What Is Supported?

Enforces authorizations that are set in the metadata by an administrator.

Processes tables and views from SAS and third-party DBMSs (database management systems) by using an underlying engine. The metadata engine supports only tables and views, and does not support other SAS files such as catalogs.

Applies library options that are set in the metadata by an administrator.

Supports SQL implicit pass-through.

PROC DATASETS and PROC CONTENTS process requests using the SAS Metadata Repository instead of the underlying engine. Therefore, when you use the DATASETS procedure to list all members in a library, the engine gets a listing of only members that have metadata populated in the repository. When you execute the CONTENTS procedure, the table and column attributes that are returned are from the repository. Any formats, informats, or labels that are stored in the metadata are applied to the underlying data.

Enables you to bypass the engine’s metadata-only processing by setting alternate METAOUT= values in the LIBNAME statement or as a data set option. When certain METAOUT= values are set, the user is not restricted to tables that have been defined in the repository. However, there is restricted functionality for third-party DBMS tables that are not defined in metadata. For more information, see METAOUT= Argument .