SAS/ACCESS® Interface to Datacom

SAS/ACCESS Interface to Datacom brings together the resources you need for effective information delivery, and lets you put these resources to work in a dynamic, syntax-free environment. With this out-of-the-box solution, you get the power and flexibility of SAS® to analyze and present data directly from your database.

Database integrity is not at risk because SAS/ACCESS fully supports the existing security features of Datacom. Access to the database can be provided to as many, or as few, users as necessary.

With SAS/ACCESS Interface to Datacom, you create a view to describe the specific data you would like to access in your SAS application. SAS uses the DATADICTIONARY to gain information about the database table. You can access any table in PRODUCTION or TEST status. SAS/ACCESS handles compound fields, repeating fields, nested compound and/or repeating structures.

You begin by creating an access descriptor, which tells SAS the essential information about the table you want to access (i.e., the name, column names and data types). Then, you create a view descriptor to let SAS know which subsets of the data (typically specific rows, columns or occurrences of repeating fields) you would like to use as input.

SAS then reads the data values just as if they were in a SAS data file. You are always assured that you're using the most current data, because the data is read directly from the database file into your SAS application without creating an intermediate SAS data file. You save disk space because the data remains in the database. Only the descriptive information is stored in the view.

Structured Query Language (SQL) can also be used to update, delete or insert data into the Datacom table you have described in your view descriptor. With SAS SQL, you can combine data from different supported databases with each other and with SAS data files to form a single output table.