Oracle Tips  by Burleson Consulting

The Data Warehouse Development Life Cycle

ANALYZING SOURCE DOCUMENT INPUT
* Repeating Item--An item that repeats is placed in curly braces. The range of values for the repeating group is noted with numbers, with the lower bound on top of the curly braces and the upper bound on the bottom of the curly braces. Items with an unlimited number of repetitions use an n for the upper bound. The following code shows an example of a repeating item:

5
hand = {fingers}
5

0
job_history = {employer_name, dates_of_employment, ending_salary}
6

* Choose One Item--An item selection with a specific range of values is indicated with vertical bars. This type of data description indicates a range of valid values for a data item as follows:

sex = ! male !
! Female !
! Unknown !

payment_method = ! cash !
! check !
! credit_card !
! food_stamps !

These data descriptions will be used later in this chapter as we create the source documents for our sample data warehouse.

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This is an excerpt from "High Performance Data Warehousing". To learn more about Oracle, try "Oracle Tuning: The Definitive Reference", by Donald K. Burleson.  You can buy it direct from the publisher at 30% off here:
http://www.rampant-books.com/book_1002_oracle_tuning_definitive_reference_2nd_ed.htm