Skip to main content

SAS Format

Description​

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) files are binary data files used by SAS software for statistical analysis. The .sas7bdat format is the native SAS data file format. This implementation supports reading SAS files and converting them to Python dictionaries.

File Extensions​

  • .sas - SAS files
  • .sas7bdat - SAS 7 binary data files

Implementation Details​

Reading​

The SAS implementation:

  • Uses pyreadstat (pip install iterabledata[stats])
  • Reads SAS files and converts to pandas DataFrame, then to dictionaries
  • Supports metadata extraction
  • Requires file path (not stream)

Writing​

Writing is not currently supported for SAS format.

Key Features​

  • Statistical format: Designed for statistical analysis
  • Metadata support: Can extract variable labels and formats
  • Totals support: Can count total rows
  • Type preservation: Maintains data types from SAS

Usage​

from iterable import open_iterable

# Basic reading
with open_iterable('data.sas7bdat') as source:
    for row in source:
        print(row)

Parameters​

No specific parameters required.

Limitations​

  1. Read-only: SAS format does not support writing
  2. Dependency: Requires pip install iterabledata[stats] (pyreadstat)
  3. File path required: Requires filename, not stream
  4. Flat data only: Only supports tabular data
  5. Memory usage: Entire file is loaded into memory

Compression Support​

SAS files can be compressed with all supported codecs:

  • GZip (.sas7bdat.gz)
  • BZip2 (.sas7bdat.bz2)
  • LZMA (.sas7bdat.xz)
  • LZ4 (.sas7bdat.lz4)
  • ZIP (.sas7bdat.zip)
  • Brotli (.sas7bdat.br)
  • ZStandard (.sas7bdat.zst)

Use Cases​

  • Statistical analysis: Working with SAS data files
  • Data migration: Converting SAS data to other formats
  • Research data: Processing research datasets in SAS format
  • Government data: Some government datasets use SAS format

Error Handling​

  • Missing dependency: optional libraries raise ImportError with an install hint (pip install 'iterabledata[<extra>]' when an extra exists).
  • Read-only: opening with mode="w" raises WriteNotSupportedError or ValueError.
  • Bad or unsupported input: may raise ValueError, OSError, or library-specific errors.
  • See Troubleshooting for decoding, detection, and engine issues.
  • Stata - Another statistical format
  • SPSS - SPSS statistical format
  • CSV - Simple text format for conversion