I quite often find that I don’t want to ‘extend’ an existing explore, rather I want to ‘use’ an existing explore in a new explore. I don’t see how the LookML extends: can do this, which would be true code reuse.
Why do you think you can’t use extends?
If I create a VIEW in SQL that joins a number of tables, I can use that view as a virtual table anywhere in a future query and it’s joins. Can I use extends on explores to do the same?
Yes, you can extend an explore, use it as a base, and then add other joins if you’d like or configure other joins, override its settings, and so on..
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I want to be able to do something like the following:
explore: a {
join…
join…
}
explore: b {
join…
join: a
}
Explore is not a CTE so you can’t use it as a join. Now I kow what you mean. And no, you can’t just reuse parts of the code in all the places
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Thanks for the confirmation. Perhaps I’m really asking for an ‘explore to explore join’ that is currently done by merge in Looker - but cannot be done in LookML.
extends is a specific form of code reuse.
Look into native derived tables
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Thanks. Yes, believe native derived tables can provide ‘real’ code re-use. But ideally it would be possible without introducing native DTs - and having to learn something else…
Hi @kuopaz
Have you managed to solve this as I am in a similar predicament.
as the Existing Explores have all the necessary joins and definitions how does a native derived table achieve this?