Part One—The HOW of the SAS Hash Object

The goal of Part One is to describe the hash object essentials, data operations, and tools to implement them along with the concepts essential to using the SAS hash object, in particular:

●   Hash object and table essentials.

●   The standard general table operations commonly known as CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete).

●   The implementation of these operations with the hash object tools.

●   Data exchange between the hash table and program data vector (PDV) host variables.

●   Compile time and run time aspects of the hash object behavior.

The hash object tools support two categories of standard data table operations: table-level and item-level. The item-level operations are much more numerous and can be further subdivided into the (a) direct key access operations and (b) enumeration operations.

As such, Part One contains four chapters:

1.   Chapter 1 provides an overview of what the SAS object is and what it can be used for.

2.   Chapter 2 provides a deep dive into table-level operations.

3.   Chapter 3 provides a deep dive into direct key access item-level operations.

4.   Chapter 4 describes, in detail, how to enumerate hash table items, i.e., process them sequentially.

This is not intended as a treatise on the SAS hash object, nor as a reincarnation of the related parts of SAS product documentation. However, it is intended to serve as a reference to explain the HOW of the examples in Parts Two, Three, and Four.