The SAS7BDAT file format

This page gives some notes on the SAS7BDAT file format, which is currently the main format used for storing SAS datasets across all platforms. The format is proprietary to the SAS Institute but having successfully reverse-engineered most of the old PC-SAS v6 file format back in the 1990s, I've always wanted to spend a bit of time figuring out the internals of the more complicated SAS7BDAT format.

Why do this? Well, partly out of simple intellectual curiosity, but I think this sort of information will also become increasingly useful as initiatives like CDISC open up the pharmaceutical clinical trials programming industry to third-party tools and systems. Being able to at least read some of the structure from native SAS7BDAT files will allow tighter integration of modern systems with legacy SAS systems.

The eventual plan is to publish a C++ class here for opening, reading and possibly modifying SAS7BDAT files. If you're interested in this information, please leave a comment - any further insights and contributions are also welcome.

Update, 2010-02-19:

A simple dataset reader utility, dsread, is now available here.

Update, 2009-11-23:

I've removed most of the information that was once on this page, pending the outcome of SAS's current legal action against World Programming. Nothing is ever deleted on the internet so enterprising readers will be able to find the information if they want to.

In the current climate it would perhaps be unwise for me to even say how much progress I've made on reading the sas7bdat file format, but I will update this page in due course.

In the meantime, why not try your luck with the QuizBang quiz widget?