topic Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset in SAS Software for Learning Community

Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

lanec23 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 21:52:05 GMT

How to read in permanent vs temporary dataset? Most of the data I have read into SAS has code as follows:

libname ILE2023 "/home/u60777348/ILE2023";

data BRFSSILE;
set ILE2023.brfss2018;
run;

I see this is temporary because of the set statement, it is creating a temporary dataset from the "brfss2018" data. What would reading in the permanent dataset "brfss2018" code look like?

Thanks for any help-much appreciated.

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

Tom — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 22:07:30 GMT

I am not sure what your question is. The code you posted IS reading in a permanent dataset named brfss2018. It is reading the one that lives in the directory named /home/u60777348/ILE2023.

So the code you posted is reading the dataset the lives in the file named /home/u60777348/ILE2023/brfss2018.sas7bdat .

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

lanec23 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 22:37:36 GMT

I see, thank you. In switching around my lines, the code that I was originally using, listed above, now isn't running. I don't know how this is even possible. I am getting the error message "The table "WORK.BRFSSILE" cannot be opened because it does not contain any columns." from the code

libname ILE2023 "/home/u60777348/ILE2023";
data BRFSSILE;
set ILE2023.brfss2018;
run;

which ran perfectly fine before. Any idea what's happening? Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

Tom — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 22:41:33 GMT

If you got that error after running that data step then the permanent dataset also has no variables.

You probably accidentally ran a data step like this:

data ILE2023.brfss2018;
run;

Which would make a new dataset with no variables.

You probably need to re-create the "permanent" dataset. And you have learned that nothing is permanent.

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

lanec23 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 22:46:38 GMT

That was the step so that explains it. Do I need to redownload the data again?

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

quietann — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:40:36 GMT

Yes, you do. It's so easy to "lose" a dataset this way; you have my sympathies!

Re: Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

Patrick — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 02:03:43 GMT

@lanec23 wrote:

That was the step so that explains it. Do I need to redownload the data again?

Yes, you do.

One way to protect yourself against such situations where you overwrite by mistake a source table is to strictly separate source from target locations and to assign source locations read only. In your case below libname syntax would have protected you.

libname ILE2023 "/home/u60777348/ILE2023" access=readonly;