Bill: What middleware (SAS/Access Sybase engine (if one exists), OBCD, ????) do you have available? If a SAS/Access DBMS engine, a PROC CONTENTS will work, but a SAS SQL query on dictionary.tables gives you more control of what you may want to select. A pass-thru query using ODBC may support Sybase procedures such as sp_helpdb [dbname]. in pass-thru query you may need to use something like execute(sp_helpdb [dbname]) Sig

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Bill West Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 1:35 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: relational databases

Thanks to those who responded. I'm not accessing an oracle but a sybase system but tried the logic below

select table_name from all_table and got error message table all_table not found

then tried: ( select table_name as table_, num_rows as rows_ from dba_tables order by table_name); and got message table dba_tables not found;

I think its because I'm accessing a sybase database that has other names.

Bill West