SAS/ACCESS Interface to SYSTEM 2000 Data Management Software: Reference

Changes and Enhancements for Version 7 and Version 8

SAS/ACCESS Interface to SYSTEM 2000 Data Management Software communicates with base SAS software using a Version 6 compatibility engine. The compatibility engine allows you to create Version 6 SAS/ACCESS views and to use data stored in Version 6 format without converting to Version 7 or Version 8 format. You can also read, write, and update data described by SAS/ACCESS views with Version 7 or 8 data files, and vice versa, as long as the features of the data files are compatible. Version 6 and later data files are compatible if the newer data files do not contain any features found only in later software releases and they respect Version 6 naming conventions. For more information about the Version 6 compatibility engine, see SAS Language Reference: Concepts.
Version 6 of SAS/ACCESS software provided a full-screen interface for creating and editing descriptor files. The full-screen interface is no longer supported: you can no longer create and edit access and view descriptors by using the Access Descriptor and View Descriptor windows. You must create descriptor files in line mode with the ACCESS procedure and you can no longer edit them. The ACCESS procedure and related statements are described in ACCESS Procedure Reference.
The full-screen interface for the DBLOAD procedure is also no longer supported.