METALIB Procedure

Overview: METALIB Procedure

The METALIB procedure supports SAS data sets (data files and data views), DBMS data, and SAS Information Maps. The data source or information map is referred to as a table in this documentation and the procedure's output.

When you run PROC METALIB, you specify a SAS library that is already defined in the SAS Metadata Server. A SAS library is defined in the metadata by a SASLibrary object. A table in a SAS library is defined in the metadata by several objects that are collectively called a table definition. All of the table definitions that are associated with a SASLibrary object are tracked in an association list.

The METALIB procedure updates the metadata in the metadata server to match the tables in a library. By default, the procedure performs the following tasks:

creates metadata for any table that does not have metadata
updates metadata about all of the tables' columns, indexes, unique keys, foreign keys, and key associations

With optional statements, PROC METALIB can perform the following additional tasks:

select or exclude specific tables from processing
specify where new metadata is stored in SAS folders
limit the update of table definitions that would affect Job or Transformation objects
add a prefix to the name of all new metadata objects
generate a report of changes that the procedure made to metadata
generate a report of needed metadata changes without making the changes
in the generated report, include an impact analysis for Job and Transformation objects
in the generated report, include a list of tables that match the metadata
suppress the metadata add action, the metadata update action, or both
delete metadata that is obsolete or duplicated

For more information, see How PROC METALIB Works. For details about information maps, see Base SAS Guide to Information Maps.

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