PC Files clarification

[RexDeus9]

I've been having this gray area about PC Files for several years now. If you read the definition of what it serves for:

SAS PC Files Server and the associated SAS/ACCESS Interface to PC Files enable SAS users to access and manipulate data stored in various PC file formats, such as Microsoft Excel and Access, directly within SAS. This allows users to read data from these files, use it in SAS reports and applications, and create PC files from SAS datasets. 

Yet, on a SAS 9.4 platform WITHTOUT PC Files installed, I do the following:
1.- In SAS Studio, open any SAS dataset from a library
2.- Export the dataset as a Microsft XL file (xlsx)

3.- In a SAS program, run the following:

Libname PC XLSX "<MyFolder>\postalcodes.xlsx";

proc import
  datafile="<MyFolder>\postalcodes.xlsx"
  dbms=xlsx 
  out=work.postalcodes
  replace;
run;

My SAS products list shows 'SAS/Access interface to PC Files' and that's it.

So why would I need PC Files???

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

The PC Files Server is a tool which enables SAS on non-Windows platforms to access MS Office files where Windows-only modules are needed (anything before MS switched to the XML-in-ZIP-archive format).
The newer XLSX files do not need such modules and are openly documented, so SAS could write the necessary code themselves.

[RexDeus9]

Still keeping an eye the community Kurt, I like your answer.

[SASKiwi]

BTW, your LIBNAME statement is redundant in your PROC IMPORT step as you don't refer to the LIBREF PC.

If you want to use the EXCEL LIBNAME engine (which makes use of MS Office software if on Windows), read  or write MS Access databases or use the SAS Add-In to MS Office then you most definitely need to have SAS/ACCESS Interface to PC Files installed and licensed.

[Tom]

The main usage I have seen for this is when the files exist on a Windows system (or Windows only fileshare) and the files are not accessible from the machine where SAS is running.   Typically when SAS is running on Unix.   At lot of times you can avoid the need by just cross mounting the fileshare on both systems.  Users just might need to use a different directory name in the SAS code than they see on their PC.

Also it is useful for handling proprietary file formats (like Microsoft Access files) that SAS cannot handle directly on non Windows environments.