Working With Area Specs
When you are designing your Data Grid, you must often define the area of the database to apply certain functions to. For instance, you must specify an area spec for the following functions:
The area spec for a Data View function must be a subset of the data area as defined by the corresponding SHOW DATAAREA command.
You can specify symbols for each base and schedule dimension. Each dimension must be separated by a semicolon ( ; ). A basic area spec has the following syntax:
Dimension1Symbol; Dimension2Symbol; Dimension3Symbol; ...DimensionNSymbol; ScheduleDimension1Symbol; ScheduleDimension2Symbol
If you want to include all symbols in a dimension that are inside the relevant data area, you can leave the symbol specification empty. For example:
Dimension1Symbol;;;;;;;
You can also add multiple symbols for each dimension. Multiple symbols within a dimension must be separated by a pipe ( | ). For example:
Dimension1Symbol1|Dimension1Symbol2; Dimension2Symbol1|Dimension2Symbol2; Dimension3Symbol; ...DimensionNSymbol1|DimensionNSymbol2|DimensionNSymbol3
In addition, you can use symbol specifications to specify the symbols to include in the area spec. The following table lists supported symbol specifications:
| Specification | Meaning |
|---|---|
symbol### |
all leaf symbols under symbol |
symbol#n |
all symbols under symbol, n levels down, including symbol |
symbol##n |
all parent symbols under symbol, n levels down |
symbol##+n |
all parent symbols under symbol, n levels down, including symbol |
symbol#* |
all roots of symbol |
symbol#-n |
all symbols exactly n levels down from symbol |
symbol##^n |
all ancestors of symbol that are n levels above symbol, including symbol |
symbol##^n:root |
all symbols above symbol, n levels up under root, including symbol, where “root” is the root symbol (for example, BALSHEET##^2:TRIALBAL) |