BULKLOAD= Data Set Option

Loads rows of data as one unit.

Valid in: DATA and PROC steps (when accessing DBMS data using SAS/ACCESS software)
Categories: Bulk Loading
Data Set Control
Aliases: BL_DB2LDUTIL= [DB2 under z/OS]
BCP= [ODBC, OLE DB, SAP IQ]
FASTLOAD= [Teradata]
YBLOAD= [Yellowbrick]
Default: YES [Hadoop, Spark]
NO [Amazon Redshift, Aster, DB2 under UNIX and PC Hosts, DB2 under z/OS, Greenplum, HAWQ, Impala, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Netezza, ODBC, OLE DB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAP ASE, SAP HANA, SAP IQ, Snowflake, Teradata]
LIBNAME option value [Google BigQuery, Informix, JDBC]
Data source: Amazon Redshift, Aster, DB2 under UNIX and PC Hosts, DB2 under z/OS, Google BigQuery, Greenplum, Hadoop, HAWQ, Impala, Informix, JDBC, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Netezza, ODBC, OLE DB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAP ASE, SAP HANA, SAP IQ, Snowflake, Teradata, Yellowbrick
Notes: Oracle: Important! The SQL*Loader that the BULKLOAD= data set option calls takes user name and password as command-line arguments. This means that a user who runs the ps command while the SQL*Loader is running could see the user credentials. To conceal the user name and password, make sure that the BL_PARFILE= data set option is also specified.
Support for Microsoft SQL Server, Spark, and Yellowbrick was added in SAS 9.4M7.
Support for Informix was added in SAS 9.4M9.
Tips: You can also use this option with the BULKUNLOAD= option if your interface supports it.
Impala: Before specifying BULKLOAD=YES, it is recommended that you set the SAS_HADOOP_RESTFUL environment variable to 1 before starting your SAS session. For more information, see SAS Hadoop Configuration Guide for Base SAS and SAS/ACCESS.
Using BULKLOAD=YES is the fastest way to insert rows into a DBMS table.
See: BULKUNLOAD= LIBNAME option, BULKUNLOAD= data set option, DBCOMMIT= data set option, ENABLE_BULK= LIBNAME option [SAP ASE], ERRLIMIT= data set option, bulk loading details in the DBMS-specific reference section for your SAS/ACCESS interface

Table of Contents

Syntax

BULKLOAD=YES | NO

Syntax Description

YES

calls a DBMS-specific bulk-load facility to insert or append rows to a DBMS table.

NO

uses the dynamic SAS/ACCESS engine to insert or append data to a DBMS table.

Details

Microsoft SQL Server: The BULKLOAD= data set option enables Microsoft SQL Server to connect to Azure Synapse Analytics (SQL DW) with a Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 storage account. Bulk loading uses the COPY INTO command to load data into a DBMS table.

Teradata: The BULKLOAD= data set option calls the TPT FastLoad utility to load data to Teradata. For more information, see Maximizing Teradata Load and Read Performance.

Last updated: February 3, 2026