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ASSIGN

	Optional statement
Applies to:	access descriptor
Interacts with:	FORMAT, RENAME, RESET, UNIQUE
Default:	NO

Details

The ASSIGN statement indicates whether SAS variable names are automatically generated and whether users can change SAS variable names and formats in the view descriptors created from this access descriptor.

An editing statement, such as ASSIGN, must be specified after the CREATE and database connection statements when you create an access descriptor. See CREATE for more information.

Note:   The ASSIGN statement cannot be used with the UPDATE statement.  

The value NO (or N) enables you to modify SAS variable names and formats when you create an access descriptor and when you create view descriptors that are based on this access descriptor. During an access descriptor's creation, you use the RENAME statement to change SAS variable names; you use the FORMAT statement to change SAS formats.

Specify a YES (or Y) value for this statement to generate unique SAS variable names from the first eight characters of the DBMS column names, according to the following rules. With YES, you can change the SAS variable names only in the access descriptor. The SAS variable names that are saved in an access descriptor are always used when view descriptors are created from the access descriptor; you cannot change them in the view descriptors. Note that the ACCESS procedure only allows names up to eight characters.

Default SAS variable names are generated according to these rules:

• If the column name is longer than eight characters, the SAS System uses only the first eight characters. If truncating results in duplicate names, numbers are appended to the ends of the names. For example, the DBMS names clientsname and clientsnumber become the SAS names clientsn and clients0.

  If the same descriptor has another set of columns with duplicate names, the numeric suffix begins at the next highest number from the previous set of duplicate names. For example, if the descriptor has the duplicate names above and also the DBMS names customername, customernumber, and customernode, the default SAS names would be customer, custome1, and custome2.

• If the column name contains characters that are invalid in SAS names (including national characters), the SAS System replaces the invalid characters with underscores (_). For example, the column name func$ becomes the SAS variable name func_.

If you specify YES for this statement, the SAS System automatically resolves any duplicate variable names. However, if you specify YES, you cannot specify the RENAME, FORMAT, RESET or UNIQUE statements when you create view descriptors that are based on the access descriptor.

When the SAS/ACCESS interface encounters the next CREATE statement to create an access descriptor, the ASSIGN statement is reset to the default NO value.

AN is the alias for the ASSIGN statement.

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Copyright 1999 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.