Methods for Accessing Relational Database Data

SAS/ACCESS Interface to Relational Databases is a family of interfaces—each licensed separately—with which you can interact with data in other vendor databases from within SAS. SAS/ACCESS provides these methods for accessing relational DBMS data.

• To assign SAS librefs to DBMS objects such as schemas and databases, you can use the LIBNAME statement. After you associate a database with a libref, you can use a SAS two-level name to specify any table or view in the database. You can then work with the table or view as you would with a SAS data set.
• To interact with a data source using its native SQL syntax without leaving your SAS session, you can use the SQL pass-through facility. SQL statements are passed directly to the data source for processing.
• For indirect access to DBMS data, you can use ACCESS and DBLOAD procedures. Although SAS still supports these legacy procedures for specific DBMSs and environments, they are no longer the recommended method for accessing DBMS data.

Not all SAS/ACCESS interfaces support all of these features. To determine which features are available in your environment, see SAS/ACCESS Features by Host.