<meta>

<meta> allows settings to be made at the level of an individual query (and saved along with the query).

Description

<meta> is an advanced feature that is similar to Advanced Settings in the web interface.

<meta> does not contain any attributes. Instead, the predefined values for <meta> are placed inside the opening and closing tags. You may add multiple attributes in a single meta tag, separated by commas, such as <meta>noblock,empty</meta>.

<meta> should appear at the beginning of the query, before any other operations (except for <ignore> and <base>, if applicable).

<meta> commands persist for the duration of the query, and then reset.

Syntax

<meta>[VAL_1], [VAL_2], . . . [VAL_N]</meta>

Acceptable values for <meta>

The accepted values for <meta> are as follows:

empty
Allow selections to result in an empty table.
noempty
Signal an error if a selection results in an empty table.

Aggregation/blocking

noblock
Do not use blocking in selection and tabulation.
block
Use default blocking factor in selection and tabulation.
block=N
Use blocking by N rows in selection and tabulation.
condense
Use stepwise aggregation in tabulation.
nocondense
Do not use stepwise aggregation in tabulation.
inf2na
Use infinity handling (return N/A instead of infinity when dividing by zero)
noinf2na
Do not use infinity handling (return positive or negative infinity when dividing a non-zero value by zero)

Example

In this example, the goal is to produce an empty table with a selection statement. Without the <meta> element, the selection statement below would generate the error: No rows selected.

<base table="pub.demo.retail.item"/>
<meta>empty</meta>
<sel name="store" value="store<0"/>