Glossary

API

See application programming interface.

application programming interface

a set of software functions that facilitate communication between applications and other kinds of programs or services. Short form: API.

data set

See SAS data set.

data source name

a persistent identifier that is associated with a data source definition. The data source definition specifies how to locate and access a data source, including any authentication (such as a user name and password) that a user must supply in order to access the data. Short form: DSN.

database management system

a software application that enables you to create and manipulate data that is stored in the form of databases. Short form: DBMS.

DBMS

See database management system.

DSN

See data source name.

Integrated Object Model

the set of distributed object interfaces that make SAS software features available to client applications when SAS is executed as an object server. Short form: IOM.

Integrated Object Model server

See IOM server.

IOM

See Integrated Object Model.

IOM server

a SAS object server that is launched in order to fulfill client requests for IOM services. Short form: IOM server.

JAR file

a Java Archive file. The JAR file format is used for aggregating many files into one file. JAR files have the file extension .jar.

Java

a set of technologies for creating software programs in both stand-alone environments and networked environments, and for running those programs safely. Java is an Oracle Corporation trademark.

Java class

in the Java programming language, a definition of a particular kind of object. A class definition defines instance variables, class variables, and methods. It also specifies the interfaces that the class implements and the immediate superclass of the class.

Java Database Connectivity

See JDBC.

Java Development Kit

See JDK.

JDBC

a standard interface for accessing SQL databases. JDBC provides uniform access to a wide range of relational databases. It also provides a common base on which higher-level tools and interfaces can be built. Short form: JDBC.

JDK

a software development environment that is available from Oracle Corporation. The JDK includes a Java Runtime Environment (JRE), a compiler, a debugger, and other tools for developing Java applets and applications. Short form: JDK.

join

the act of combining data from two or more tables in order to produce a single result table.

missing value

a type of value for a variable that contains no data for a particular row or column. By default, SAS writes a missing numeric value as a single period and a missing character value as a blank space.

parallel I/O

a method of input and output that takes advantage of multiple CPUs and multiple controllers, with multiple disks per controller to read or write data in independent threads.

result set

the set of rows or records that a server or other application returns in response to a query.

SAS data set

a file whose contents are in one of the native SAS file formats. There are two types of SAS data sets: SAS data files and SAS data views. SAS data files contain data values in addition to descriptor information that is associated with the data. SAS data views contain only the descriptor information plus other information that is required for retrieving data values from other SAS data sets or from files whose contents are in other software vendors' file formats.

SAS IOM workspace

in the IOM object hierarchy for a SAS Workspace Server, an object that represents a single session in SAS.

SAS Metadata Server

a multi-user server that enables users to read metadata from or write metadata to one or more SAS Metadata Repositories.

SAS Workspace Server

a SAS IOM server that is launched in order to fulfill client requests for IOM workspaces.

SAS/ACCESS software

a group of software interfaces, each of which makes data from a particular external database management system (DBMS) directly available to SAS, as well as making SAS data directly available to the DBMS.

SAS/SHARE server

the result of an execution of the SERVER procedure, which is part of SAS/SHARE software. A server runs in a separate SAS session that services users' SAS sessions by controlling and executing input and output requests to one or more SAS libraries.

Scalable Performance Data Engine

a SAS engine that is able to deliver data to applications rapidly because it organizes the data into a streamlined file format. Short form: SPD Engine.

SPD Engine

See Scalable Performance Data Engine.

SPD Engine data set

a data set created by the SPD Engine that has up to four component files: one for data, one for metadata, and two for any indexes. The minimum number of component files is two: data and metadata. Data is separated from the metadata for SPD Engine file organization.

Work library

a temporary SAS library that is automatically defined by SAS at the beginning of each SAS session or SAS job. Unless you have specified a User library, any newly created SAS file that has a one- level name will be placed in the Work library by default and will be deleted at the end of the current SAS session or job.

workspace

See SAS IOM workspace.