Adding comments to Derived Tables

[Former Member]

Hi

I've just set up a couple of fairly complex derived tables and would like to leave a few clues for the next poor guy. But the Description panel in the Derived Table edit panel is greyed out: I assume that means it's there to display descriptions already defined for tables and columns that you might be selecting. How can I add some comments to my Derived Table to give users and other designers some insight into what it does?

Regards

Mark

[Former Member]

Many (should I say most or all?) databases offer a way to comment SQL code. I often use this to provide comments within the derived table definition itself. Something like:

-- This is a comment describing the table
select tab.col1
, tab.col2
, tab.col3
from tab

Other items to check might be enclosing the comment in /* and */. Your DBA could probably tell you what the proper comment syntax is for your target database.

[Former Member]

Ah: so you have to insert comments into the SQL itself? That's better than nothing but I was hoping that BO supplied a means of commenting the Derived Table object in the same way that it allows descriptions on other Objects and filters in the Universe. If not, I will take your advice and add some embedded descriptions in the SQL

Thanks

Mark

[Former Member]

There is no facility to provide a description for the derived table. The "Description" area you are talking about is used to display help on the various database functions available to you. Try this to see what I mean... open any existing derived table via "Edit" or create a new one, it doesn't matter. Open the list of Number functions on the right, and single click on any one of them. The description field will be populated with help text related to that database function. This works as long as the parameter file (.PRM) includes a description for that function, so if it doesn't work the first time try a few different functions. Eventually you will find one that comes up, I'm sure.

So that's what the description pane is for on that window.