Sorts a SAS dataset in place, preserving constraints. More...

Detailed Description

Generally if a dataset contains indexes, then it is not necessary to sort it before performing operations such as merges / joins etc. That said, there are a few edge cases where it can be desirable:

To allow adjacent records to be viewed directly in the dataset
To apply compression, or to remove deleted records
To improve performance for specific queries

This macro will only work for BASE (V9) engine libraries. It works by creating a copy of the dataset (without data, WITH constraints) in the same library, appending a sorted view into it, and finally - renaming it.

Example usage:

proc sql;
create table work.example as
  select * from sashelp.class;
alter table work.example
  add constraint pk primary key(name);
%mp_sortinplace(work.example)

Parameters

[in] libds The libref.datasetname that needs to be sorted

SAS Macros

Related Macros

mp_sortinplace.test.sas

Version: 9.2

Author: Allan Bowe

Definition in file mp_sortinplace.sas.