DIMENSIONS Rowset

The DIMENSIONS rowset contains information about the dimensions in a given cube. It has one row for each dimension.

Note   Since OLE DB for OLAP treats measures as just another dimension, there is a row returned in the DIMENSIONS rowset for the measures dimension.

The rowset has the following structure:

Column name Type indicator Description
CATALOG_NAME DBTYPE_WSTR The name of the catalog to which this dimension belongs. NULL if the provider does not support catalogs.
SCHEMA_NAME DBTYPE_WSTR The name of the schema to which this dimension belongs. NULL if the provider does not support schemas.
CUBE_NAME DBTYPE_WSTR Name of the cube to which this dimension belongs. NULL if this dimension does not belong to any cube (which is possible in multicube architectures. For more information, see “Hypercubes and Multicubes” in Chapter 2).
DIMENSION_NAME DBTYPE_WSTR Name of the dimension. If a dimension is part of more than one cube, then there is one row for each cube/dimension combination. For more information, see “Hypercubes and Multicubes” in Chapter 2.
DIMENSION_
UNIQUE_NAME		 DBTYPE_WSTR Unique name of the dimension. For providers that generate unique names by qualification, each component of this name is delimited.
DIMENSION_GUID DBTYPE_GUID The GUID of the dimension. NULL if no GUID exists.
DIMENSION_CAPTION DBTYPE_WSTR A label or a caption associated with the dimension. Used primarily for display purposes. If a caption does not exist, DIMENSION_NAME is returned.
DIMENSION_ORDINAL DBTYPE_UI4 Ordinal number of the dimension, among the group of dimensions that form the cube.
DIMENSION_TYPE DBTYPE_I2 The dimension type. Can be one of the following values:
  • MD_DIMTYPE_TIME, which indicates a time dimension.

  • MD_DIMTYPE_MEASURE, which indicates a measure dimension.

  • MD_DIMTYPE_OTHER, which indicates the dimension is neither a time dimension nor a measure dimension.

  • MD_DIMTYPE_UNKNOWN, which indicates that the provider is unable to classify the dimension.
DIMENSION_
CARDINALITY		 DBTYPE_UI4 The number of members in the dimension. Note that this value can be an approximation of the real cardinality. Consumers should not rely on this being accurate.
DEFAULT_HIERARCHY DBTYPE_WSTR The default hierarchy for this dimension. This is a unique name. NULL if no default hierarchy exists.
DESCRIPTION DBTYPE_WSTR A human-readable description of the dimension. NULL if no description exists.

The default sort order is: CATALOG_NAME, SCHEMA_NAME, CUBE_NAME, and DIMENSION_NAME.