Define Distinct Dialog Box

Note that the fewer fields marked as distinct, the fewer records are returned. For example, a data service returns the following fields: Bank Country, Bank Key, and Bank Name. If only Bank Country is marked as distinct, the first appearance of a value, such as France, in the combination of Bank Country–Bank Key–Bank Name is returned. Any subsequent combination containing France is not returned. If, on the other hand, all three fields are marked as distinct, each combination becomes distinct, so that the potential list of results is greater.

You display the Define Distinct dialog box by selecting a Distinct operator icon on the Design board and clicking the browse button next to the Configuration field in the Configure Element task panel, or by right-clicking the Distinct operator icon on the Design board and choosing Define Operator from the context menu. You use the Define Distinct dialog box to omit records containing duplicate data in the selected fields.

The Define Distinct dialog box contains the following items:

Item	Description
Add Row	Adds another row to the list. You can then define the field according to which to omit any records with duplicate values.
Delete Row	Removes the highlighted row from the list.
Distinct Field	A field whose values should be returned only once. In the dropdown list, you can select a field from the data source connected to the operator, or you can select Define expression to define a field using the Dynamic Expression Editor dialog box.
Field Name	The name of the new data field to which to assign the distinct field values.
Description	Displays a description of the selected distinct definition, in plain-language sentence format. For example, `Return distinct =@BANK_CTRY as BANK_CTRY.`.