Yes this works too.
Personally, I avoid querying the dictionary as it can be very sssllloooww when many tables are online, especially RDBMS tables.
As you say, poor cat...
I agree that dictionary.tables (or sashelp.vtable) can be problematic, especially if the library contains views of external databases which it has to look through, because of columns like nobs. I've never, or rarely, had problems with dictionary.columns however. And f you're explicit about the libname and memname, the internal indexing is very efficient.
Again in this case I knew the libname contained no views and it returned the response effectively instantly.
Good to know. I'll try to access the variable-level dictionary again then.
Don't miss out on SAS Innovate - Register now for the FREE Livestream!
Can't make it to Vegas? No problem! Watch our general sessions LIVE or on-demand starting April 17th. Hear from SAS execs, best-selling author Adam Grant, Hot Ones host Sean Evans, top tech journalist Kara Swisher, AI expert Cassie Kozyrkov, and the mind-blowing dance crew iLuminate! Plus, get access to over 20 breakout sessions.
Learn how use the CAT functions in SAS to join values from multiple variables into a single value.
Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.