Obtaining Access to the Relational Database

OLAP Services is always connected to the relational database

OLAP Services is always connected to its parent Oracle relational database instance. There is no need to establish a connecting using the OLAP DML. OLAP Services does not allow connections to Oracle instances other than the parent instance.

Overview: Using SQL statements in OLAP DML

SQL consists of statements that retrieve, delete, insert, change, and manipulate data stored in relational tables. You can use this embedded SQL in your OLAP DML programs.

OLAP DML SQL command

You can issue SQL statements from an OLAP Services session using the SQL OLAP DML command. Ordinarily, the command is used in an OLAP DML program, but you can also execute some SQL commands it interactively. The argument for the SQL command is a SQL statement.

SQL sql_statement

You can use almost any SQL statement that is supported by Oracle. For example, you can fetch data from relational tables and store it in OLAP DML dimensions and variables.

Using quotation marks

Wherever you would normally use double quotes (") in a SQL statement, you must use a single quote (') in OLAP Services because the OLAP DML interprets a double quote as the beginning of a comment.

Special SQL syntax in OLAP DML

The OLAP DML evaluates SQL statements, either in whole or in part, before sending them to the relational database. Be sure to use the syntax described in this manual, rather than the syntax described in your SQL documentation.