Reviewing Variables

Suppose that, in your SAS program that you want to use SYSTEM 2000 data that is described by a view descriptor, but you cannot remember the variable names or formats and informats. You can get this information by using the CONTENTS or the DATASETS procedure.

The following example uses PROC DATASETS to give you information about the view descriptor Vlib.EmpPos, which you created earlier. See SAS/ACCESS Descriptor Files. The following output shows the results.

    proc datasets library=vlib memtype=view;
       contents data=emppos(s2kpw=demo);
    run;

DATASETS Procedure Results with a View Descriptor

                               The SAS System                              1
 
                             DATASETS PROCEDURE
 
     Data Set Name: VLIB.EMPPOS               Observations:         887
     Member Type:   VIEW                      Variables:            5
     Engine:        SASIOS2K                  Indexes:              0
     Created:       03NOV89:16:17:59          Observation Length:   53
     Last Modified: 07SEP89:14:15:58          Deleted Observations: 0
     Data Set Type:                           Compressed:           NO
     Label:
 
           -----Alphabetic List of Variables and Attributes-----
 
#    Variable    Type    Len    Pos    Format    Informat    Label
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4    DEPARTME    Char     14     36    $14.      $14.        DEPARTMENT
2    FIRSTNME    Char     10     10    $10.      $10.        FORENAME
1    LASTNAME    Char     10      0    $10.      $10.        LAST NAME
5    MANAGER     Char      3     50    $3.       $3.         MANAGER
3    POSITION    Char     16     20    $16.      $16.        POSITION
TITLE

Notice the following in the preceding output:

Because you cannot change a view descriptor's variable labels when you use PROC DATASETS, the labels that are generated are the complete SYSTEM 2000 item names at the time that the view descriptor was created. The labels cannot be overridden.
The Created date is the date when the access descriptor for this view descriptor was created.
The Last Modified date is the last date the SYSTEM 2000 database was updated.
The Observations number is the highest number of schema records that occurred in the database. The number of observations shown here does not correspond to the number of observations that the view descriptor accesses.

For more information about the DATASETS procedure, see the Base SAS Procedures Guide.