[R] sas.get problem

[John Kane]

--- Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at comcast.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 14:38 -0400, John Kane wrote:
> > --- Cody_Hamilton at Edwards.com wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > John,
> > > 
> > > Do you not have sas on your machine? (That would
> > > definitely keep sas.get
> > > from executing.)
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > >    -Cody
> > 
> > No I don't have SAS on my machine. Nobody in my
> group
> > uses it and we seldom use SPSS. I think one person
> has
> > STATA. Most of the work is more policy than data
> work
> > and the occasional spreadsheet (shudder) does for
> > basic work. 
> > 
> > I am too cheap to have us spend a huge amount
> (well,
> > large amount anyway) for something that  I am
> likely
> > to use for 5-10 minutes a year. The last time I
> wanted
> > a SPSS file exported to "delimited" I just asked
> > someone in another department whom I knew has it
> on
> > his labtop to do it. 
> > 
> > I just hike across campus to the nearest lab with
> SAS,
> > SPSS etc installed. Done occasionally and in
> decent
> > weather it is not a problem. Today it is turning
> into
> > a marathon but I need to lose some weight.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> John, I believe that this has been mentioned on the
> list previously, but
> if you don't have convenient access to SAS, they do
> offer a free
> download called the SAS System Viewer. It can read
> the proprietary SAS
> datasets and then enable you to save them as ASCII
> delimited files.

Thanks Marc. 

I had seen a reference to that and lost it.  I'll get
a copy. However the major purpose of using sas.get
is/was to keep the value labels and variable labels.  

For the number of times in a year that I need SAS ,
the 5 minute walk to the nearest lab with SAS etc is
not a problem. 

At the moment I will probably have to resort to the 
SAS > SPSS > R route. A pain but not that bad. At the
moment I am finding it easier to import the SAS file
into SPSS than to load it in SAS.  

  

> 
> It is available at the SAS web site here:
> 
>
http://www.sas.com/apps/demosdownloads/sassystemviewer_PROD_9.1.3_sysdep.jsp?packageID=000313
> 
> There is also DBMS/Copy, which is by DataFlux (now a
> SAS subsidiary).
> More information is here:
> 
> http://www.dataflux.com/Technology/Products/DBMS/
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Marc Schwartz
> 
> 
>