topic Re: How to access database tablename with special character? in SAS Programming

How to access database tablename with special character?

woo — Wed, 24 May 2023 17:16:21 GMT

Hello Friends,

how to access a long database tablename which has specical character like /, _,.?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

HB — Wed, 24 May 2023 17:19:50 GMT

I would change the name of the table.

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

Reeza — Wed, 24 May 2023 17:19:53 GMT

Have you tried the NLITERAL approach?

schema.'Table/Name'n

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

woo — Wed, 24 May 2023 19:25:51 GMT

Thank you Reeza, can you please provide example? Thank you.

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

Reeza — Wed, 24 May 2023 19:30:28 GMT

It was below...more explicitly, something like this:

data want;
set schema.'Table/Name'n;
run;

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

Reeza — Wed, 24 May 2023 19:43:00 GMT

The name can include special characters, except for the / \ * ? " < > |: -. characters.

Several of your characters fall into the characters that cannot be included unfortunately. You will need to rename them.

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/nlsref/n10nwm6blrcrtmn0zdcwyxlwxfjh.htm

Re: How to access database tablename with special character?

Tom — Wed, 24 May 2023 19:57:31 GMT

To allow SAS code to use non-standard names for datasets (members) you need to the VALIDMEMBERNAME option to EXTEND. But even then there are some characters, like / , that are not allowed.

You mentioned that the data is in a database. Use a pass through query to access the data.

For example if you have a libref defined that points to some external database, like ORACLE,

libname mydb oracle ... ;

You can use that LIBREF in SQL code like this.

proc sql;
connect using mydb;
create table want as select * from connection to mydb
(select * 
  from "mygoofy or long table name"
);
quit;