Join two unrelated data sources

Question

Is it possible to join two unrelated data sourcesin OWB, if yes, how?
The closest which comes to my mind is union (outer join) thru two proxy expressions with redundant column holders for reciprocal columns.
But I am thinking, above would lead to excessive wastage.
So is there a better way possible.
Rgds,
Deepak

Answer 1

Deepak,
I think there are 2 different things you are trying to achieve:
1) With a grand total, something along the lines of:
select emp1.empno
, emp1.ename
, count(emp2.empno) count_empno
from emp1
, emp2
This query will retrieve a grant total, and because there is no relationship, you do not need a join condition. You do access the emp table twice.
OWB would implement this like:
select emp1.empno
, emp1.ename
, (select count(emp2.empno) from emp2) count_empno
from emp1
The other thing you seem to like to implement is a join on the customer_id, or similar for the simplified example, say on deptno in the emp table:
select emp1.empno
, emp1.ename
, sum(emp2.sal) dept_sal_sum
from emp1
, emp2
where emp1.deptno = emp2.deptno
group by emp1.empno
, emp1.ename -- this does not add anything, but...
Again, the way OWB would implement this (something similar):
select emp1.empno
, emp1.ename
, (select sum(emp2.sal)
from emp2
where emp2.deptno = emp1.deptno
) dept_sal_sum
from emp1
group by emp1.empno
, emp1.ename -- this does not add anything, but...
Anyway, so the way you would create this is by using the same source multiple times, include the aggregates and put in the join conditions appropriately.
Hope this makes sense... and addresses the issue.
Mark.