Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:01:46 -0700
Reply-To:     Savian <savian.net@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Savian <savian.net@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: Are SAS datasets endianness-specific?
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Aug 27, 11:49 pm, mdhmil...@GMAIL.COM (Mark Miller) wrote:
> SAS has always used NATIVE floating point formats which do differ
> between platforms (endianess & representation), notwithstanding
> that both platforms may use IEEE754 floating point.
>
> Endianess MAY no longer matter with v9, but unless I am mistaken,
> the last version on PowerPC was v6.12 on Macintosh (still available )
> which would mean that the NATIVE floating point is Big-Endian IEEE754
> while all Intel hosts are Little-Endian IEEE754
>
> Endianess did matter with SAS v6 in so far as file extensions differed
> between big-endian and little-endian
> e.g.
>        (Big endian )    HP & SUN(Sun64, Solaris) extension was SSD01
>        (Little Endian 32bit )  WinTel was SSD02
>        (Little Endian 64bit)  DEC Alpha was SSD04
>
> I do not recall what the SAS file extension was used on the PowerMac
> platform (v6.12)
> but I believe it was binary compatible with HP & Sun (i.e. ssd01)
>
> So the files on PowerPC and Intel are not directly interchangeable.
> As usual, it is possible to exchange files via SAS EXPORT format files.
>
> ... Mark Miller
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Savian <savian....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 26, 2:33 am, Troels Arvin <tro...@arvin.dk> wrote:
> > > Hello,
>
> > > Will SAS dataset files produced on PowerPC host be read+writeable on an
> > > Intel host?
>
> > > --
> > > Troels
>
> > I don't think that the endianess of the dataset will matter. I won't
> > comment more than that but it should be handled.
>
> > Alan
>
> > Savian- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Mark,

The dataset knows the endianess. When you attempt to read a foreign
dataset (endianess is wrong), SAS throws a warning telling you it is
from a different platform but still reads the values properly.

Not sure how it worked under 6.12 but that's the way it works with v7
datasets.

Best thing to do is test it out and see what it does.

Alan