Understanding the SAS Java Metadata Interface

SAS Java Metadata Interface Overview

The SAS Java Metadata Interface provides a way to access metadata repositories through the use of client Java objects that represent server metadata. This enabless users to perform metadata access tasks without having to know XML.

The API has interfaces and classes for the following:

connecting to the SAS Metadata Server
instantiating an object factory that creates Java objects to represent the SAS Metadata Model
creating, reading, and writing Java object instances on the client, and propagating additions and changes to the SAS Metadata Server

There are two implementations of the SAS Java Metadata Interface:

A remote version for applications that support single or multiple users. These applications have objects that need to be sent to a remote environment, such as the SAS middle tier.
A static version for single-user applications that do not need to support objects in the SAS middle tier.

In SAS 9.2, the static and remote versions have been reconciled to use the same methods to perform the same actions. However, for new applications, the use of the remote version is recommended over the use of the static version for both single-user and multi-user applications. The static version is supported for backward compatibility.

The SAS Java Metadata Interface includes the following Java packages:

com.sas.metadata.remote: provides the remote Java object interface to the SAS Metadata Server.
com.sas.metadata: provides the static Java object interface to the SAS Metadata Server.

The com.sas.metadata.remote package is typically used with the com.sas.services.information package included with SAS Foundation Services software. The com.sas.services.information package provides a generic interface for interacting with heterogeneous data repositories, including SAS metadata repositories, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) repositories, and WebDAV repositories, from client applications. Using information service methods, a client can submit a single query that searches all available repositories and returns the results in a smart object that provides a generic interface to common data elements. The com.sas.services.information package is described in the SAS Foundation Services class documentation. SAS Foundation Services is a component of SAS Integration Technologies.

Top of Page