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Column Value Distribution Profile Request Options (Data Profiling Task)

Use the Request Properties pane of the Profile Requests page to set the options for the Column Value Distribution Profile Request selected in the requests pane. A Column Value Distribution profile reports all the distinct values in the selected column and the percentage of rows in the table that each value represents. The profile can also report values that represent more than a specified percentage of rows in the table. This profile can help you identify problems in your data such as an incorrect number of distinct values in a column. For example, you profile a United States state column and discover more than 50 distinct values.

Note

The options described in this topic appear on the Profile Requests page of the Data Profiling Task Editor. For more information about this page of the editor, see Data Profiling Task Editor (Profile Requests Page).

For more information about how to use the Data Profiling Task, see Setting Up the Data Profiling Task. For more information about how to use the Data Profile Viewer to analyze the output of the Data Profiling Task, see Viewing Profile Output in the Data Profile Viewer.

Request Properties Options

For a Column Value Distribution Profile Request, the Request Properties pane displays the following groups of options:

  • Data, which includes the TableOrView and Column options

  • General

  • Options

Data Options

  • ConnectionManager
    Select the existing ADO.NET connection manager that uses the .NET Data Provider for SQL Server (SqlClient) to connect to the SQL Server database that contains the table or view to be profiled.

  • TableOrView
    Select the existing table or view that contains the column to be profiled.

    For more information, see the section, "TableorView Options," in this topic.

  • Column
    Select the existing column to be profiled. Select (*) to profile all columns.

    For more information, see the section, "Column Options," in this topic.

TableOrView Options

  • Schema
    Specifies the schema to which the selected table belongs. This option is read-only.

  • Table
    Displays the name of the selected table. This option is read-only.

Column Options

  • IsWildCard
    Specifies whether the (*) wildcard has been selected. This option is set to True if you have selected (*) to profile all columns. It is False if you have selected an individual column to be profiled. This option is read-only.

  • ColumnName
    Displays the name of the selected column. This option is blank if you have selected (*) to profile all columns. This option is read-only.

  • StringCompareOptions
    Select options for comparing string values. This property has the options listed in the following table. The default value of this option is Default.

    Note

    If the (*) wildcard is used for ColumnName, CompareOptions is read-only and is set to the Default setting.

    Value

    Description

    Default

    Sorts and compares data based on the column's collation in the source table.

    BinarySort

    Sorts and compares data based on the bit patterns defined for each character. Binary sort order is case sensitive and accent sensitive. Binary is also the fastest sorting order.

    DictionarySort

    Sorts and compares data based on the sorting and comparison rules as defined in dictionaries for the associated language or alphabet.

    If you select DictionarySort, you can also select any combination of the options listed in the following table. By default, none of these additional options are selected.

    Value

    Description

    IgnoreCase

    Specifies whether the comparison distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase letters. If this option is set, the string comparison ignores case. For example, "ABC" becomes the same as "abc".

    IgnoreNonSpace

    Specifies whether the comparison distinguishes between spacing characters and diacritics. If this option is set, the comparison ignores diacritics. For example, "å" is equal to "a".

    IgnoreKanaType

    Specifies whether the comparison distinguishes between the two types of Japanese kana characters: hiragana and katakana. If this option is set, the string comparison ignores kana type.

    IgnoreWidth

    Specifies whether the comparison distinguishes between a single-byte character and the same character when it is represented as a double-byte character. If this option is set, the string comparison treats single-byte and double-byte representations of the same character as identical.

General Options

  • RequestID
    Type a descriptive name to identify this profile request. Typically, you do not have to change the autogenerated value.

Options

  • ValueDistributionOption
    Specify whether to compute the distribution for all column values. The default value of this option is FrequentValues.

    Value

    Description

    AllValues

    The distribution is computed for all column values.

    FrequentValues

    The distribution is computed only for values whose frequency exceeds the minimum value specified in FrequentValueThreshold.

  • FrequentValueThreshold
    Specify the threshold (by using a value between 0 and 1) above which the column value should be reported. This option is disabled when you select AllValues as the ValueDistributionOption. The default value of this option is 0.001.