GENERATE Function (DAX)

Returns a table with the Cartesian product between each row in table1 and the table that results from evaluating table2 in the context of the current row from table1.

Syntax

GENERATE(<table1>, <table2>)

Parameters

  • table1
    Any DAX expression that returns a table.

  • table2
    Any DAX expression that returns a table.

Return Value

A table with the Cartesian product between each row in table1 and the table that results from evaluating table2 in the context of the current row from table1

Remarks

  • If the evaluation of table2 for the current row in table1 returns an empty table, then the result table will not contain the current row from table1. This is different than GENERATEALL() where the current row from table1 will be included in the results and columns corresponding to table2 will have null values for that row.

  • All column names from table1 and table2 must be different or an error is returned.

Example

In the following example the user wants a summary table of the sales by Region and Product Category for the Resellers channel, like the following table:

SalesTerritory[SalesTerritoryGroup]

ProductCategory[ProductCategoryName]

[Reseller Sales]

Europe

Accessories

$ 142,227.27

Europe

Bikes

$ 9,970,200.44

Europe

Clothing

$ 365,847.63

Europe

Components

$ 2,214,440.19

North America

Accessories

$ 379,305.15

North America

Bikes

$ 52,403,796.85

North America

Clothing

$ 1,281,193.26

North America

Components

$ 8,882,848.05

Pacific

Accessories

$ 12,769.57

Pacific

Bikes

$ 710,677.75

Pacific

Clothing

$ 22,902.38

Pacific

Components

$ 108,549.71

The following code produces the above table:

GENERATE(
SUMMARIZE(SalesTerritory, SalesTerritory[SalesTerritoryGroup])
,SUMMARIZE(ProductCategory 
, [ProductCategoryName]
, "Reseller Sales", SUMX(RELATEDTABLE(ResellerSales_USD), ResellerSales_USD[SalesAmount_USD])
)
)
  1. The first SUMMARIZE statement, SUMMARIZE(SalesTerritory, SalesTerritory[SalesTerritoryGroup]), produces a table of territory groups, where each row is a territory group, as shown below:

    SalesTerritory[SalesTerritoryGroup]

    North America

    Europe

    Pacific

    NA

  2. The second SUMMARIZE statement, SUMMARIZE(ProductCategory, [ProductCategoryName], "Reseller Sales", SUMX(RELATEDTABLE(ResellerSales_USD), ResellerSales_USD[SalesAmount_USD])), produces a table of Product Category groups with the Reseller sales for each group, as shown below:

    ProductCategory[ProductCategoryName]

    [Reseller Sales]

    Bikes

    $ 63,084,675.04

    Components

    $ 11,205,837.96

    Clothing

    $ 1,669,943.27

    Accessories

    $ 534,301.99

  3. However, when you take the above table and evaluate it under the context of each row from the territory groups table, you obtain different results for each territory.