Dimensions provide the logical structure for organizing the records in your data set.
Your Endeca application can have many dimensions, and dimensions can be hierarchical.
A dimension is a collection of related dimension values, organized into a tree. The top-most dimension value in a dimension tree is known as the dimension root. A dimension root always has the same name as its dimension.
- It organizes the record within the tree structure of the associated dimension. In the example below, Bottles A and B are organized under the Red dimension value in the Wine Type dimension, while Bottles C and D are organized under the White dimension value, and so forth.
- It identifies the record as a valid result when that dimension value is selected in a navigation query.
In the example below, a navigation query on the Red dimension value produces a result set of Bottles A and B.
In essence, these two statements are equivalent. You can think of a navigation query as "return all the records that are organized under the xxx dimension value in the yyy dimension." This is the logical view. Or, you can think of it as "return all the records that have been tagged with the xxx dimension value in the yyy dimension." This is the physical view. In either case, the results are the same.
A record can be tagged with many dimension values from many dimensions. This allows users to navigate to records through any dimension or combination of dimensions they choose. (Using multiple dimensions is described in more detail in the "Multiple dimensions" topic.
