Date:         Fri, 24 May 1996 19:01:11 -0500
Reply-To:     GERALD ZUCKIER <ZUCKIER@CHIME.ORG>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         GERALD ZUCKIER <ZUCKIER@CHIME.ORG>
Subject:      Re: SAS linked to Visual Foxpro, MS-Access, MS-SQL Server Databa
In-Reply-To:  <vines.vq39++XTdla@go01.comp.pge.com>

Well, if we're going to discuss DB2 as an example of access.... Yes, you can use
the passthrough to send native SQL code and save a lot of processing time. It's
not that hard, SQL is somewhat standard. You can either define proc access views
of the native database that you can treat just like SAS datasets, which makes
life easy but SAS has to do all the processing, or you can use proc sql with the
passthrough to do the preprocessing on the database and just fetch back a
smaller dataset, but you have to write a proc sql each time. You may be able to
define a native view of linked tables in the database as well and just bring
that back, without having to write to the database? or maybe get the IS guys to
do that much for you. As much preprocessing as you can do in the database will
put you that much further ahead. Once the data comes back, though, you are
limited to the usual SAS fieldname and type restrictions. By default it just
truncates long names.