Introduction to Browsing and Updating IMS Data

The SAS/ACCESS interface to IMS enables you to browse and update your IMS data directly from a SAS session or program. This section shows you how to use SAS procedures to review and update IMS data that is described by SAS/ACCESS view descriptors. The examples in this section use the view descriptors Vlib.CustInfo and Vlib.ChckAcct. See Example Data for definitions of all the view descriptors referenced in this section, the IMS database, and SAS data files and data sets.

To browse or update IMS data, you must use a Program Specification Block (PSB) that contains a Program Communication Block (PCB) with the level of access desired. You need to have this desired level of access to the database, to the segments in that database, and to the fields in those segments. The types of access that a PCB enables are included in the following table:

For more information about accessing IMS data, see IMS Essentials and Program Specification Block.

Read, Write, Alter, or PW passwords can be assigned to a view descriptor, access descriptor, PROC SQL view, DATA step view, or SAS data file. For more information about assigning passwords, see SAS Passwords for SAS/ACCESS Descriptors.