Creating Minus Views¶

A Minus view selects all the rows from the first input view and then removes from the result the rows of the second view. If the minus view has a third input view, its rows are also removed from the result. Minus views can have two or more input views. These views can belong to different databases.

For example, if we have three views with the following contents:

If we create a minus view over the views View_A, View_B and View_C and query this new view, the Server executes the query View_A minus View_B first. The result is the following:

View_B contains the first row of View_A so it is removed from the result.

Then, the Server executes <first intermediate result> minus View_C.

The result of querying the view View A Minus View B Minus View C is the following:

As you can see, the second row of View_A is removed from the result because View_C also contains this row.

The wizard to create new minus views is very similar to the wizard of union views (see section Creating Union Views)

To create a minus view, click Minus on the File > New menu or right-click the Server Explorer and click Minus on the menu New.

The Tool will open the “Minus view” dialog and it will add the view(s) that are currently selected in the Server Explorer. To add more views, click the Model tab and drag the views from the Server Explorer to this tab.

The “Minus view” dialog has six tabs:

1. Model: tab where you drag the input views of the new minus view and associate the fields of the views. The wizard automatically associates the fields with the same name, but you have to associate the rest.

   It is mandatory to add associations between all the fields of the input views.

   In the View order box, you have to indicate the order in which the minus operation is performed. Note that the view order may affect the results of the view.

   E.g. if the view order is View_a \ View_b \ View_c, the Server performs the minus operation between View_a and View_b and then, between this intermediate result and View_c.

   If the view order is View_c \ View_b \ View_a, the Server performs the minus operation between View_c and View_b and then, between this intermediate result and View_a. Although in both “View orders” the views involved are the same, the result may be different.

   In this tab, you can add “View parameters”. The section Parameters of Derived Views explains what are view parameters and the rules you need to follow when using them.

2. Associations: tab that lists the associations between fields. You can delete them by clicking on .

3. Where Conditions: tab that allows you to add WHERE conditions to the definition of the view.

4. Group By: tab that allows you to add GROUP BY attributes to the view.

5. Output: tab that allows you to configure the output of the view. That is, renaming the view and its fields, add derived attributes, etc.

6. Metadata: tab that allows you to define the folder where the new view will be stored and provide a description for the new view.

The tabs Where Conditions, Group By, Output and Metadata work in the same way as in the Union view dialog (see section Creating Union Views).

Creating a minus view with three input views¶