Specifically I doubt that the parent element of All is in fact shown as an empty string.

The reason is that if you use the DimensionElementComponentAdd function with an empty string as the parent element then you won't have a consolidation named "#" automagically entered and used as the parent; instead the function will simply return a minor error along the lines of:

Code: Select all

Error: Prolog procedure line (n): Consolidated Element "" not found.

This suggests that your data source is in fact sending "#" as the parent element. (Or that you're generating this with Performance Muddler and it's doing something idiotic like writing a line of code to treat empty strings as "#", which is again why it would be useful to see the actual code. Having an allergy to both auto-generated code in general and Performance Muddler in particular I don't know what that thing might or might not be doing if you rely on its little GUI wizard to generate your code. Which you shouldn't.)

In any case, the solution is essentially the same; you just skip over adding the child element if the parent is "#" or an empty string.

[Michel Zijlema]

This suggests that your data source is in fact sending "#" as the parent element. (Or that you're generating this with Performance Muddler and it's doing something idiotic like writing a line of code to treat empty strings as "#", which is again why it would be useful to see the actual code. Having an allergy to both auto-generated code in general and Performance Muddler in particular I don't know what that thing might or might not be doing if you rely on its little GUI wizard to generate your code. Which you shouldn't.)

In any case, the solution is essentially the same; you just skip over adding the child element if the parent is "#" or an empty string.

Or you're using package connector - which indeed replaces NULLs by the hash symbol.

Michel

[terryd]

This suggests that your data source is in fact sending "#" as the parent element. (Or that you're generating this with Performance Muddler and it's doing something idiotic like writing a line of code to treat empty strings as "#", which is again why it would be useful to see the actual code. Having an allergy to both auto-generated code in general and Performance Muddler in particular I don't know what that thing might or might not be doing if you rely on its little GUI wizard to generate your code. Which you shouldn't.)

In any case, the solution is essentially the same; you just skip over adding the child element if the parent is "#" or an empty string.

Or you're using package connector - which indeed replaces NULLs by the hash symbol.

Michel

Thanks guys for all your input. Yes, I am indeed using package connector, Whats your suggested method of removing this? what would be the approach to "you just skip over adding the child element if the parent is "#" or an empty string"

Thanks Again,

Terry

[terryd]

Did a ElementDelete in the Epilog, I guess that will do for now.

Terry

[Martin Ryan]

what would be the approach to "you just skip over adding the child element if the parent is "#" or an empty string"

In pseudo code you'll need

Code: Select all

insert child to dimension
if sParent='' then
  do nothing
else
  insert parent to dimension
  create parent child relationship
end if

You'll want functions like dimensionelementcomponentadd and dimensionelementinsert. When comparing strings you use the @ symbol. E.g. if(string1@=string2);