Difference between a permanent and temporary dataset

[lanec23]

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. 

[Tom]

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 .

[lanec23]

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. 

[Tom]

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.

[lanec23]

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

[quietann]

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

[Patrick]

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@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;