Blank comparison

BLANK is used for comparison in a binary operator where the operator is not strict equal to (==).

Remarks

When the BLANK function is used as an operand in a binary comparison operation, the engine performs a transformation to compare the computed value with both 0 and BLANK, which has a small CPU cost. Moreover, a comparison with BLANK is often incorrect as 0 or an empty string (“”) returns TRUE if compared with = to BLANK.

Example 1

Replace the = operator with == or use ISBLANK to get the right behavior and better performance.

Original code

CALCULATE (
    [Sales Amount], 
    Product[Brand] = BLANK()
)

Possible optimization 1

CALCULATE (
    [Sales Amount], 
    Product[Brand] == BLANK()
)

Possible optimization 2

CALCULATE (
    [Sales Amount], 
    ISBLANK ( Product[Brand] )
)

Example 2

Remove the <> operator and use NOT ISBLANK to get the right behavior and better performance.

Original code

CALCULATE (
    [Sales Amount], 
    Product[Brand] <> BLANK()
)

Possible optimization

CALCULATE (
    [Sales Amount], 
    NOT ISBLANK ( Product[Brand] )
)