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Oracle® OLAP Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2) Part Number B14350-01 |
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# Parent-Child Dimensions

A parent-child dimension table is one in which the hierarchical relationships are defined by a parent column and a child column. Since the hierarchy is defined by the relationship between the values within two columns, a parent-child dimension is sometimes referred to as having a value-based hierarchy.

Sample Parent-Child Dimension Table Columns

The following example illustrates the relationships between the values in the child and parent columns. A description column, which is an attribute of the child, is also included.

    CHILD           PARENT         DESCRIPTION
    -------------   -----------    -------------
    World                          World
    USA             World          United States of America
    Northeast       USA            North East Region
    Southeast       USA            South East Region
    MA              Northeast      Massachusetts
    Boston          MA             Boston, MA
    Burlington      MA             Burlington, MA
    NY              Northeast      New York State
    New York City   NY             New York, NY
    GA              Southeast      Georgia
    Atlanta         GA             Atlanta,GA
    Canada          World          Canada

If you choose to create OLAP Catalog metadata to represent a parent-child dimension, set the `solved_code` for the hierarchy to `'SOLVED VALUE-BASED'`, as described in Chapter 14, "CWM2_OLAP_HIERARCHY".

Note: You can create OLAP Catalog metadata to represent value-based hierarchies, but this type of hierarchy is not accessible to applications that use the OLAP API.