Quotes in Set Analysis change in behavior - "error in expression" or "incomplete visualization" or "invalid dimension"

Sonja_Bauernfeind — Tue, 10 May 2022 19:23:50 GMT

Set analysis expressions in different visualization objects stops working after upgrading to QlikView 12.20 and QlikView September 2018 from earlier versions. Typical symptoms are error messages "Incomplete visualization", "Invalid dimension/ measure" or charts showing no values. Such errors are observed onset analysis expressions with literal matches (using single quotes to define a value list), for example:

Sum({$<Country={'Australia','Canada','France'}>} Sales)

In all of these, the expression editor may not detect any syntax error in the expression still says that the expression is OK.

Note: This is also related to the issue in Qlik Sense 3.2 and higher where "error in expression ')' expected" occurs in an application or shows up in the log files.

Cause

In Set Analysis syntax, single quotes denote literal match (exact match of textual values) and double quotes denote search string (case insensitive, can apply wildcard symbols). More details are discussed in the following community post: Quotes in Set Analysis

From QlikView November 2017 (12.20) and Qlik Sense September 2018, items QLIK-87570, and QV-16253 were reported where Set Analysis fails to interpret single quotes and returns unexpected results in certain cases.

Recommended work-around while waiting for the defect fixes is using double quotes instead of single quotes in Set Analysis expressions.

Environments:

QlikView November 2017 (12.20) and later
Qlik Sense September 2018 and later

Resolution:

Fix version:

Qlik Sense April 2019
QlikView 12.40 IR
QlikView 12.30 SR3

Workarounds:

1. Change single quotes in the value list of Set Analysis expressions to double quotes. This is the recommended approach until related defects are fixed. For example:

Sum({$<Country={"Australia","Canada","France"}>} Sales)

2. Disable BNF mode following articles Sense: Failing reloads and BNF script reload mode (Qlik Sense) and QlikView November 2017: Failing reloads and BNF script reload mode (QlikView). Note that from QlikView November 2018 (12.30), disabling BNF mode is no longer allowed

3. Configure parameter EnableSingleQuoteExactSearch following article Quotes in Set Analysis with Dual Fields

article Quotes in Set Analysis change in behavior - "error in expression" or "incomplete visualization" or "invalid dimension" in Official Support Articles

Quotes in Set Analysis change in behavior - "error in expression" or "incomplete visualization" or "invalid dimension"

Cause

Resolution:

Fix version:

Workarounds: