Understanding DAX
The syntax of DAX is not dissimilar to Excel's function language. In fact, there are a number of functions that are named and work nearly identically to Excel's formula language. However, do not be fooled by these similarities. DAX is an extremely powerful programming language that works very differently to Excel's formula language.
While Excel's formula language is optimized for dealing with cells in a spreadsheet, DAX is optimized to deal with tables of data consisting of columns and rows. Hence, unlike Excel, it is not possible to reference an individual cell within a table. Instead, you use DAX to identity a table and a column and then filter down to a single row or rows.
As mentioned previously, DAX allows for the creation ...
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