Strategy ONE

String Comparison Behavior

String Comparison Behavior is an advanced VLDB property that is hidden by default. For information on how to display this property, see Viewing and Changing Advanced VLDB Properties.

To ensure that dynamic sourcing can return the correct results for attributes, you must also verify that filtering on attributes achieves the same results when executed against your database versus an Intelligent Cube.

The results returned from a filter on attributes can potentially return different results when executing against the database versus using dynamic sourcing to execute against an Intelligent Cube. This can occur if your database is case-sensitive and you create filter qualifications that qualify on the text data of attribute forms.

If your database is case-sensitive, this is enforced for the filter qualification. However, filtering for an Intelligent Cube is handled by the Analytical Engine which does not enforce case sensitivity.

Consider a filter qualification that filters on customers that have a last name beginning with the letter h. If your database is case-sensitive and uses uppercase letters for the first letter in a name, a filter qualification using a lowercase h is likely to return no data. However, this same filter qualification on the same data stored in an Intelligent Cube returns all customers that have a last name beginning with the letter h.

You can configure this dynamic sourcing behavior for attributes by modifying the String Comparison Behavior VLDB property. This VLDB property has the following options:

  • Use case insensitive string comparison with dynamic sourcing (default): When attempting to use dynamic sourcing, it allows filter qualifications to qualify on the text data of attribute forms without enforcing case sensitivity.

    This is a good option if your database does not enforce case sensitivity. In this scenario, dynamic sourcing returns the same results that would be returned by the filter qualification if the report was executed against the database.

  • Do not allow any string comparison with dynamic sourcing: This option disables dynamic sourcing for attributes when a filter qualification is used to qualify on the text data of attribute forms.

    This is a good option if your database is case sensitive. In this scenario, dynamic sourcing could return different results than what would be returned by the filter qualification if the report was executed against the database.

You can modify this VLDB property for attributes individually or you can modify it for all attributes within a project. While the definition of the VLDB property at the project level defines a default for all attributes in the project, any modifications at the attribute level take precedence over the project level definition. For information on defining a project-wide dynamic sourcing strategy, see the In-memory Analytics Help.

Levels at Which You Can Set This

Project and attribute