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

SAS/ACCESS Interface to Oracle 4 Character Data 729Naming Conventions for OracleFor general information about this feature, see Chapter 2, “SAS Names and Supportfor DBMS Names,” on page 11.The PRESERVE_COL_NAMES= and PRESERVE_TAB_NAMES= LIBNAME optionsdetermine how SAS/ACCESS Interface to Oracle handles case sensitivity, spaces, andspecial characters. For information about these options, see “Overview of theLIBNAME Statement for Relational Databases” on page 87.You can name such Oracle objects as tables, views, columns, and indexes. For theOracle 7 Server, objects also include database triggers, procedures, and storedfunctions. They follow these naming conventions.3 A name must be from 1 to 30 characters long. Database names are limited to 8characters, and link names are limited to 128 characters.3 A name must begin with a letter. However, if you enclose the name in doublequotation marks, it can begin with any character.3 A name can contain the letters A through Z, the digits 0 through 9, the underscore(_), $, and #. If the name appears within double quotation marks, it can containany characters, except double quotation marks.3 Names are not case sensitive. For example, CUSTOMER and Customer are the same.However, if you enclose an object names in double quotation marks, it is casesensitive.3 A name cannot be an Oracle reserved word.3 A name cannot be the same as another Oracle object in the same schema.Data Types for OracleOverviewEvery column in a table has a name and a data type. The data type tells Oracle howmuch physical storage to set aside for the column and the form in which the data isstored. This section includes information about Oracle data types, null and defaultvalues, and data conversions.For more detailed information about Oracle data types, see the Oracle Database SQLReference.SAS/ACCESS Interface to Oracle does not support Oracle MLSLABEL and ROWIDdata types.Character DataCHAR (n)contains fixed-length character string data with a length of n, where n must be atleast 1 and cannot exceed 255 characters. (The limit is 2,000 characters with anOracle8 Server.) The Oracle 7 Server CHAR data type is not equivalent to theOracle Version 6 CHAR data type. The Oracle 7 Server CHAR data type is newwith the Oracle 7 Server and uses blank-padded comparison semantics.