SAS/ACCESS 9.2 for Relational Databases: Reference, Fourth Edition

Data Set Options for Relational Databases 4 DBSASTYPE= Data Set Option 315Syntax Descriptioncolumn-namespecifies a DBMS column name.SAS-data-typespecifies a SAS data type, which can be CHAR(n), NUMERIC, DATETIME, DATE,TIME. See your SAS/ACCESS interface documentation for details.DetailsBy default, the SAS/ACCESS interface for your DBMS converts each DBMS data typeto a SAS data type during input processing. When you need a different data type, youcan use this option to override the default and assign a SAS data type to each specifiedDBMS column. Some conversions might not be supported. In that case, SAS prints anerror to the log.ExamplesIn this example, DBSASTYPE= specifies a data type to use for the columnMYCOLUMN when SAS is printing ODBC data. SAS can print the values if the data inthis DBMS column is stored in a format that SAS does not support, such asSQL_DOUBLE(20).proc print data=mylib.mytable(dbsastype=(mycolumn=’CHAR(20)’));run;In the next example, data that is stored in the DBMS FIBERSIZE column has a datatype that provides more precision than what SAS could accurately support, such asDECIMAL(20). If you use only PROC PRINT on the DBMS table, the data might berounded or display as a missing value. So you could use DBSASTYPE= instead toconvert the column so that the length of the character field is 21. The DBMS performsthe conversion before the data is brought into SAS, so precision is preserved.proc print data=mylib.specprod(dbsastype=(fibersize=’CHAR(21)’));run;The next example uses DBSASTYPE= to append one table to another when the datatypes cannot be compared. If the EMPID variable in the SAS data set is defined asCHAR(20) and the EMPID column in the DBMS table is defined as DECIMAL(20), youcan use DBSASTYPE= to make them match:proc append base=dblib.hrdata (dbsastype=(empid=’CHAR(20)’))data=saslib.personnel;run;DBSASTYPE= specifies to SAS that the EMPID is defined as a character field oflength 20. When a row is inserted from the SAS data set into a DBMS table, the DBMSperforms a conversion of the character field to the DBMS data type DECIMAL(20).