Use CREATE to create
an access or view descriptor for a PC file that you want to access
from SAS. To access a particular PC file of a supported type, you
must create first an access descriptor, and then one or more view
descriptors based on the access descriptor.
The descriptor name
has three parts, separated by periods. The
libref identifies
a SAS library, which is associated with a directory on the local system
disk where the descriptor is created. The
libref must
have been created already using the LIBNAME statement. The
descriptor-name is
the name of the descriptor to be created. The third part is the descriptor
type. Specify ACCESS for an access descriptor or VIEW for a view descriptor.
You can use the CREATE
statement as many times as necessary in one procedure execution.
That is, you can create multiple access descriptors, as well as one
or more view descriptors based on these access descriptors, within
the same execution of the ACCESS procedure. Or, you can create access
descriptors and view descriptors in separate executions of the procedure.
You can use the CREATE
and the UPDATE in the same PROC ACCESS block with one restriction:
a CREATE statement for a view descriptor should not follow an UPDATE
statement.