Difference between blank and empty in advanced filtering

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I'm seeing a new dropdown option in the advanced filtering of dimensions.

What's the difference between "blank" and "empty"?

[WorkHard]

Is this available in the desktop as well?
Edit. Updated to February build. It's in the desktop as well.

Nice.

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

Kudo for your eagle eyes - this is a new setting in the service.  BLANK is the equivalent of null, while "empty"  is the equivalent of "" (an empty string). 

[joglidden2]

So,

If field is NULL or EMPTY STRING, then ISEMPTY = 1

If field is EMPTY STRING, then ISBLANK = 0, and ISEMPTY = 1

Would you agree?

[lbendlin]

interesting...

So even though the value in Column 1 is BLANK() the table itself is not EMPTY.  

That means ISEMPTY() indicates that the filter column has no selectable values. My initial reply was incorrect.

[joglidden2]

I wasn't trying to call you out, I just can't quite figure out the rhyme/reason. When in doubt (which is usually), and when I have the opportunity, I just AND the ISEMPTY, ISBLANK. Sometimes I only get the ISEMPTY option, and then I go with that. Too lazy to dive into the documentation, but the PBI lingo is confusing (compared to say, SQL). 

[lbendlin]

ISBLANK() refers to scalar values (individual cells).  ISEMPTY() refers to tables.  In DAX "everything is a table" - some just happen to be single column single row tables.

[joglidden2]

Really.?. That's not a good paradigm, IMO. Why would they limit the product like that? As if scalar values have no utility. As in, y'know, linear algebra n'stuff. How interesting, and good to keep in mind. Interesting.