Intro To MDX DecathlonNON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10) | Mark V SQL

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Intro To MDX DecathlonNON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10)

10 September, 2012 (14:00) | Decathlon, MDX | By: Mark V
Since you have been following this series with the utmost, life-changing, interest, then you have most certainly read the
previous post, Intro To MDX Decathlon Hierarchy Navigation Basics (6/10). In that post, I used the NON
EMPTY keyword and mentioned I would cover it in the next post. Tada! The next post is right here. This one will also
cover the CROSSJOIN function.

NON EMPTY Keyword

The NON EMPTY keyword is used on a query axis, placed just before that axis expression. It tells MDX to eliminate from
the results any axis members that are empty for the entire axis. For example, if place on the COLUMNS axis, any
columns in the result for which all of the returned cells are empty would be excluded from being returned.
My Borg cube awaits.
In Query 1, we declare a named set called The Eighties made up of all ten years that appear in that decade. We then
return the overall Episode Count of episodes that first aired during each of those years.
Query 1

WITH SET TheEighties AS

{
(
[Date].[Date Hierarchy].[Calendar Year].[1980]
:[Date].[Date Hierarchy].[Calendar Year].[1989]
)
}
SELECT
[Measures].[Episode Count] ON COLUMNS
, TheEighties ON ROWS
FROM [Borg]

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Result 1
You will notice in Result 1 that the cells for 1980 thru 1986 have no
contents, as shown by the (null). This may be the result you want to

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In Query 2, we use the NON EMPTY keyword in front of the ROWS axis expression to tell MDX to eliminate the (null)
cells from the Rows axis or our result.
Query 2

WITH SET TheEighties AS

{
(
[Date].[Date Hierarchy].[Calendar Year].[1980]
:[Date].[Date Hierarchy].[Calendar Year].[1989]
)
}
SELECT

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Intro To MDX DecathlonNON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10) | Mark V SQL

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[Measures].[Episode Count] ON COLUMNS

, NON EMPTY TheEighties ON ROWS
FROM [Borg]

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Result 2

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In Result 2, the (null) cells have been beamed out of our result and we
only see cells that actually have values for the Episode Count measure.

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This is a very basic usage of NON EMPTY. You will see later on, in one of my CROSSJOIN queries, that you can still get
empty cells on the axis for which you have used the NON EMPTY keyword. It only eliminates members of the axis for
each every cell on the axis is empty. If there is at least one that has a value, then that member of the axis will be
returned. That will make more sense a little bit later.
I also want to make a very important point here. The NON EMPTY keyword is very easy to use. But it is also very easy
to misuse. Make sure you fully understand how it will affect your result before you use it. There is also a function,
NONEMPTY(), that can eliminate empty cells. That function is much more flexible in that it does not pertain to an entire
axis. But usage of that, in my opinion, is outside the scope of an Intro to MDX. The key point I urge you to remember is
that use of the NON EMPTY keyword or the NONEMPTY() function must be carefully considered. Understanding how they
work is vital to making sure the results you get from your queries is correct and valid for your purpose. My example
here is just the tip of the iceberg.

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CROSSJOIN Function
The CROSSJOIN function takes as arguments two or more sets. It outputs a super set that is a cross product of every
member of every set with every member of every other set. The order of the tuples in the resulting set is based on the
order in which you provide the sets to the function as well as the order of the tuples within those sets.
NOTE: While all of the documentation (and examples) I can find indicates that CROSSJOIN takes SETS as arguments,
there are instances when it accepts members instead. Both of my CROSSJOIN example queries (Query 3 and Query 4)
pass members, not exclusively sets. You may ask how that can be. I have the same question. As of the time of this

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writing, I dont know that answer. My search engine skills have thus far failed me on this. If you know the answer, I
implore you to post a comment, or a link, or contact me in some fashion. Once I find that answer, I will write up a post
that either explains it or points you to a location that does. Until then, just bear with me that it works.

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Figure 1 shows a simple illustration of a CROSSJOIN between two sets.

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Since Set A was listed first, its members are in the first position of the result. Likewise, since the order of the members
within Set A is X and then Y, the X members CROSSJOIN results appear first. Notice two that the parts of the result
from Set B appear in the order they exist in Set B.

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There are three different ways of using a CROSSJOIN in your MDX.

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Option 1

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CROSSJOIN({<<Set A>>}, {<<Set B>>})

The first method is to just use the word CROSSJOIN and then list each of the sets, separated by commas, within
parentheses.

Option 2

({<<Set A>>},{<<Set B>>})

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Intro To MDX DecathlonNON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10) | Mark V SQL

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June 2015 (1)

April 2015 (2)
March 2015 (2)
January 2015 (11)
December 2014 (2)

The second is to list each of the sets, separated by commas, within parentheses, leaving off the word CROSSJOIN.

