What does this mean and why is it important?

[Dynasty14]

What is the purpose of assigning a library path? what is this used for?

What does it mean to copy a service mapping file to a new dataset?  What does it mean to assign a GCP dataset path and why is it important?

Why is it important to delete a pre-existing dataset?

[Kurt_Bremser]

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@Dynasty14 wrote:

What is the purpose of assigning a library path? what is this used for?

SAS datasets are accessed by specifying the library where the can be found, and the dataset name, in the form of LIBRARY.DATASET.

Physically, a library is a directory, and the datasets are files with a .sas7bdat extension.

What does it mean to copy a service mapping file to a new dataset?  What does it mean to assign a GCP dataset path and why is it important?

Please define "service mapping file".

Why is it important to delete a pre-existing dataset?

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To avoid having a storage overflow. Keep in mind that the existing file will persist while the new one is created, and is deleted only after the creation of the new file has finished successfully.

Under certain circumstances, and depending on the method of deletion, it is possible to get around the situation where a write lock can't be obtained because some process has the dataset in use.