Python sas7bdat module usage

Question

I have to dump data from SAS datasets. I found a Python module called sas7bdat.py that says it can read SAS .sas7bdat datasets, and I think it would be simpler and more straigh

Answer 1

This is only a partial answer as I've found no [easy to read] concrete documentation.

You can view the source code here

This shows some basic info regarding what arguments the methods require, such as:

• readColumnAttributes(self, colattr)
• readColumnLabels(self, collabs, coltext, colcount)
• readColumnNames(self, colname, coltext)

I think most of what you are after is stored in the "header" class returned when creating an object with SAS7BDAT. If you just print that class you'll get a lot of info, but you can also access class attributes as well. I think most of what you may be looking for would be under foo.header.cols. I suspect you use various header attributes as parameters for the methods you mention.

Maybe something like this will get you closer?

from sas7bdat import SAS7BDAT
foo = SAS7BDAT(inFile) #your file here...

for i in foo.header.cols:
    print '"Atrributes"', i.attr
    print '"Labels"', i.label
    print '"Name"', i.name

edit: Unrelated to this specific question, but the type() and dir() commands come in handy when trying to figure out what is going on in an unfamiliar class/library