Can Julia Import SAS Datasets or SAS Transport Files ?

[jorttx]

Is anyone working on the ability for Julia to import SAS datasets (*.sas7bdat files) as has been done for R ?  Julia looks great, but most of the data I need to work with originates in SAS.

[Jacob Quinn]

I used [this](http://support.sas.com/downloads/package.htm?pid=667) last fall when I needed to convert some SAS files. It's Windows only, but got the job done.

[cdm]

if your SAS suite includes SAS/ACCESS

   http://support.sas.com/software/products/access/index.html

then there would appear to be several paths

including, but not limited to ODBC, XLSX ...

good luck.

[Sam L]

I actually started writing a package to do this as a way to learn Julia. https://github.com/lendle/XPT.jl. It was the first thing I did in Julia, so the code is probably not great. I never fully tested it, and I haven't touched it in a year so who knows if it will work with current versions of packages. I abandoned it because I saw that someone else was working on a much more complete package which wrapped a library that they had written to handle SAS data sets and other systems as well. Of course I don't remember what that was called, and can't find that anywhere...

[cdm]

the Rcall package may also be of interest

if you want some R feature in Julia:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/julia-users/R$20from$20julia/julia-users/Q0y03kheEtU/vqbjBZikHZcJ

not sure how far along this is ...

[cdm]

similarly, PyCall could allow you to reach out

to an existing Python feature ...

more here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19645852/python-sas7bdat-module-usage

enjoy !!!

[cdm]

to make the link to that Python module very clear:

http://git.pyhacker.com/sas7bdat/overview

[Sam L]

Here's the package I'd found previously: https://github.com/WizardMac/DataRead.jl

It looks like it will not automatically install binary dependencies for you, but might do what you need.

[cdm]

and this may be useful to anyone working on such a package in Julia:

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sas7bdat/vignettes/sas7bdat.pdf

[Simon Byrne]

I had the same idea, but didn't get anywhere near as far. But I did write some code for converting the IBM float format:

https://gist.github.com/simonbyrne/5443843

[Sam L]

Yes, I used that, in fact!  https://github.com/lendle/XPT.jl/blob/b39a3ae7689727ccb2c89c78d8d28515843afa28/src/IBM2Float64.jl#L1

Though I probably shouldn't have, because your gist is unlicensed...