topic Identify business keys without opening the dataset in SAS Data Management

Identify business keys without opening the dataset

David_Billa — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:25:01 GMT

Is there a way to identify the business keys of a SAS dataset without opening it?

Re: Identify business keys without opening the dataset

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:46:53 GMT

Define "business key".

Technically, you can't do it without the SAS system accessing the dataset(s), as (e.g.) using dictionary.columns forces SAS to read the dataset header.

But from within SAS, using dictionary.columns to search for variables that satisfy certain conditions is the way to go.

Re: Identify business keys without opening the dataset

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 13:49:57 GMT

Depends on what you consider a 'business key'?

Re: Identify business keys without opening the dataset

David_Billa — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 14:59:14 GMT

You can query/access the dataset without opening manually opening the data
set.

We have defined business key using SCD type 2 transformation

Re: Identify business keys without opening the dataset

Patrick — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 22:45:40 GMT

@David_Billa wrote:
Is there a way to identify the business keys of a SAS dataset without opening it?

That's about "know your data". Especially when doing ETL/DIS you need to know upfront how your source data structures look like, what can be missing or not, which columns make up keys.