EntityContainer Element (CSDLBI)

Article
10/31/2023

Important: This document is archived. For the latest information, refer to Open Specification [MS-CSDLBI]: Conceptual Schema Definition File Format with Business Intelligence Annotations.

The EntityContainer element is a complex type, based on the CSDL type, EntityContainer, that defines a collection of entities within a single data model. In a business intelligence application, the data model represented by an EntityContainer might contain multiple tables with column linked by relationships, as well as calculations, measures, and KPIs. It is conceptually similar to a database or data source.

The EntityContainer must specify each of the entity types that are included in the data model, including tables and relationships. Information about these model entities is specified by listing child entities of the type, Entity element. For more information, see EntityType Element (CSDLBI).

Properties such as collation and language are defined at the level of the EntityContainer, not on individual objects. However, columns and text attributes within the model can have captions or translations in other languages.

Elements and Attributes

The table below describes the elements and attributes that define the EntityContainer.

Name	Is Required	Description
Name	Yes	The name of the data model.
Caption	No	A description of the database or data model.
Culture	Yes	A string that contains the LCID of the request.
CompareOptions	Yes	Language-specific sorting and string comparison options for the model.
DirectQueryMode	No	An enumeration that indicates the query mode when the model is using DirectQuery mode.
EntitySet element	Yes	EntitySet Element (CSDLBI)
AssociationSet element	No	AssociationSet Element (CSDLBI)

CompareOptions Element

The CompareOptions attribute defines collation properties that are applied to the data model. The properties defined by CompareOptions are derived from settings for sort order, kana sensitivity, and case sensitivity that are set in the Analysis Services database at model design time. The following table describes the values that are included as part of the CompareOptions attribute.

Value	Description
IgnoreCase	Boolean value that indicates whether string comparisons should ignore case.
IgnoreNonSpace	Boolean value that indicates whether string comparisons should ignore non-spacing combining characters, such as diacritics.
IgnoreKanaType	Boolean value that indicates whether string comparisons should ignore kana type.
IgnoreWidth	Boolean value that indicates whether string comparisons should ignore character width.

DirectQueryMode

DirectQueryMode

The simple type, DirectQueryMode, defines the type of query that is used by default when the model is enabled to directly retrieve data from a relational data source. This property is applicable only to tabular models running in DirectQuery mode. The following table lists the possible values for the DirectQuery mode enumeration.

Value	Description
InMemory	Indicates that queries against the model will use data in the cache.
InMemoryWithDirectQuery	Indicates that, by default, queries against the model will use data from the relational data source.
DirectQueryWithInMemory	Indicates that, by default, queries against the model will use data in the cache.
DirectQuery	Indicates that queries against the model will use data in the relational data source only.

Example Tabular

The following sample, in CSDLBI version 1.1, represents a portion of the AdventureWorks tabular data model.

  
<EntityContainer   
     Name="Sandbox">  
   <EntitySet   
       Name="DimEmployee"   
       EntityType="Sandbox.DimEmployee">  
   <bi:EntitySet />  
   </EntitySet>  
  
   <EntitySet   
     Name="DimProduct"   
       EntityType="Sandbox.DimProduct">  
    <bi:EntitySet />  
    </EntitySet>  
  
<bi:EntityContainer Caption="AWSimple" Culture="en-US">

Example Multidimensional

The following sample, in CSDLBI version 1.1, is an excerpt from the Contoso Operations cube.

  
<EntityContainer   
     Name="Sandbox">  
   <EntitySet   
      Name="Bike"   
      EntityType="Sandbox.Bike">  
    <bi:EntitySet Hidden="true" />  
   </EntitySet>  
…  
<bi:EntityContainer   
   Caption="CSDLTest"   
   Culture="en-US">  
<bi:CompareOptions   
   IgnoreCase="true" />  
</bi:EntityContainer>  
</EntityContainer>

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