Strange Warning Message When Accessing a Dataset Through Data Step

[ching_wee_lim]

Hi!

I'm using SAS 9.2 and I'm curious about a particular message in the log when accessing a particular dataset through data step.

When the data step is run, the log gives the following warning message

Data Step:

data aa;
set input.dataset;
run;

Message:

"WARNING: Integrity constraints cannot be processed for file INPUT.DATASET because its encoding

does not match the session encoding or the file is in a format native to another host,

such as HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, HP_IA64."

However, when I access the dataset through PROC SQL, it gave no such message.

PROC SQL:

proc sql;
  create table bb as 
    select * from input.dataset;
quit;

As such, what is the message trying to say? And more importantly, when coming across such a message, is it okay to ignore it and use PROC SQL instead?

Many thanks.

Ching Wee

[RahulG]

Refer to this post.

http://support.sas.com/kb/35/613.html

[ChrisNZ]

@RahulG I dont how that link helps.

@ching_wee_lim I can't think of a reason why reading the table one way or another should yield different behaviours. Best to ask Tech support imho.

[Shmuel]

The message says that the dataset was created on a different platform, eg. unix vs windows.

SAS recocnize the original platform and gives warning, just in case they are not completely compatible;

Usually you can ignore it until you find some suspicious fenomena as text conversion or something else.

[ching_wee_lim]

Hi Shmuel!

Thanks for your insights! Sorry I'm new to SAS communities. I wanted to accept your answer as well but seems like I can only accept one 😞

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

Integrity constraints are defined so that operations that change the dataset adhere to specific rules. Since you do not intend to write to the dataset, but only want to read from it, you can safely ignore that WARNING.

I would not be surprised if digging deeper lets us find a SAS system option that even suppresses such WARNINGs.

[ching_wee_lim]

Thanks KurtBremser!

So just curious, if I would want to write into the dataset, I would have to find that particular rule that is causing the issue and fix it? And what are some examples of rules to fix?

[Peter_C]

see "understanding integrity constraints" at http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/68089/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p0te4txy6dyzs9n1cspt...

[ching_wee_lim]

Thanks everyone for your insights! I shall accept KurtBremser's answer.