Querying Your Cube - Getting Started with SQL Server 2012 Cube Development - page 124

The way you do this is by referencing the slice using a tuple. A tuple is a list of mem-
bers from one or many of the dimensions in the cube. Look at the following query:
--Query 5.10
SELECT [Measures].[Sales Amount] ON 0,
([Product].[Product Hierarchy].[Product
Subcategory].&[1],
[Order Date].[Hierarchy].[Calendar
Quarter].&[2007]&[1]) ON 1
FROM [Adventure Works DW2012];
In this case, the result will contain the Sales Amount for bikes during calendar
year 2007 and calendar quarter Q1. This is specified as the following tuple:
([Product].[Product Hierarchy].[Product Subcat-
egory].&[1],[Order Date].[Hierarchy].[Calendar
Quarter].&[2007]&[1]) . As you can see, the tuple is identified as an ordered
list of members from two dimensions with a comma between them enclosed by par-
enthesis characters.
Note
If you do not reference a dimension in a tuple, the default member is used to con-
trol what is part of the cube slice. In the previous query, you have not specified
what customers are part of the tuple. So how does Analysis Services determ-
ine what is returned? This is done through DefaultMember of the attribute. By
default, Analysis Services will include all members but if the DefaultMember
property is defined, it can automatically limit the slice returned.