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Yiyi's avatar
Yiyi
Helper I
3 years ago
Solved

Table expression and table, what's the difference!

I am new to Dax and I am confused when I heard the table expression.    Can someone tell me the difference between a table expression and a table? Are they the same thing?    Thanks!!
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  • mlsx4's avatar
    mlsx4
    3 years ago

    Hi Yiyi 

     

    A table expression is simply a DAX function that return a table. Table is normally a table that comes from a data source or you create

  • PaulDBrown's avatar
    PaulDBrown
    3 years ago

    A table expression is a DAX function which returns a table of values: FILTER, SUMMARIZE, SUMMARIZACOLUMNS, CALCULATETABLE....These functions are mainly used to return virtual tables on which calculations are performed. 

    A table is a table returned as an actual entity (so you can import these tables into the model, create them in Power Query, type them in physically, create them using DAX). You can of course use DAX table expressions to return physical tables in a model.

     

    Hope that helps.

PaulDBrown's avatar
PaulDBrown
Community Champion
3 years ago

A table expression is a DAX function which returns a table of values: FILTER, SUMMARIZE, SUMMARIZACOLUMNS, CALCULATETABLE....These functions are mainly used to return virtual tables on which calculations are performed. 

A table is a table returned as an actual entity (so you can import these tables into the model, create them in Power Query, type them in physically, create them using DAX). You can of course use DAX table expressions to return physical tables in a model.

 

Hope that helps.