Managing Table Metadata

Overview of Managing Table Metadata

As explained in Registering and Verifying Tables, one way to create metadata for the tables in a library is to use the Register tables feature of SAS Management Console. You can also create this metadata programmatically by using PROC METALIB. In addition, PROC METALIB provides you with options for maintaining your table metadata that are not available in SAS Management Console. For example, by default PROC METALIB creates metadata definitions for any physical tables that are not registered in the metadata--for instance, tables that have been added since the table definitions were first created--and updates the table definitions for tables that have been altered since they were registered.

By using optional statements, you can also use PROC METALIB to perform the following tasks:

Delete table definitions for tables that have been removed from the library.
Produce a report that lists the changes made by the procedure or the changes that will be made when the procedure is executed.
Operate on a subset of the tables in a library.

Note: For detailed information about PROC METALIB and its syntax, see "METALIB Procedure" in SAS Language Interfaces to Metadata. [cautionend]

Note: PROC METALIB cannot work with a library whose metadata is defined by using the Pre-assigned Library resource template. When pre-assigning a library, be sure to choose the resource template specific to the type of data source library you are creating and select the This library is pre-assigned check box. Do not use the specialized Pre-Assigned Library template. Also, if the library is pre-assigned and you run the PROC METALIB in a Foundation SAS session, you must make sure the library is allocated by either submitting a LIBNAME statement for the library in that SAS session, or by using the METAAUTORESOURCES option to access the library through a SAS server to which the library is assigned. [cautionend]

The remainder of the chapter presents examples of how PROC METALIB is commonly used. The examples assume that you have set the following metadata server connection options in your SAS session:

options METAUSER = "metadata-server-userid"
        METAPASS = "metadata-server-password"
        METAPORT = metadata-server-port
        METASERVER = "metadata-server-machine";

If you have not set these options, you can use PROC METALIB parameters to specify this information.

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