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

Personally I think the better approach would be to export the data using SAS then process the external file as needed using Python.

In SAS, you can do this...

libname datalib "/support/sas";
filename sasdump "/support/textfiles/locked_data.txt";

proc export
    data = datalib.locked_data
    outfile = sasdump
    dbms = tab
    label
    replace;
run;

The downside to this is that while the column labels are used rather than the variable names, the labels are enclosed in double quotes. When processing in Python, you may need to programmatically remove them if they cause a problem. I hope that helps even though it doesn't use Python like you wanted.