Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 13:18:13 -0400
Reply-To: "Keintz, H. Mark" <mkeintz@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Keintz, H. Mark" <mkeintz@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Any remaining reasons to export to XPT?
In-Reply-To: A<006001c8b50a$e98c8520$bca58f60$@com>
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Thanks folks for your thoughts on the efficacy of the XPT format. One
that caught my attention was Alan Churchill's comment below noting that
accessing XPT does not require a SAS/access license. So other than the
Stata "fdause" statement, are there other well-known stat or database
packages that read XPT files? I mean, excluding such products as
Stat/transfer and dbmscopy.
Regards,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Alan Churchill
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:06 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Any remaining reasons to export to XPT?
Mark,
I never use xpt files but there is not a lot of choice for SAS datasets
to
be exported/imported from if we look at the following as criteria:
1. Have embedded metadata
2. Do not require a SAS Access license
I personally would use XML but that is still limited until 9.2 becomes
more
widely available. XML is definitely a good replacement long term,
especially
with gzipped XML.
Alan
Alan Churchill
Savian
www.savian.net
-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Keintz,
H. Mark
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:31 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Any remaining reasons to export to XPT?
Dear SAS-L folks.
Is there any reason that you would suggest a user "proc export" SAS data
to XPT format, given the wide array of alternative export formats and
SAS data engines?
I used to recommend XPT to make it easy for Stata users (the Stata
FDAUSE statement reads XPT files), accepting the downside that XPT would
not support long variable names (over 8 characters). But since SAS 9.1
can directly create Stata datasets, this is no longer an advantage.
Since (I believe) PROC CPORT/CIMPORT goes back to SAS version 6, I am
unaware of any notable contexts in which I would export SAS data to the
XPT format.
Regards,
Mark
