Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Why reading whitepapers may be useful

If you don't know how to find a list of values behind a DefaultDimension in AX 2012, Google will most likely get you to the following solution:

static void DEV_Dimension(Args _args)
{
    CustTable                         custTable = CustTable::find("1101");
    DimensionAttributeValueSetStorage dimStorage;
    Counter i;

    dimStorage = DimensionAttributeValueSetStorage::find(custTable.DefaultDimension);

    for (i=1 ; i<= dimStorage.elements() ; i++)
    {
        info(strFmt("%1 = %2", DimensionAttribute::find(dimStorage.getAttributeByIndex(i)).Name,       
                               dimStorage.getDisplayValueByIndex(i)));
    }
}


The solution above is copy-pasted all over the AX segment of the Internet.

However, there is a better way to do that:

static void ShowDimensionInOneSelect(Args _args)
{
    DefaultDimensionView defaultDimensionView;
    CustTable                       custTable;

    while select defaultDimensionView
        exists join custTable
            where custTable.AccountNum == "1101"
               && custTable.DefaultDimension == defaultDimensionView.DefaultDimension
    {
        info(strFmt("%1 = %2", defaultDimensionView.Name,
                               defaultDimensionView.DisplayValue));
    }
}

This and some other useful techniques are well described in Implementing the Account and Financial Dimensions Framework white paper.