MDX Statement Returning Nothing - ssas

I have a Dimension called ExDimension with 1 single attribute called ExAttribute. I currently have 2 members in that dimension along with the unknownmember with data for it. When I run the following MDX, I get nothing back and I don't understand why. Can anyone give me a direction on where to look?
SELECT
{
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].CHILDREN
}
DIMENSION PROPERTIES [ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Attribute Code],
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Company],
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Is Current],
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Is Current Store],
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Is Current Chain],
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[Attribute Label]
ON 0 FROM [CR Data Warehouse]

Your code relies on an implicit type conversion of Analysis Services:
Children works on a member, see the documentation. And you give it a hierarchy. In this case, SSAS does an implicit type conversion to the default member of the hierarchy. I. e. the code
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].CHILDREN
is equivalent to
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].DefaultMember.CHILDREN
In the standard case, this works as the default member is the All member, which has all the "normal" members as its children. I would assume that your ExAttribute hierarchy has a default member which is not the All member, but a member on the bottom level. And that does not have children, hence the above expression returns the empty set.
Assuming your intention is to get the members of the ExAttribute attribute hierarchy except for the All member, my preferred way of coding this would be to use
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[ExAttribute].Members
This does not use an implicit type conversion, and uses the ExAttribute level of the ExAttribute attribute hierarchy. Attribute hierarchies normally have two levels: the All level consisting just of the All member, and the level named like the attribute, which contains all the members coming directly from the dimension table. There can be variations: If you set the attribute property IsAggregatable to false, the All member and the All level is missing, and you can add calculated members to both levels.
You could even use
[ExDimension].[ExAttribute].[ExAttribute]
as, again, there is an implicit type conversion if you have a level and need a set: This implicit type conversion applies the Members function. But I prefer to be explicit, especially as the code does not get that much longer this way.

Related

Is it possible to test if two types are of the same unknown inheritance in VB.net?

Is it possible to dynamically identify the closest common hierarchy or inheritance of two or more unknown typed objects? In other words, I'd like to test if, say, Integer and String have a common hierarchy, without knowing the objects I'm testing are going to be an Integer and String due to user selection. I found a C++ question posted that seems similar to my issue here: Check if two types are of the same template
However, I'm not familiar with any VB.net equivalents of the answers posted there, and online translators simply provide an error when I attempt to translate them. So is this even possible in VB.net in the first place?
The closest to this action that I know of is the .IsAssignableFrom() function, but in my case I don't know what the parent class/interface/whatever is to test against in the first place. the above function is the only thing even remotely related to this issue that pops up on any search I do.
The context I need this is in the Revit API; I'm trying to see if user selected elements have a similar hierarchy/inheritance that is not the Object Type, and if so to allow an action, otherwise, give a warning dialog box.
EDIT: Due to the nature of the Revit API and the desired effects of my command, the users of my plugin could select anything in the model, and I'm not able to determine which of the MANY common ancestors I could be looking for to compare using IsAssignableFrom. I could test for the (I think universal) common ancestor of Element type, but I don't want to allow users to run the command if you select a wall and an element tag. I need to find the common ancestors of the user-selected elements and confirm that the closest common ancestor is below Element type in hierarchy.
For example, the room tag element in the API has a hierarchy sort of like this:
Object -> Element -> SpatialElementTag -> RoomTag
There may be more intermediate inheritances, but I'm not going to track them down in the API documentation. And then each element may have a slightly different ancestry. IsAssignableFrom would be great if I knew the base ancestry I wanted to test for.
TnTinMn's answer gives me the type of solution I'm looking for.
The Type.BaseType Property returns:
The Type from which the current Type directly inherits, or null if the current Type represents the Object class or an interface.
Using this information, it is possible to define an iterator to enumerate the inheritance tree.
Private Iterator Function SelfAndAncestors(srcType As Type) As IEnumerable(Of Type)
Do Until srcType Is Nothing
Yield srcType
srcType = srcType.BaseType
Loop
End Function
Now you can use the Enumerable.Intersect Method to find all common types in the inheritance between two ancestry enumerations and return the first common ancestry type.
Dim t1 As Type = GetType(Form)
Dim t2 As Type = GetType(UserControl)
Dim highestCommonAncestor As Type = Enumerable.Intersect(SelfAndAncestors(t1), SelfAndAncestors(t2)).First()
For this case, the highest common ancestor is ContainerControl.

