sas.get under Linux

Dear Frank,

I understand. Never used SAS before, so I don't have it installed anywhere.

StatTransfer is a very useful tool indeed, but maybe I don't know how to 
use it properly.

What I have is a "mydata.sas7bdat" file, along with a "formats.sas7bcat" 
file.

I specified reading SAS value labels "Read directly from a catalog 
file", but nothing appears in the output, neither in the R workspace nor 
in an intermediate SPSS file.

I also tried exporting to a SAS portable file to import directly in R, 
but there is probably something obvious that I miss because value labels 
are not there, whatever I do...

Thanks for your help,

Adrian

On Saturday 31 January 2009, Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:

 > Adrian Dusa wrote:

 > > Dear all,

 > >

 > > I am trying to import a SAS file into R (in fact I only need the value

 > > labels from the formats file), using Hmisc package, but I get this 

error:

 > >

 > > my.sas <- sas.get("/home/adi/3", "fis1_sgg")

 > > sh: sas: not found

 > > Error in sas.get("/home/adi/3", "fis1_sgg") :

 > > SAS job failed with status 32512

 > >

 > > I read some past discussions and I get the impression that sas.get()

 > > needs the full path to the SAS executable, but I don't have that 

because

 > > I am using Linux.

 > >

 > > Is it possible to use sas.get() without having SAS installed?

 >

 > Since sas.get is trying to execute sas the answer is a definite no

 > unless you use the sas.get option to run SAS on another machine to

 > produce the input ASCII files needed by sas.get. Also investigate

 > sasxport.get if you have SAS version 5 transport files to import.

 > See also http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/SASexportHowto

 >

 > As SAS never got it right in allowing for full metadata to be included

 > in a SAS dataset, you often have to run PROC FORMAT CNTLOUT=... to

 > convert format libraries to SAS datasets so that programs such as

 > sasxport.get can assign value labels [if you have SAS installed, sas.get

 > runs PROC CONTENTS for you.]. SPSS and Stata have always been ahead of

 > SAS in this regard.

 >

 > Note that the excellent Stat/Transfer commercial product will convert

 > from almost any SAS dataset format to compact R binary objects,

 > including variable labels the way the Hmisc package handles them. If

 > you have another way to convert from SAS to Stata or SPSS, R is great at

 > readying those formats.

 >

 > Frank

 >

 > > Or alternatively, is there another function to import the formats 

into R?

 > >

 > > Thanks in advance for any hint,

 > > Adrian

-- 

Adrian Dusa

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