SPD Server tables have a different physical structure than SAS tables. To use a SAS table with
SPD Server, you must convert the table from the Base
SAS format to the SPD Server
format. Likewise, to use a server table with
Base SAS, you must convert the table from the SPD Server format to Base SAS format.
SPD Server's emphasis on complete LIBNAME compatibility makes it easy to convert from
one format to the other. When you access SPD Server, the standard procedures used
to create
and copy tables in SAS apply to server tables as well. That is, when you use PROC
COPY, the SAS DATA step SET statement, or the PROC SQL CREATE TABLE AS statement to
duplicate a table from a SAS library in an SPD Server
domain (or vice versa), the SAS client converts the data from the source format to the target
format automatically. This copy and convert process is referred to as “loading.”
You can also create new tables in SPD Server in the same ways that you can create
a new table in SAS.