Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 09:22:42 -0400
Reply-To: Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject: Re: SAS data file format ?
Would the SAS System Viewer, which is free, serve your purpose?
One can download it at:
http://www.sas.com/apps/demosdownloads/sassysviewer913_PROD_9.1_sysdep.jsp?
packageID=000316&jmpflag=N
or, in short form,: http://xrl.us/oqi46
Art
--------
On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 13:51:44 +0200, Capra Hircus <capra.hircus@ORANGE.FR>
wrote:
>RolandRB wrote:
>> On Sep 7, 12:10 pm, Capra Hircus <capra.hir...@orange.fr> wrote:
>
>>> RolandRB wrote:
>
>>>> On Sep 7, 2:04 am, Capra Hircus <capra.hir...@orange.fr> wrote:
>
>>>>> I would like to know if the format specification for sas7bdat files
is
>>>>> available. I am currently writing some programs for statistical
>>>>> computations, and I would like to write some code to import sas
files.
>>>>> (ultimately, it may be distributed as open source software)
>>>>> If the format is not available, is it legal to find it on my own ?
>
>>>> Why not convert the sas7bdat datasets to transport files within SAS
>>>> and then whatever application reads the transport files will find it
>>>> easier? I think some people are doing some work on finding out this
>>>> format but it seems pointless to me.
>
>>> I give the reason in the answer to R. DeVenezia. ;-)
>>> You say people try to find, does that mean it's lawful ?
>>> I'm not an expert in software laws, and closed formats
>>> may be a problem here.
>
>> You may work out how to read these formats but not how to write them
>> and include their checksums etc. so I don't think it is worth it.
>
>Yes it's worth it ! Not everybody has SAS to open data files : what
>do you do when you have a .sas7bdat file and no SAS (nor conversion
>software, usually commercial) to open and convert ?
>Why not include SAS import in e.g. R ? (here I'm not directly concerned
>with R, but it would be a good example)
>Exporting is less important since SAS is able to import .csv files,
>but for interoperability, importing SAS files seems very important
>to me.
>
>> Just
>> use whatever they allow you to read their format even thouugh it is
>> translated into another format like transport files.
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