Limiting Composites and Conjoint Dimensions

You cannot explicitly limit the values of a composite. Composites are not dimensions and, therefore, do not have any independent status. The values of a composite that are in status are determined by the values that are in status in the base dimensions of the composite. In general, when OLAP DML functions and commands deal with objects that are defined with composites, the default behavior is to treat those objects as if no SPARSE keyword or named composite had been used when the object was defined.

You can use the LIMIT command to set status for the dimensions of a variable that is defined with a composite in the same way you would when the variable is not defined with a composite.

Example 6-8 Limiting Dimensions Used by a Composite

Suppose your analytic workspace contains a variable named coupons that is dimensioned by month and (using the prod_market composite) product and market as shown in the following definition.

DEFINE coupons VARIABLE INTEGER <month prod_market <product market>>

The following commands display the default status of all of the base dimensions of the coupons variable.

STATUS coupons

The current status of MONTH is:
ALL
The current status of PRODUCT is:
ALL
The current status of MARKET is:
ALL

Later, when you want to access only the values of coupon that apply to sportswear, you limit the base dimension product as shown below.

LIMIT product TO 'SPORTSWEAR'