Does Oracle have a SAS datastep?

Does Oracle have anything comparable to the data transformation procedures in SAS/BASE? In particular, the SAS datastep? ( SAS/BASE is for preparing data for analysis, data transformation, and data cleaning, and data integration , whereas SAS/STAT is for statistical analysis, where the data has already been prepared for analysis ).

I do believe that PL/SQL (and T/SQL) is a different tool for a different purpose. What's your take?

When I talk about SAS/BASE, I mean
1) The SAS datastep . For data transformation/preparation/munging, this is the core SAS technology - reads in and merges input datasets, row by row, reads and modifies the values, writes out the modified data to output datasets. Can also add and delete both rows and columns. This technology is for data transformation - not statistical analysis.
2) a few more "helper" procedures, also for data transformation: the MEANS procedure, the TRANSPOSE procedure, the FREQ procedure. ( for transposing (flipping) data, doing counts, % , averages, and such ). 3) The SQL procedure. Usually used to use the SQL SELECT statement.

What about the technologies of Hyperion and Business Objects, the two BI companies that Oracle and SAP recently bought out? How do they compare to SAS/BASE?

thanks,
Robert Received on Wed Nov 07 2007 - 12:39:50 CST