A navigation query is a combination of one or more dimension values.
These dimension values are referred to as the navigation descriptors. A navigation query instructs the MDEX Engine to return the set of records that represents the intersection of all the dimension values that it contains. For example, in the illustration below, Bottle A represents the intersection between the Red and USA dimension values. Bottle C represents the intersection between the White and France dimension values.
When an intersection does not exist between all of the dimension values in a navigation query, that query is considered a dead end. For example, in the illustration above, the Sparkling and Chile dimension values have no bottles in common and, therefore, no intersection. (In other words, there are no sparkling wines from Chile.)
The MDEX Engine automatically removes the possibility of such dead-end queries by the way it structures the follow-on query information that it returns in its query results. This is the essence of Guided Navigation.
Note
A default navigation query uses all of the dimension values together (that is, it implies an AND operation). This is the type of query we are describing here. Oracle Commerce Guided Search has features that allow you to implement other, more advanced types of queries. See the "Default and advanced navigation queries" topic.
Related links
