SAS 9.4 Language Reference, 3rd Edition

SAS/ACCESS Views

A SAS/ACCESS view is an interface view, also called a view descriptor, which accesses

DBMS data that is defined in a corresponding access descriptor.

Using SAS/ACCESS software, you can create an access descriptor and one or more

view descriptors in order to define and access some or all of the data described by one

DBMS table or DBMS view. You can also use view descriptors in order to update

DBMS data, with certain restrictions.

In addition, some SAS/ACCESS products provide a dynamic LIBNAME engine

interface. If available, it is recommended that you use SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME

statement to assign a SAS libref to your DBMS data because it is more efficient and

easier to use than access descriptors and view descriptors. The SAS/ACCESS dynamic

LIBNAME engine enables you to treat DBMS data as if it were SAS data by assigning a

SAS libref to DBMS objects. Using a SAS/ACCESS dynamic LIBNAME engine means

that you can use both native DATA step views and native PROC SQL views to access

DBMS data instead of view descriptors.

See Chapter 31, “About SAS/ACCESS Software,” on page 679 or the SAS/ACCESS

documentation for your database for more information about SAS/ACCESS features.

For information about using SAS/ACCESS view descriptors created in an earlier release,

see Chapter 33, “SAS 9.4 Compatibility with SAS Files from Earlier Releases,” on page

695.

Note: Starting in SAS 9, PROC SQL views are the preferred way to access relational

DBMS data. You can convert existing SAS/ACCESS view descriptors into PROC

SQL views by using the CV2VIEW procedure. This enables you to use the

LIBNAME statement to access your data. See the CV2VIEW Procedure in

SAS/ACCESS for Relational Databases: Reference.

SAS/ACCESS Views 653

654 Chapter 27 • SAS Views