(William Pearson) In this lesson, we will expose another highly popular function in the MDX toolset, the CrossJoin() function. The general purpose of the CrossJoin() function is to allow us to produce all combinations of two sets. A primary driver for wanting to do this is to “collapse” two (or perh
Other News
How to Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 as Your XML Editor
This Support WebCast session provides general information about XML and its basic usage in Word 2003. The session also talks about improvements in Microsoft Office Word 2003 and how to use it as an XML editor. (R, webcast)
Tame Those Strings
(Steve Jones) Recently I was working with some data and I needed to build some complex strings. However there was a catch. These strings would be used for for shell commands. I ran into an interesting problem that I solved one way, and then, while digging through BOL on another matter, I found a bet
Inline Views And Outer Joins
(Mark Rittman) I had an interesting question put to me at work yesterday, where a colleague was having problems with an outer join in an SQL statement. My collegue was putting together as system that recorded bids for contracts, storing the userid of the system operator, the details of the prospe
Working with Dates
(Philip Greenspun) When representing date-time information in Oracle it becomes absolutely critical to know with which version of the Oracle server you are working. From version 9 onwards it is possible to represent points in time and time intervals using ANSI SQL data types such as timestamp and in
IBM Queues Up Stinger, Information Integrator Betas
(Barbara Darrow) IBM Software is prepping beta versions of its next-generation DB2 database and information integration products for release by the end of June. The next release of DB2, code-named Stinger, will be offered with a new “Partition Advisor” to make it easier for administrators to con
Viewing DB2 Server for VSE & VM Log Records
DBAs often express the need to view log records for a specific table. You might want to view the log records to: –Determine how invalid entries are being inserted into the database. –Identify actions taken by a specific user. –Create an audit trail of actions on key, critical database ta
An XML Eye for the Database Guy (Part I)
(Kent Tegels) A couple of weeks ago, my co-worker Phil and I were having a few beers when SQL Server “Yukon” and Extensible Markup Language (XML) came up. One of the most interesting things about Yukon is how deeply and extensively XML is supported. Phil also has been to a couple of my in-house trai
Tackling Slowdowns: Utility Throttling in IBM DB2 UDB V8.1.2 and Beyond
(Paul C. Zikopoulos and Roman B. Melnyk) The maintenance of any database involves the routine invoking of utilities that perform backup operations, data rebalancing, updating the database statistics, reorganizing a table, and so on. In IBM DB2 Universal Database for Linux, UNIX and Windows (DB2 UDB)
Generate SQL*Loader Control File for Any Table
(Navroz Kapadia) This script will generate a SQL*Loader control file for any specified table, which can then be customized as per individual needs. Ensure it is run by a user with SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE. Parameter 1 is the owner of the table. Parameter 2 is the tablename.