[Mondrian] Cognos 8.3 & "VBA!" Functions

timothy.lambert at thomsonreuters.com timothy.lambert at thomsonreuters.com
Thu Apr 24 11:46:28 EDT 2008


So the library/package name itself can not be multi-leveled?

So the general form is...
 
    [library![class!]]function(args)

Correct?

________________________________________
From: mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org [mailto:mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org] On Behalf Of Matt Campbell
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 11:26 AM
To: Mondrian developer mailing list
Subject: Re: [Mondrian] Cognos 8.3 & "VBA!" Functions


Spofford' s MDX Solutions book says that you disambiguate the conflicting function names using the classID of the library it is defined in.  An example he gives is:

  EFStatsPackage!FunctionClass!PctDiff([time],[time].prevMember)

So it appears you can have multi-level qualification.

Also, I ran a quick test in SSAS2005 and spaces are permitted on either side of the !.

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:23 PM, <timothy.lambert at thomsonreuters.com> wrote:
The way I understood the problem was that VBA!FOO was an alias for FOO.  Not that VBA was a package name qualification of the function.

Looking at things as a package name qualifier issue completely changes things - I retract everything I said in my original email. :)

Since I didn't realize that VBA is a package name and the ! is a separator, I also don't know whether or not they can be multi-leveled.  But I'll try to find out and open the bug.

Thanks.


-----Original Message-----
From: mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org on behalf of Julian Hyde
Sent: Wed 4/23/2008 8:07 PM
To: 'Mondrian developer mailing list'
Subject: RE: [Mondrian] Cognos 8.3 & "VBA!" Functions

For tracking purposes, can you please log a bug for this.

How general does MDX syntax allow package names to be? Does it allow
multiple levels of qualification (e.g. 'Foo!Bar!MyFun()')? Does it allow
spaces (e.g. 'VBA ! Len("foo")).

We should change the scanner to handle the most general case. I think that
will mean that a function is a list of names rather than the current single
name. Then FunTable.getDef() will become

   public FunDef getDef(
       Exp[] args,
       Validator validator,
       List<String> funNames,
       Syntax syntax)

Initially we can change getDef to ignore all but the last member of the name
list, that is, assume that functions are globally unique.

Julian



> -----Original Message-----
> From: mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org
> [mailto:mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org] On Behalf Of
> timothy.lambert at thomsonreuters.com
> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:33 PM
> To: mondrian at pentaho.org
> Subject: [Mondrian] Cognos 8.3 & "VBA!" Functions
>
> Cognos 8.3 generates MDX VBA functions prefixed with "VBA!";
> e.g. VBA!LEN(<string>).  The signatures and semantics of the
> functions are the same.
>
> I've investigated a number of ways to enhance Mondrian to
> support this prefix.
>
> With all these following solutions, the Mondrian lexical
> analyzer needs to be enhanced to support an identifier token
> that contains a '!'.  This is trivial since the grammar does
> not specify the use of '!'.  Specifically, at line 640 in
> Scanner.java#21, add " case '!':
>
> After this is done, one of the following can be done...
>
> 1) At the scanner level strip "VBA!" from identifiers.
>
> 2) When functions are being resolved during parser reduction
> action processing, strip "VBA!" from the function name being resolved.
>
> 3) Some variation of 1 or 2 in which an alias map is used
> instead of just handling "VBA!".
>
> 4) In the Vba class, make a new method for each VBA! alias.
> Each new method would delegate to its non-VBA! counterpart.
>
> 5) Enhance FunDef and Resolver to support the notion of aliases.
>
> ----
>
> While 1 and 2 are really quick to implement, I view them as
> hacks.  Hacks because they are disjoint from the code that
> sets up function definitions, and does not fit well within
> the OO design of the rest of the system.
>
> I view 3 as only slightly better.  Depending on how the map
> is constructed it may have the same design flaw as 1 and 2.
>
> The forth option is also easy and pretty clean.  The only
> problem is that it only handles the VBA! problem.  Other
> functions are setup differently and would require a different
> (albeit similar) approach.  Furthermore it's very verbose.
>
> I would like to promote some variation of 5.  The question is
> how to best incorporate general alias information into the
> rest of the processing.
>
> One idea that I was playing with is to create a Resolver
> decorator/wrapper that exposes the aliased name but delegates
> to the same Resolver instance setup for the "normally" named FunDef.
>
> There would be a bit of code that processes the aliases and
> adds Resolver instances to the map that is part of FunTableImpl.
>
> Once that map is setup, the rest of the code should operate as is.
>
> Feedback appreciated.
>
> - Tim
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mondrian mailing list
> Mondrian at pentaho.org
> http://lists.pentaho.org/mailman/listinfo/mondrian
>


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