topic Re: Data Step View independent of Libref in SAS Programming

Data Step View independent of Libref

ShagilImam — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 10:46:45 GMT

I need to create a Data Step View for an existing dataset. This view should not be require that one assign the physical path of the existing dataset to a specific Libref.

I need Data Step equivalent of following PROC SQL View:

Libname ViewOut "<physical path of view output library>" disp=shr;

PROC SQL

CREATE VIEW ViewOut.DataSetName as

SELECT * FROM XYZ123.DataSetName

USING LIBNAME XYZ123 "<physical path of existing output dataset>"

DISP=SHR WAIT=999;

QUIT;

In the above PROC SQL View, the physical path of the dataset is included within the view, so, if the one has access to the view, he/she does not need to know where the actual dataset is.

Thanks in anticipation!

Re: Data Step View independent of Libref

RW9 — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 10:58:35 GMT

I don't believe that is possible as such in SAS, they only implement ANSI SQL. What is it your trying to do, from that code you just create a view of a dataset, which is database thinking. SAS references data with libnames, so effectively the same code would be:

libname dataloc "<physical_path>";

I.e. point the library reference to where the data is. That is all you need. If you need further complicated views then you need the libref and the code.

Re: Data Step View independent of Libref

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 11:13:34 GMT

A data step view is compiled before being stored as a .sas7bvew file, so it can't be dynamic after that, with the exception of changing the physical path for a libname. So what you want to do is not possible.

SQL views, OTOH, are stored as program code and executed with proc sql at runtime.