Differences between Function that returns a string and read only string property [duplicate]

I need to expose the "is mapped?" state of an instance of a class. The outcome is determined by a basic check. It is not simply exposing the value of a field. I am unsure as to whether I should use a read-only property or a method.
Read-only property:
public bool IsMapped
{
get
{
return MappedField != null;
}
}
Method:
public bool IsMapped()
{
return MappedField != null;
}
I have read MSDN's Choosing Between Properties and Methods but I am still unsure.
The C# standard says
§ 8.7.4
A property is a member that provides access to a characteristic of an object or a class. Examples of properties include the length of a string, the size of a font, the caption of a window, the name of a customer, and so on. Properties are a natural extension of fields. Both are named members with associated types, and the syntax for accessing fields and properties is the same. However, unlike fields, properties do not denote storage locations. Instead, properties have accessors that specify the statements to be executed when their values are read or written.
while as methods are defined as
§ 8.7.3
A method is a member that implements a computation or action that can be performed by an object or class. Methods have a (possibly empty) list of formal parameters, a return value (unless the method’s return-type is void ), and are either static or non-static.
Properties and methods are used to realize encapsulation. Properties encapsulate data, methods encapsulate logic. And this is why you should prefer a read-only property if you are exposing data. In your case there is no logic that modifies the internal state of your object. You want to provide access to a characteristic of an object.
Whether an instance of your object IsMapped or not is a characteristic of your object. It contains a check, but that's why you have properties to access it. Properties can be defined using logic, but they should not expose logic. Just like the example mentioned in the first quote: Imagine the String.Length property. Depending on the implementation, it may be that this property loops through the string and counts the characters. It also does perform an operation, but "from the outside" it just give's an statement over the internal state/characteristics of the object.
I would use the property, because there is no real "doing" (action), no side effects and it's not too complex.
I personally believe that a method should do something or perform some action. You are not performing anything inside IsMapped so it should be a property
I'd go for a property. Mostly because the first senctence on the referenced MSDN-article:
In general, methods represent actions and properties represent data.
In this case it seems pretty clear to me that it should be a property. It's a simple check, no logic, no side effects, no performance impact. It doesn't get much simpler than that check.
Edit:
Please note that if there was any of the above mentioned and you would put it into a method, that method should include a strong verb, not an auxiliary verb like is or has. A method does something. You could name it VerifyMapping or DetermineMappingExistance or something else as long as it starts with a verb.
I think this line in your link is the answer
methods represent actions and properties represent data.
There is no action here, just a piece of data. So it's a Property.
In situations/languages where you have access to both of these constructs, the general divide is as follows:
If the request is for something the object has, use a property (or a field).
If the request is for the result of something the object does, use a method.
A little more specifically, a property is to be used to access, in read and/or write fashion, a data member that is (for consuming purposes) owned by the object exposing the property. Properties are better than fields because the data doesn't have to exist in persistent form all the time (they allow you to be "lazy" about calculation or retrieval of this data value), and they're better than methods for this purpose because you can still use them in code as if they were public fields.
Properties should not, however, result in side effects (with the possible, understandable exception of setting a variable meant to persist the value being returned, avoiding expensive recalculation of a value needed many times); they should, all other things being equal, return a deterministic result (so NextRandomNumber is a bad conceptual choice for a property) and the calculation should not result in the alteration of any state data that would affect other calculations (for instance, getting PropertyA and PropertyB in that order should not return any different result than getting PropertyB and then PropertyA).
A method, OTOH, is conceptually understood as performing some operation and returning the result; in short, it does something, which may extend beyond the scope of computing a return value. Methods, therefore, are to be used when an operation that returns a value has additional side effects. The return value may still be the result of some calculation, but the method may have computed it non-deterministically (GetNextRandomNumber()), or the returned data is in the form of a unique instance of an object, and calling the method again produces a different instance even if it may have the same data (GetCurrentStatus()), or the method may alter state data such that doing exactly the same thing twice in a row produces different results (EncryptDataBlock(); many encryption ciphers work this way by design to ensure encrypting the same data twice in a row produces different ciphertexts).
If at any point you'll need to add parameters in order to get the value, then you need a method. Otherwise you need a property
IMHO , the first read-only property is correct because IsMapped as a Attribute of your object, and you're not performing an action (only an evaluation), but at the end of the day consistancy with your existing codebase probably counts for more than semantics.... unless this is a uni assignment
I'll agree with people here in saying that because it is obtaining data, and has no side-effects, it should be a property.
To expand on that, I'd also accept some side-effects with a setter (but not a getter) if the side-effects made sense to someone "looking at it from the outside".
One way to think about it is that methods are verbs, and properties are adjectives (meanwhile, the objects themselves are nouns, and static objects are abstract nouns).
The only exception to the verb/adjective guideline is that it can make sense to use a method rather than a property when obtaining (or setting) the information in question can be very expensive: Logically, such a feature should probably still be a property, but people are used to thinking of properties as low-impact performance-wise and while there's no real reason why that should always be the case, it could be useful to highlight that GetIsMapped() is relatively heavy perform-wise if it in fact was.
At the level of the running code, there's absolutely no difference between calling a property and calling an equivalent method to get or set; it's all about making life easier for the person writing code that uses it.
I would expect property as it only is returning the detail of a field. On the other hand I would expect
MappedFields[] mf;
public bool IsMapped()
{
mf.All(x => x != null);
}
you should use the property because c# has properties for this reason