Option 3

{<<Set A>>} * {<<Set B>>}

November 2014 (4)

September 2014 (2)
August 2014 (1)
July 2014 (3)
June 2014 (1)
May 2014 (4)
April 2014 (1)
March 2014 (3)

The third is to list out each set and separate them with an asterisk. The asterisk, used in this way, is sometimes
referred to as the CROSSJOIN operator.
MVP Chris Webb (b | t) has an excellent blog post on this topic: The rather-too-many ways to crossjoin in MDX. In
that post, he examines each option and settles on Option 3 as his preferred method. He lays out great reasons for his
choice. I highly recommend that post as well as following Chriss blog. Having played with the CROSSJOIN options a bit,
I agree with him completely. So, for this post, I will be using Option 3, listing out the sets to be cross joined, separating
them with an asterisk.

February 2014 (2)

January 2014 (4)

Lets head to my Borg cube to see CROSSJOIN in action.

November 2013 (2)

CROSSJOIN Example 1: Basic CROSSJOIN

October 2013 (5)

August 2013 (3)
July 2013 (1)
June 2013 (2)
April 2013 (3)
March 2013 (3)

In Query 3, we are cross joining the members of the [Season].[Season Name] attribute hierarchy with the [Measures].
[Episode Count] measure. The NON EMPTY keyword usage in Query 3 is just to make sure I am only returning Seasons
that actually have episodes. My [Season].[Season Name] dimension ranges from 1 to 15 (Why did I do that?). Since no
Star Trek series went into an eighth season, we stop at Season 7. The NON EMPTY is preventing the completely empty
Seasons 8 15 from muttering up our results.
Query 3

February 2013 (1)

January 2013 (1)
November 2012 (1)
October 2012 (3)
September 2012 (4)

SELECT
NON EMPTY [Season].[Season Name].children
* [Measures].[Episode Count] ON COLUMNS
, [Series].[Series Name].children ON ROWS
FROM [Borg]

August 2012 (6)

July 2012 (4)
June 2012 (1)

Result 3

May 2012 (3)

April 2012 (5)
March 2012 (2)
February 2012 (2)
October 2011 (2)
July 2011 (2)
April 2011 (1)
March 2011 (2)
January 2011 (1)

Notice how short and simple Query 3 is. Then notice how cool Result 3 is. MDX and CROSSJOIN rock. While you

December 2010 (2)

technically CAN produce results like this using T-SQL, it is going to require far more complexity than the
straightforward, compact, MDX of Query 3.

October 2010 (1)

September 2010 (1)
August 2010 (1)
July 2010 (1)
June 2010 (4)
May 2010 (3)
April 2010 (3)
March 2010 (1)

By cross joining the seasons with the episode count, you can see that each column of the episode count for a different
season. Since I put the series on the rows, we get, with a very simple query, the total episode count of every (live
action) Star Trek series by season. Dig it.
You will note that, despite the NON EMPTY key word on the COLUMNS axis, there are empty cells in the result. Take a
close look at the Season 04 column. Since that column has at least one value that is NOT empty, that column is
returned. However, there is no column for Season 08 because ALL episode counts that for that column are empty.

CROSSJOIN Example 2: CROSSJOIN And The Autoexists Concept

February 2010 (1)

November 2009 (1)

When you use cross join to get the cross product of members of hierarchies in the same dimension, your result will only
include cells that actually exist. That is due to the Autoexists concept you can read more about here. In Query 4, we
are cross joining the members of the [Calendar Month] level of the [Date Hierarchy] with the [1966] member of the

July 2009 (1)

[Calendar Year] attribute hierarchy. Both of these hierarchies are in the [Date] dimension. This brings the Autoexists

June 2009 (1)

feature into play.

May 2009 (1)

Query 4

January 2010 (2)

March 2009 (1)

February 2009 (3)
May 2007 (1)

SELECT
[Measures].[Episode Count] ON COLUMNS
, [Date].[Date Hierarchy].[Calendar Month].members
* [Date].[Calendar Year].[1966] ON ROWS
FROM [Borg]

Results 4
You can see in Result 4 that we only get [Calendar Month]
members that are actually in the year 1966 returned. Using
CROSSJOIN in this way can accomplish great things for you if you

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Intro To MDX DecathlonNON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10) | Mark V SQL

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play around with it a bit. Just be careful since creating cross

products can quickly spiral out of control.

In this post, we looked at a very simple example of using the NON EMPTY keyword to eliminate null results across an
entire axis. We also took a quick look at some simple examples of using the CROSSJOIN function. In the next post, we
will take a look at doing a little time travel with the LEAD and LAG functions.
Tags: Decathlon, MDX
Intro To MDX DecathlonHierarchy Navigation
(6/10)
IntroBasics
To MDX
DecathlonLEAD() and LAG() Functions (8/10)

Comments
Pingback from Intro To MDX DecathlonIntroduction | Mark V SQL
Time September 17, 2012 at 1:33 pm
[] .members Function (5/10) 6. Intro To MDX Decathlon Hierarchy Navigation Basics (6/10) 7. Intro To
MDX Decathlon NON EMPTY and CROSSJOIN (7/10) 8. Intro To MDX Decathlon LEAD() and LAG() Functions []
Comment from yahoo search
Time April 8, 2014 at 10:56 am
Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem
to be running off the screen in Chrome. Im not sure if this is a
formatting issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I figured Id post to let you know.
The design and style look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon.
Many thanks

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