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Overview of SAS/ACCESS Interface to Relational Databases

Selecting a SAS/ACCESS Method


Methods for Accessing DBMS Tables and Views

In SAS/ACCESS, you can often complete a task in several ways. For example, you can access DBMS tables and views by using the LIBNAME statement or the SQL pass-through facility. Before processing complex or data-intensive operations, you might want to test several methods first to determine the most efficient one for your particular task.


SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME Statement Advantages

You should use the SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement for the fastest and most direct method of accessing your DBMS data except when you need to use SQL that is not ANSI-standard. ANSI-standard SQL is required when you use the SAS/ACCESS library engine in the SQL procedure. However, the SQL pass-through facility accepts all SQL extensions that your DBMS provides.

Here are the advantages of using the SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement.


SQL Pass-Through Facility Advantages

Here are the advantages of using the SQL pass-through facility.


SAS/ACCESS Features for Common Tasks

Here is a list of tasks and the features that you can use to accomplish them.

SAS/ACCESS Features for Common Tasks
Task SAS/ACCESS Features
Read DBMS tables or views LIBNAME statement*
SQL Pass-Through Facility
View descriptors**
Create DBMS objects, such as tables LIBNAME statement*
DBLOAD procedure
SQL Pass-Through Facility EXECUTE statement
Update, delete, or insert rows into DBMS tables LIBNAME statement*
View descriptors**
SQL Pass-Through Facility EXECUTE statement
Append data to DBMS tables DBLOAD procedure with APPEND option
LIBNAME statement and APPEND procedure*
SQL Pass-Through Facility EXECUTE statement
SQL Pass-Through Facility INSERT statement
List DBMS tables LIBNAME statement and SAS Explorer window*
LIBNAME statement and DATASETS procedure*
LIBNAME statement and CONTENTS procedure*
LIBNAME statement and SQL procedure dictionary tables*
Delete DBMS tables or views LIBNAME statement and SQL procedure DROP TABLE statement*
LIBNAME statement and DATASETS procedure DELETE statement*
DBLOAD procedure with SQL DROP TABLE statement
SQL Pass-Through Facility EXECUTE statement
* LIBNAME statement refers to the SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement.

** View descriptors refer to view descriptors that are created in the ACCESS procedure.

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