Limiting Composites and Conjoint Dimensions

How to limit a composite

You cannot explicitly limit the values of a composite. Composites are not dimensions and, therefore, do not have any independent status. The values of a composite that are in status are determined by the values that are in status in the base dimensions of the composite. In general, when OLAP DML functions and commands deal with objects that are defined with composites, the default behavior is to treat those objects as if no SPARSE keyword or named composite had been used when the object was defined.

You can use the LIMIT command to set status for the dimensions of a variable that is defined with a composite in the same way you would when the variable is not defined with a composite.

Example: Limiting dimensions used by a composite

Suppose your analytic workspace contains a variable named COUPONS that is dimensioned by MONTH and (using the PROD_MARKET composite) PRODUCT and MARKET as shown in the following definition.

DEFINE COUPONS VARIABLE INTEGER <MONTH PROD_MARKET <PRODUCT MARKET>>

The following commands display the default status of all of the base dimensions of the COUPONS variable.

status coupons
The current status of MONTH is:
ALL
The current status of PRODUCT is:
ALL
The current status of MARKET is:
ALL

Later, when you want to access only the values of COUPON that apply to sportswear, you limit the base dimension PRODUCT as shown below.

limit product to 'SPORTSWEAR'
status coupons
The current status of MONTH is:
ALL
The current status of PRODUCT is:
SPORTSWEAR
The current status of MARKET is:
ALL

Ways of limiting a conjoint dimension

You can limit a conjoint dimension in either of the following ways:

• Limit the base dimensions.

• Limit the conjoint dimension itself.

Limiting a conjoint dimension using value combinations

To limit a conjoint dimension to a list of values, you can use the following constructions:

• Specify the actual values, surrounding each combination with angle brackets.

  limit proddist to <'TENTS' 'BOSTON'> <'FOOTWEAR' 'DENVER'>
  

• Use a variable name for the values, surrounding the combination with angle brackets.

  prodname = 'CANOES'
  distname = 'SEATTLE'
  limit proddist to <prodname distname>
  

• Create a multiline list, in which each line is a combination surrounded by angle brackets and separated by \n (the linefeed escape sequence).

  namelist = mytext = '<\'TENTS\' \'BOSTON\'>\n <\'FOOTWEAR\' \'DENVER\'>'
  limit proddist to namelist
  

Limiting conjoint dimensions using base dimension values

Because there is an implicit relation between a conjoint dimension and its base dimensions, you can limit the conjoint dimension by limiting the base dimensions.

For example, the following command limits a conjoint dimension named PRODDIST to all conjoint values having CANOES as one of the values of the base dimension PRODUCT.

limit proddist to product 'CANOES'

Related information

For more information, see the following table.

IF you want documentation about . . .	THEN see . . .
limiting dimensions,	the rest of this chapter the entry for the LIMIT command in OLAP DML Reference
conjoint dimensions,	"Defining Variables That Handle Sparse Data Efficiently"