AliasToBean DTO with known type

All the examples I am finding for using the AliasToBean transformer use the sessions CreateSqlQuery method rather than the CreateQuery method. They also only return the basic value types, and not any object's of the existing mapped types.
I was hoping it would be possible that my DTO have a property of one of my mapped Domain objects, like below, but I am not getting traction. I get the following exception:
Could not find a setter for property '0' in class 'namespace.DtoClass'
My select looks like the following on my mapped classes (I have confirmed the mappings pull correctly):
SELECT
fcs.MeasurementPoint,
fcs.Form,
fcs.MeasurementPoint.IsUnscheduled as ""IsVisitUnscheduled"",
fcs.MultipleEntryAllowed
FROM FormCollectionSchedule fcs
My end query will be more complex, but I wanted to confirm if this AliasToBean method can return mapped domain objects as well as basic field values from tables retrieved via sql.
the query execution looks like the following:
var result = session.CreateQuery(hqlQuery.ToString())
.SetResultTransformer(NHibernate.Transform.Transformers.AliasToBean(typeof (VisitFormCollectionResult)))
.List<VisitFormCollectionResult>();
note: the VisitFormCollectionResult DTO has more properties, but I wanted to know if I could populate the domain object properties matching the names
update found my problem! I have to explicitly alias each of the fields. once I added an alias, even though the member property on the class matched my DTO's property name, the hydration of the object worked correctly.
The answer to my own question was that each of the individual fields in the select needed an explicit alias matching the property, regardless if the field name already matched the property name of the DTO object:
SELECT
fcs.MeasurementPoint as "MeasurementPoint",
fcs.Form as "Form",
fcs.MeasurementPoint.IsUnscheduled as "IsVisitUnscheduled",
fcs.MultipleEntryAllowed as "MultipleEntryAllowed"
FROM FormCollectionSchedule fcs

Frege: can I derive "Show" for a recursive type?

