topic Re: Mixing SPDE files with non-SPDE SAS datasets in SAS Programming

Mixing SPDE files with non-SPDE SAS datasets

BenConner — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 15:53:05 GMT

Hi,

I'm seeing we can get significant benefit from converting some of our master files over to SPDE format. Savings in both space and run times look promising.

One of the minor inconveniences is lack of support for views. Was wondering if pointing a different non-SPDE libname to the same folder that SPDE uses would result in any issues, if only to define views.. I would think not, but I've been surprised before.

Version 9.4 TS1M5, Windows 2012 R2 server.

Thanks!

--Ben

Re: Mixing SPDE files with non-SPDE SAS datasets

LinusH — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 19:12:24 GMT

Your question is, probably unintentional, inconsistent. View is queries at rest, and usually doesn't care about where it's stored, or where the data it's referencing is stored. This is especially true for Base and SPDE library data.
To answer your question: yes it's possible. But I can't see any benefits for doing so. Just risking confusion for the maintenance team.

Re: Mixing SPDE files with non-SPDE SAS datasets

BenConner — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 19:52:34 GMT

Hi Linus,

Thanks for replying. Yeah, probably could have done a better job phrasing it. 🙂

I guess I'm asking if something like this would cause heartburn with SAS at any point:

libname out 'c:\sasdata\project1';

libname out2 SPDE 'c:\sasdata\project1';

I would stuff views into the out libname and the data itself in the out2 libname.

I'm not expecting any conflicts but wanted to make sure this wouldn't cause SAS issues.

--Ben

Re: Mixing SPDE files with non-SPDE SAS datasets

BenConner — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 22:48:32 GMT

I did run this by SAS Tech Support. While they didn't say 'no, you can't do that', their response is 'we never do that'. LOL...

That suggests to me it works now, but we won't guarantee it will work in the future. Close enough to 'no' for rme.

--Ben