IGNORE_READ_ONLY_COLUMNS= LIBNAME Statement Option

Specifies whether to ignore or include columns where data types are read-only when generating an SQL statement for inserts or updates.

Valid in: SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement
Category: Data Set Control
Alias: IGNORE_READONLY= [Greenplum, HAWQ, SAP IQ]
Default: NO
Data source: Amazon Redshift, Aster, DB2 under UNIX and PC Hosts, Greenplum, HAWQ, Impala, Microsoft SQL Server, Netezza, ODBC, OLE DB, PostgreSQL, SAP HANA, SAP IQ, Vertica, Yellowbrick
Note: Support for Yellowbrick was added in SAS 9.4M7.
See: IGNORE_READ_ONLY_COLUMNS= data set option

Syntax

IGNORE_READ_ONLY_COLUMNS=YES | NO

Syntax Description

YES

specifies that the SAS/ACCESS engine ignores columns where data types are read-only when you are generating insert and update SQL statements.

NO

specifies that the SAS/ACCESS engine does not ignore columns where data types are read-only when you are generating insert and update SQL statements.

Details

Several databases include data types that can be read-only, such as the data type of the Microsoft SQL Server timestamp. Several databases also have properties that allow certain data types to be read-only, such as the Microsoft SQL Server identity property.

When IGNORE_READ_ONLY_COLUMNS=NO and a DBMS table contains a column that is read-only, an error is returned indicating that the data could not be modified for that column.

Example

For this example, a database that contains the table Products is created with two columns: ID and PRODUCT_NAME. The ID column is specified as a Read-only data type and PRODUCT_NAME is a character column.

CREATE TABLE products (id int IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY, product_name varchar(40))

Assume you have a SAS data set that contains the name of your products, and you would like to insert the data into the Products table.

data work.products;
   id=1;
   product_name='screwdriver';
   output;
   id=2;
   product_name='hammer';
   output;
   id=3;
   product_name='saw';
   output;
   id=4;
   product_name='shovel';
   output;
run;

With IGNORE_READ_ONLY_COLUMNS=NO (the default), an error is returned by the database because in this example the ID column cannot be updated. However, if you set the option to YES and execute a PROC APPEND, the append succeeds, and the SQL statement that is generated does not contain the ID column.

libname x odbc uid=myusr1 pwd=myusr1 dsn=lupinss
               ignore_read_only_columns=yes;
options sastrace=',,,d' sastraceloc=saslog nostsuffix;
proc append base=x.PRODUCTS data=work.products;
run; 
Last updated: February 3, 2026