Question
· Aug 21

BI Architect expressions

#Analytics #InterSystems IRIS BI (DeepSee)

I work a lot with IRIS BI, but some features are still a mystery to me. There is a great feature here that allows you to create expressions in Architect.

  

I'm already very familiar with it, but I still don't quite understand what environment it uses.

It can execute system classes like $SYSTEM.SQL,  $PIECE(), %cube, %source(), it can do string concatenation, call methods from another classes.

I have two questions actually.
What environment it uses to execute this? Is it ObjectScript, SQL, MDX or maybe even its own? I need to know this to understand the mechanics behind it, how the Architect work

Second, what are the FULL list of what it can do and what it can not. 

I looked through the "wonderful" documents on this and found several pieces of information scattered over 3-5 pages. 

Product version: IRIS 2025.2
Discussion (7)3
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Stephen Canzano · Sep 29

When building data for a cube, either a full build or a synchronization, think about it this way.  The code generated to support this essentially does a SELECT AllOfYourDimensionsMeasuresRelationships FROM SourceTable.

when you have non primary field references these expressions are evauluated as ObjectScript expressions.

These are documented but not on a single page

%expression 

%cube

%source

%sourceID although this is typically thought of being used in a detail listing specifically if you chose the option for whereas the other's are when defining the cube dimension, measures etc

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Dmitrij Vladimirov · Sep 29

If it is pure ObjectScript how to write IF ELSE statement in %expression for example? Or can i use RETURN stetement? 

There are situations when you need to return a specific value. The Range expression doesn't work, for example, when you need to determine the display value for Null.

So there's only one way

IF 'value {return "Value is False"} else {return "Value is True"}

But this is wont work

I can still define a class method inside the cube and reference it from within, for example, %cube.CustomLogicClass(%source.DBValue), but that seems redundant. It leaves my cube looking cluttered with simple functions containing only if-else logic.

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