How the DBLOAD Procedure Works

When you use the DBLOAD procedure to create a DBMS table, the procedure issues dynamic SQL statements to create the table and insert data from a SAS data set, DATA step view, PROC SQL view, or view descriptor into the table. Here are the steps that the SAS/ACCESS interface view engine completes.

1. When you supply the connection information to PROC DBLOAD, the SAS/ACCESS interface calls the DBMS to connect to the database.
2. SAS uses the information that the DBLOAD procedure provides to construct a SELECT * FROM table-name statement and passes the information to the DBMS to determine whether the table already exists. PROC DBLOAD continues only if a table with that name does not exist unless you use the DBLOAD APPEND option.
3. SAS uses the information that the DBLOAD procedure provides to construct an SQL CREATE TABLE statement and passes it to the DBMS.
4. SAS constructs an SQL INSERT statement for the current observation and passes it to the DBMS. New INSERT statements are constructed and executed repeatedly until all observations from the input SAS data set are passed to the DBMS. Some DBMSs have a bulk-copy capability so that a group of observations can be inserted at once. See your DBMS documentation to determine whether your DBMS has this capability.
5. Additional nonquery SQL statements that are specified in the DBLOAD procedure are executed as the user submitted them. The DBMS returns an error message if a statement does not execute successfully.
6. SAS closes the connection with the DBMS.