Processing Data Using Cross-Environment Data Access (CEDA)

Definition of Cross-Environment Data Access (CEDA)

Cross-environment data access (CEDA) is a Base SAS feature that enables a SAS file that was created in a directory-based operating environment (for example, UNIX, Windows, or OpenVMS) to be processed in any of the following situations:

by a SAS session that is running in another directory-based environment. For example, if you move a file from one operating environment like Windows to a different operating environment like UNIX, CEDA translates the file, which eliminates the need for you to convert the file.
on a platform that is different from the platform on which the file was created. For example, CEDA is useful if you have upgraded to a 64-bit platform from a 32-bit platform.
by a SAS session in which the session encoding is incompatible with the encoding for the SAS file.

With CEDA, you do not need to create a transport file, use other SAS procedures, or change your SAS program. CEDA is available for files that are created with SAS 7 and later releases.

Here are a few terms and definitions to help you understand CEDA:

data representation	the form in which data is stored in a particular operating environment. Different operating environments use different standards or conventions for storing floating-point numbers (for example, IEEE or IBM 390); for character encoding (ASCII or EBCDIC); for the ordering of bytes in memory (big Endian or little Endian); for word alignment (4-byte boundaries or 8-byte boundaries); and for data-type length (16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit).
encoding	is a set of characters (letters, logograms, digits, punctuation, symbols, control characters, and so on) that have been mapped to numeric values (called code points) that can be used by computers. The code points are assigned to the characters in the character set by applying an encoding method. Some examples of encodings are Wlatin1 and Danish EBCDIC.
foreign	refers to a file or an environment for which the data representation contrasts with the CPU that is processing the file. For example, the data representation that is created by an IBM mainframe is considered foreign to the data representation that is created by a Windows environment.
native	refers to a file or an environment for which the data representation is compatible with the CPU that is processing the file. For example, a file that is in Windows data representation is native to a Windows environment. There are also native groupings that are compatible, such as HP_UX_64, RS_6000_AIX_64, SOLARIS_64, and HP_IA64. For more information, see Compatibility across Environments.

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