Multidimensional Expressions

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Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is a query language for OLAP databases, much like SQL is a query language for relational databases.

Contents

1 History

1.1 mdXML

2 MDX Data Types

2.1 Scalar
2.2 Hierarchy
2.3 Level
2.4 Member
2.5 Tuple
2.6 Set
2.7 Other data types

3 Books
4 External links

History

MDX was first introduced as part of OLEDB for OLAP specification in 1997 from Microsoft. The specification was quickly followed by commercial release of Microsoft OLAP Services 7.0 in 1998, and later by Microsoft Analysis Services. While it was not an open standard, but rather a Microsoft owned specification, it was adopted by the wide range of OLAP vendors, both servers - Applix, Microstrategy, SAS, SAP, Whitelight, NCR and clients - Panorama, Proclarity, Cognos, Business Objects, Brio, Crystal, MicroStrategy etc.

mdXML

In 2001 the XMLA Council, released the XML for Analysis standard, which included mdXML as a query language. In the current XMLA 1.1 specification, mdXML is essentially MDX wrapped in XML tag.

MDX Data Types

There are six primary data types in MDX

Scalar

Scalar is either a number or a string. It can be specified as a literal, i.e. number 5 or string "OLAP" or it can be returned by MDX function, i.e. Aggregate (number), UniqueName (string), .Value (number or string) etc.

Hierarchy

Hierarchy is a dimension hierarchy of a cube. It can be specified by its unique name, i.e. [Time].[Fiscal] or it can be returned by MDX function, i.e. .Hierarchy.

Level

Level is a level in dimension hierarchy. It can be specified by its unique name, i.e. [Time].[Fiscal].[Month] or it can be returned by MDX function, i.e. .Level.

Member

Member is a member in dimension hierarchy. It can be specified by its unique name, i.e. [Time].[Fiscal].[Month].[August], by qualified name, i.e. [Time].[Fiscal].[2006].[Q2].[August] or returned by MDX function, i.e. .PrevMember, .Parent, .FirstChild etc.

Tuple

Tuple is an ordered collection of one or more members from different hierarchies. Tuples can be specified enumerating the members, i.e. ([Time].[Fiscal].[Month].[August], [Customer].[By Geography].[All Customers].[USA], [Measures].[Sales])or returned by MDX function, i.e. .Item.

Set

Set is an ordered collection of tuples with the same hierarchality (dimensionality). It can be specified enumerating the tuples, i.e. or returned by MDX function or operator, i.e. Crossjoin, Filter, Order, Descendants etc.

Other data types

In limited contexts, MDX allows other data types as well - for example Array can be used inside SetToArray function, Dimension can be used inside Leaves function etc. Objects of other data types are represented as scalar strings indicating the object names, such as measure group name in MeasureGroupMeasures function or KPI name in KPIValue, KPIGoal etc functions.

Books

George Spofford: MDX-Solutions. Wiley, 2001, ISBN 0471400467
Mosha Pasumansky, Mark Whitehorn, Rob Zare: Fast Track to MDX. ISBN 1846281741

External links

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