Overview of the IMS DATA Step Interface

Introduction to the IMS DATA Step Interface

Special SAS extensions for the standard SAS INFILE and FILE statements enable you to format DL/I calls in a SAS DATA step. These extended SAS statements and their corresponding INPUT and PUT statements are called DL/I INFILE, DL/I INPUT, DL/I FILE, and DL/I PUT to distinguish them from the standard SAS statements. An IMS DATA step can contain standard SAS statements as well as the SAS statements that are used with the SAS/ACCESS interface to IMS.

The beginning of this section describes the syntax of the SAS statement extensions that are used with the SAS/ACCESS interface to IMS. The next section describes basic DATA step programming techniques and considerations for this IMS interface. The last section consists of sample DATA step programs that access DL/I databases. The sample programs integrate many of the concepts that are discussed throughout the section.

This section assumes that you understand the SAS DATA step and the statements used in the DATA step. See SAS Language Reference: Dictionary for details about the statements, options, and syntax in SAS DATA steps.

There are many references to DL/I processing in this description, such as DL/I calls and status codes. If you are not familiar with the DL/I information, be sure to refer to the appropriate IBM documentation for complete descriptions. You should also read this document's IMS Essentials which gives an overview of DL/I concepts that are important in writing DATA step programs for the DATA step interface to IMS.

Top of Page