MDX Concepts - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services - page 144

As we go along, we explain what Analysis Services does along the way as it populates the
current coordinate.

1. The current coordinate is populated with the default members of all the attribute
hierarchies. Internally it looks like this:

(Measures.DefaultMember,
Customer.City.All, Customer.Country.All, Customer.All, Customer.Education.All,
➥

Customer.Gender.All,...
Product.Brand.All, Product.Product.All, Product.Category.All, Product.
➥

Department.All, Product.Family.All,...
Time.Date.All, Time.Day.All, Time.Month.All, Time.Quorter.All, Time.Week.All,
➥

Time.Year.All,...
Store.Store.All, Store.Store City.All, Store.Store Country.All, Store.Store
➥

Manager.All,...
)
2. The current coordinate is overwritten with the members used in the WHERE clause:

([Measures].[Unit Sales],
Customer.City.All, Customer.Country.All, Customer.All, Customer.Education.All,
➥

Customer.Gender.All,...
Product.Brand.All, Product.Product.All, Product.Category.All, Product.
➥

Department.All, Product.Family.All,...
Time.Date.All, Time.Day.All, Time.Month.All, Time.Quorter.All, Time.Week.All,
➥

Time.Year.All,
Store.Store.All, Store.Store City.All, Store.Store Country.All, Store.Store
➥

Manager.All,...
)
3. The current coordinate is overwritten with the members used in the Columns and
Rows axis:

([Measures].[Unit Sales],
Customer.City.All, Customer.Country.USA , Customer.All, Customer.Education.All,
➥

Customer.Gender.All,...
Product.Brand.All, Product.Product.All, Product.Category.All, Product.
➥

Department.All, [Product].[Product Family].[Drink] ,...

Time.Date.All, Time.Day.All, Time.Month.All, Time.Quorter.All, Time.Week.All,
Time.Year.1998 ,...
Store.Store.All, Store.Store City.All, Store.Store Country.All, Store.Store
➥

➥

Manager.All,...
)
4. The value of the first cell produced by this query is calculated from the coordinates
produced by step 3.

In many cases, it's useful to reference the current coordinate in an MDX expression. For
this, MDX provides the <hierarchy>.CurrentMember function. This function returns a
projection of the current coordinate onto a particular hierarchy.