The Report Extractor processes the report script and retrieves data, performing the following actions:
Composes the member list, based on all possible member combinations. For example, <IDESCENDANTS East retrieves member East and all of its descendants.
Applies member restrictions. For example, <LINK refines the member selection.
Orders the member output. For example, <SORT determines the order in which members are sorted.
Restricts data. For example, the following command suppresses the display of all rows that contain only missing values:
{SUPMISSINGROWS}
Sorts data. For example, <TOP returns rows with the greatest values of a specified data column.
Formats output. For example, {SKIP} skips one or more lines in the final output report.
The order in which Report Extractor retrieves data affects the execution of complex extraction and formatting commands. For example, because the Report Extractor restricts data (step 5) before sorting data (step 6), if you place conditional retrieval commands in the wrong order, report output results can be unexpected. Be aware of the data retrieval process when designing report scripts.