Using Caché Multi-Dimensional Storage - InterSystems ...

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Introduction
One of the central features of Caché is its multidimensional storage engine. This feature lets
applications store data in compact, efficient, multidimensional sparse arrays. These arrays
are referred to as globals.
This document describes:
• What globals are and the operations you can perform on them.
• The logical and physical structure of globals, including the use of globals in distributed
database architecture.
• How you can use globals to store and retrieve data within your applications.
• How Caché uses globals within its SQL and Object engines.
1.1 Features
Globals provide an easy-to-use way to store data in persistent, multidimensional arrays.
For example, you can associate the value “Red” with the key “Color” using a global named
Settings:
SET ^Settings("Color")="Red"
WRITE !,^Settings("Color")
You can take advantage of the multidimensional nature of globals to define a more complex
structure:
Using Caché Multi-Dimensional Storage 1