ADABAS is Software AG’s database management system (DBMS). ADABAS organizes and accesses data according to relationships among data fields. The relationships among data fields are expressed by ADABAS files, which consist of data fields and logical records.
With the ADABAS DBMS, you can also use the high-level language NATURAL to operate on data that is managed by the DBMS.
An ADABAS database is a collection of data organized into ADABAS files. Each database has an associated database identifier, which is a numerical value in the range 1 to 255, and a database name, which is a character value with a maximum of 16 characters. Each database can consist of up to 255 ADABAS files.
An ADABAS database consists of three system files: Data Storage, Associator, and Work Storage. The Data Storage system file contains the actual data records for all ADABAS files in a database, in compressed form. The Associator system file contains internal storage information that manages the data for the entire database. The Work Storage system file contains temporary work files.
To use the SAS/ACCESS interface to ADABAS, you need to be familiar with three ADABAS components: ADABAS files, NATURAL DDMs, and ADABAS descriptors (which is an ADABAS data field that provides an index of its values). ADABAS files
and NATURAL DDMs are the components from which you create SAS/ACCESS access descriptor and view descriptor files. Knowing about ADABAS descriptors can help you minimize ADABAS’s processing time for your SAS/ACCESS view descriptors.
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