I'm trying to implement the classical tree structure in frege, which works nicely as long as I don't use "derive":
data Tree a = Node a (Tree a) (Tree a)
| Empty
derive Show Tree
gives me
realworld/chapter3/E_Recursive_Types.fr:7: kind error,
type constructor `Tree` has kind *->*, expected was *
Is this not supported or do I have to declare it differently?
Welcome to the world of type kinds!
You must give the full type of the items you want to show. Tree is not a type (kind *), but something that needs a type parameter to become one (kind * -> *).
Try
derive Show (Tree a)
Note that this is shorthand for
derive Show (Show a => Tree a)
which resembles the fact that, to show a tree, you need to also know how to show the values in the tree (at least, the code generated by derive will need to know this - of course, one could write an instance manually that prints just the shape of the tree and so would not need it).
Generally, the kind needed in instances for every type class is fixed. The error message tells you that you need kind * for Show.
EDIT: eliminate another possible misconception
Note that this has nothing to do with your type being recursive. Let's take, for example, the definition of optional values:
data Maybe a = Nothing | Just a
This type is not recursive, and yet we still cannot say:
derive Show Maybe -- same kind error as above!!
But, given the following type class:
class ListSource c -- things we can make a list from
toList :: c a -> [a]
we need say:
instance ListSource Maybe where
toList (Just x) = [x]
toList Nothing = []
(instanceand derive are equivalent for the sake of this discussion, both make instances, the difference being that derive generates the instance functions automatically for certain type classes.)
It is, admittedly, not obvious why it is this way in one case and differntly in the other. The key is, in every case the type of the class operation we want to use. For example, in class Show we have:
class Show s where
show :: s -> String
Now, we see that the so called class type variable s (which represents any future instantiated type expression) appears on its own on the left of the function array. This, of course, indicates that s must be a plain type (kind *), because we pass a value to show and every value has per definition a type of kind *. We can have values of types Int or Maybe Int or Tree String, but no value ever has a type Maybe or Tree.
On the other hand, in the definition of ListSource, the class type variable c is applied to some other type variable a in the type of toList, which also appears as list element type. From the latter, we can conclude, that a has kind * (because list elements are values). We know, that the type to the left and to the right of a function arrow must have kind * also, since functions take and return values. Therefore, c a has kind *. Thus, c alone is something that, when applied to a type of kind * yields a type of kind *. This is written * -> *.
This means, in plain english, when we want to make an instance for ListSource we need the type constructor of some "container" type that is parameterized with another type. Tree and Maybe would be possible here, but not Int.

Finding variables that share common properties

I'm using Mathematica and have a set of variables (A,B,C,D,...) with properties A=(blue, big, rounded), B=(red, small, spiky), and so forth. Those properties can be common between variables. What would be the best, general way to find all variables that share a common property (of being, for instance, small)? Thanks.
Here's a list of possible properties:
In[1]:= properties={"red","green","blue","big","small","rounded","spiky"};
And here's a list of objects with some of those properties
In[2]:= list={{"blue","big","rounded"},{"red","small","spiky"},
{"red","big","rounded"},{"blue","small","spiky"}};
You can find all objects that have the property of, e.g., being "blue" using Select
In[3]:= Select[list, MemberQ[#,"blue"]&]
Out[3]= {{blue,big,rounded},{blue,small,spiky}}
This could be wrapped up into a function. Although how I would write that function would depend on the data structures and usage that you're planning.
Actually, I just reread you question you have a list of objects with some properties and you want to refer to those objects by name. So you probably want something more like
In[1]:= listProperties["A"]:={"blue","big","rounded"}
listProperties["B"]:={"red","small","spiky"}
listProperties["C"]:={"red","big","rounded"}
listProperties["D"]:={"blue","small","spiky"}
Above I defined some properties that are associated with certain strings. You don't have to use strings in the above or below, and you can create a better structure than that if you want. You could also make a constructor to create the above, such a constructor could also check if the list of properties supplied is of the right form - i.e. does not have contradictory properties, are all in a list of known properties etc...
We then define a function to test if an object/string has a certain property associated with it
In[2]:= hasProperty[obj_, property_]:=MemberQ[listProperties[obj],property]
You might want to return an error or warning message if listProperties[obj] does not have a definition/rule associated with it.
Use Select to find all "objects" in a list that have the associated property "blue":
In[3]:= Select[{"A","B","C","D"}, hasProperty[#,"blue"]&]
Out[3]= {A,D}
There are other ways (probably better ways) to set up such a data structure. But this is one of the simplest ways in Mathematica.