9. Mutable Dimensions

If you’re new to pylytics, skip this section.

9.1. Introduction

Dimensions change over time. To use our store example:

class Store(Dimension):

    __source__ = NotImplemented

    store_id = NaturalKey('store_id', int)
    store_shortcode = NaturalKey('store_shortcode', basestring)
    store_size = Column('store_size', basestring)
    employees = Column('employees', int)

Over time, the number of employees might change, and so might the store_size if it gets an extension.

Fact and dimension tables in pylytics are idempotent, meaning you could run manage.py historical fact_1, and if the rows already exist they’ll be left alone.

However, if any of the dimension columns change, a new row will be inserted. For example, if a store extension happens to ‘LON1’:

Store
store_id	store_shortcode	store_size	employees	applicable_from
1	‘LON1’	‘small’	100	2010-01-01 00:00:00
1	‘LON1’	‘medium’	100	2014-01-01 00:00:00

Notice the ‘applicable_from’ column.

The next time the Store fact updates, it will refer to the latest version of the dimension, but existing fact rows will still point to the dimension row that was relevant when they were created.