SAS Certified Professional Prep Guide

Creating and Managing Views Using PROC SQL

A Brief Overview

A PROC SQL view is a stored query expression that reads data values from its underlying files, which can include SAS data files, DATA step views, other PROC SQL views, or DBMS data. A view contains only the descriptor and other information required to retrieve the data values from other SAS files or external files. The view contains only the logic for accessing the data, but not the data itself.

Because PROC SQL views are not separate copies of data, they are referred to as virtual tables. They do not exist as independent entities like real tables. However, views use the same naming conventions as tables and can be used in SAS programs instead of an actual SAS table. Like tables, ...