a set of records on an external storage medium (for example, a disk or a tape drive)

(n.) a sequence of records that is stored on a medium external to the executable program.

A file that is EXTERNAL as defined by the ANSI'85 standard. It can be accessed by any program running in the run unit. Do not confuse external files with externally assigned files.

a file created and maintained on the host operating system from which you can read data or stored SAS statements or in which you can store procedure output. An external file is not a SAS table.

INFO stores data in files within a database. However, database information can be stored in files outside of the database. These files are referred to as external files. For example, feature attribute tables are stored as external INFO data files maintained in the coverage directory.