Feed SAS Data Sets Data into FineReport

The CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets fully implements the JDBC standard and can provide SAS Data Sets data connectivity to a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and custom applications. In this article, we explain how to set SAS Data Sets data as JDBC data source in FineReport and view SAS Data Sets data as a table in the Report Designer.

Set Up a JDBC Data Source of SAS Data Sets Data

Follow the instruction below to set SAS Data Sets data as a FineReport database connection.

1. Copy the cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar file from the lib folder in the CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets installation directory to the lib folder of the FineReport installation directory. You will need to copy the cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.lic file as well.
2. From the Server tab, select Define Data Connection, click to add a new connection, and click JDBC.
👁 FineReport Server Tab (Salesforce is shown.)

Next we will set up the data connection definition in the window.

1. Database: Others
2. JDBC Driver: cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.SASDataSetsDriver
3. URL: A standard JDBC connection string using semicolon-separated connection properties.

   Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

   Connecting to Local Files

   • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
   • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

   Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

   While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

   Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAS Data Sets JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar
   

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

    jdbc:sasdatasets:URI=C:/myfolder;
    

👁 FineReport data connection definition window (Salesforce is shown.)

4. Click Connection pool attributes and set Test before getting connections to No.
👁 FineReport connection pool (Salesforce is shown.)

Click Test connection to ensure you have configured the connection properly. With the connection to SAS Data Sets set up, you can use it as FineReport data source.

Select SAS Data Sets Data in the Report Designer.

1. Click to add a new template data set and select DB query to open the database query window.
👁 Adding a new DB query.

2. Choose the JDBC connection that you created from the dropdown list.
3. The SAS Data Sets entities will appear as tables on the left pane.
4. Write a SELECT statement for the SAS Data Sets data tables and columns that you want to load.
👁 FineReport database query (Salesforce is shown.)

5. Click preview and data is shown as table.
👁 FineReport database query preview (Salesforce is shown.)

With these simple steps, SAS Data Sets can be used as a JDBC data source in FineReport.