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INFO (PARSE)

The INFO (PARSE) function obtains information produced by a PARSE statement and stored internally by Oracle OLAP. Through the use of keywords, INFO lets you extract specific pieces of information about the expression that you have parsed.

Return Value

The return value depends on the keyword you use, as described in Table: INFO PARSE Keywords. When you try to extract unavailable information or use an index that is out of range, INFO returns NA. For example, if you parse a phrase that contains four expressions and then ask for the twelfth FORMULA, INFO returns NA.

Syntax

INFO(PARSE choice [index])

Parameters

PARSE

Indicates that you want to obtain information produced by a PARSE statement.

choice

The specific information you want. The choices available for PARSE are listed in Table: INFO PARSE Keywords. Choices marked as indexed can take the optional index argument.

index

An INTEGER expression that specifies which result you want for a choice that can have several different results. For example, when you parse text that contains three expressions, each expression has its own formula and data type. You would use index to specify which expression you are interested in.

When you omit index, INFO returns all the information as a multiline value.

INFO PARSE Keywords

Keyword Type Indexed? Meaning

PARSEABLE

BOOL

No

Was Oracle OLAP able to parse the text?

ERRORTEXT

TEXT

No

The text of an error message when the expressions were not parsed.

NUMFORMULAS

INT

No

The number of expressions (formulas) that were parsed.

NUMDIMS

INT

No

The number of dimensions in the union of all the expressions that were parsed.

FORMULA

TEXT

Yes

The text (formula) of the specified expression; index specifies which one you want.

DATA

TEXT

Yes

The data type of the specified expression.

TYPE

TEXT

Yes

The type of object of the specified expression; when the expression is the name of an object, it returns the type; when the expression is a qualified data reference, it returns QDR; when the expression is anything else, it returns EXP.

DIMENSION

TEXT

Yes

The name of the specified dimension in the union of all dimensions of the expressions. 


Examples

Getting Parsed Information

In a simple report program, you want to allow the user to specify the data to be reported as an argument to the program. You want to allow the user to specify an expression and the name of a data variable. You cannot process expression arguments with an ARGS statement, so you use PARSE and INFO to parse the program arguments and produce the report.

The following statements create a simple report program.

DEFINE report1 PROGRAM
PROGRAM
PUSH month product district DECIMALS
DECIMALS = 0
LIMIT month TO FIRST 2
LIMIT product TO ALL
LIMIT district TO 'Chicago'
PARSE ARGS
REPORT ACROSS month: WIDTH 8 <&INFO(PARSE FORMULA 1) -
        WIDTH 13 &INFO(PARSE FORMULA 2)>
POP month product district DECIMALS
END

When users run the program, they can supply either the name of a variable (sales) or an expression (sales-expense) or both as arguments.

The following statement

REPORT1 sales sales-expense

produces the following output.

DISTRICT: CHICAGO
             --------------------MONTH--------------------
             --------Jan95--------- --------Feb95---------
PRODUCT       SALES   SALES-EXPENSE  SALES   SALES-EXPENSE
------------ -------- ------------- -------- -------------
Tents          29,099         1,595   29,010         1,505
Canoes         45,278           292   50,596           477
Racquets       54,270         1,400   58,158         1,863
Sportswear     72,123         7,719   80,072         9,333
Footwear       90,288         8,117   96,539        13,847