Chapter 7. Fact Tables
In the last chapter, we looked at the big picture of dimensional design—what the bits are, and how they fit together, if you will. In this chapter, we’ll begin examining the subject in detail with a closer look at fact tables. As you’ll no doubt recall, fact tables are one of the two types of relations in the dimensional model (the other being dimension tables, which we’ll examine in Chapter 8).
The Structure of a Fact Table
Figure 7-1 shows a fairly simple example of a fact table associated with a customer order. The basic structure is the same as a table developed using the relational model—the relation consists of a set. The attributes in a fact table can be divided into two types: dimension keys, which link the fact table ...
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