SAS7BDAT reader in SAS

The zip file linked below contains a simple SAS program to open a SAS7BDAT file and read some basic metadata from it. This shows the general techniques needed, such as reading floating-point binary values, and provides documentation of the file format itself. See the main SAS7BDAT page for more information.

Note that this has only been tested against SAS7BDAT files created on Windows platforms (you can run the program on any platform, so long as the file you're reading was created on Windows). I know it won't work for SAS7BDAT files from some Unix platforms, due to differences in the file layout. If you test this program on any non-Windows platforms, please leave a comment below to let me know whether it appears to work or not - ie whether it correctly reported the creation and modification dates, etc. Thanks.

• sas.zip (3Kb)

The zip file contains the main program, read_sas7bdat.sas, a simple driver, read_sas7bdat_driver.sas, and an example log, read_sas7bdat.log. The program lists some basic metadata to the log, like this:

The file was read successfully. Extracted metadata is as follows: Dataset name: TEST File type: DATA SAS Version: 8.0202M0 Platform: WIN_PRO Created: 26JUN2008:09:55:43 Modified: 26JUN2008:09:55:43