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Deciding How to Specify Selection Criteria

Use the following guidelines to determine when to use a SAS WHERE clause and when to use a view WHERE clause.

View WHERE Clause

Include a WHERE clause in your view descriptor when you want to

• restrict users of view descriptors to certain subsets of data

• prevent users from sequentially passing all the ADABAS data

• use syntax not available in the SAS WHERE clause, such as periodic group occurrence syntax or multiple-value compares.

SAS WHERE Clause

Use a SAS WHERE clause when the previous guidelines do not apply and you want to

• have more run-time flexibility in subsetting data

• use SAS WHERE clause capabilities that the view WHERE clause does not support, such as arithmetic expressions, truncated comparisons, or pattern matching

• use conditions on fabricated data fields such as ISN, periodic group _OCCUR variables, or any individually selected multiple-value fields

• combine AND/OR conditions using non-descriptor data fields.

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