The CONTENT statement enables you to specify a SAS date format or
column length for a CA-Datacom/DB nondate
field. A date format means that the CA-Datacom/DB data has the specified representation.
The column length determines the number of characters to be accessed.
SAS stores datetime values as the number of days and seconds before and after January
1, 1960. Entering a SAS date format or column length automatically changes the default
values for SAS formats and informats. However,
if you have previously changed any format or informat values, specifying a CONTENT
value does not change those values. Four date formats are used:
-
YYMMDDw. where w is
6 for two-digit years or 8 for four-digit years
-
MMDDYYw. where w is
6 for two-digit years or 8 for four-digit years
-
DDMMYYw. where w is
6 for two-digit years or 8 for four-digit years
-
JULIANw. where w is
5 for two-digit years or 7 for four-digit years.
The
column-identifier argument can be either the CA-Datacom/DB field name or the positional equivalent
from the LIST statement, which is the number that
represents the column's place in the
access descriptor. If the column contains special characters or national characters, enclose the name
in quotation marks.
If you specify ASSIGN=YES when you create an access descriptor, you cannot change
the value for this statement when you later create a
view descriptor based on that access descriptor. You do not have to issue a SELECT statement for
DBMS columns that are named in the CONTENT statement.
SAS supports the CA-Datacom/DB
SQL types SQL-DATE, SQL-TIME, and SQL-STMP as binary data. (
See ACCESS Procedure Data Conversions for more information about the default formats that the ACCESS procedure assigns
to these DBMS data types.)