topic Reading a data file using SAS ODBC in SAS Procedures

Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

BharathBandi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:38:14 GMT

how to read a .dat file (data file) which i couldnt read as a text file???using

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

SASKiwi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 01:59:13 GMT

ODBC is mostly used for reading database tables not data/text files. What does the .DAT file look like when viewed in a text editor? Does it have aligned rows and columns or is a delimiter used to separate columns?

What issues are you having reading it?

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

BharathBandi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 03:16:57 GMT

It is not opening in text editor, when tried data is crashed.

I basically want to read a .dat file that is copied from exchequer database.

Thank you

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

SASKiwi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 07:43:58 GMT

How big is the file? Most likely it is the file size that is causing the text editor problems.

You could try reading a few records in SAS to see what the record layout is by writing the first 5 records to the SAS log:

data test;

infile "YourFileName.dat" obs = 5;

input;

put _infile_;

run;

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 08:18:25 GMT

Is it copied or exported from the database?

Is there any documentation about the structure?

If not, return to sender.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

LinusH — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:48:43 GMT

If I recall it correctly, I think.dat was the default extension for export/backup-files in (very) old versions of SQL Server.

If this is such file, you can't import it either way (ODBC nor text file import).

Verify your source, before trying to import it.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

BharathBandi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:39:19 GMT

Files are quite small something around 100 KB.

These files are extracted from Pervasive DB which has a default extension .Dat. which cannot be opened in text editor.

The only way I can read this file is through ODBC connection.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

BharathBandi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:44:22 GMT

Yes it is default extension and these files are extracted from pervasive db.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

LinusH — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 20:58:12 GMT

Don't think this is a SAS question. How you can be able to access this data via ODBC is a question for Actian/Pervasive DB.

Once you secured ODBC access to your source data, then you can go to SAS and try to connect.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

SASKiwi — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 22:29:55 GMT

You will also need the SAS product SAS/ACCESS to ODBC both installed and licensed if you wish to extract ODBC data using SAS code.

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 07:00:07 GMT

So you can already open the data in, say, Excel via the ODBC connection?

Re: Reading a data file using SAS ODBC

BharathBandi — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 01:57:29 GMT

Thank you all . We need to buy Btrieve odbc drivers, it solves the problem.