Are these an unacceptable solutions to a SAS problem?
Seems to a lot of controversy about the relation between R and SAS.
A user wanted to convert excel to a csv
proc iml;
submit / R;
library(rio)
convert('d:xls/xls_sample.xlsx','d:xls/xls_sample.csv')
endsubmit;
quit;
or
%utl_submit_r64(
library(rio);
convert('d:xls/xls_sample.xlsx','d:xls/xls_sample.csv');
);
Hi @rogerjdeangelis,
I think people appreciate knowing about all options. Using SAS to call R functions for utilities like this can be handy for your toolbox, but most SAS users don't have R configured within their SAS environments. So when providing an answer in these forums, the suggestion to use SAS' integration methods with R is academic -- most people can't apply those techniques in their workplace. So a pure SAS answer is usually preferred, and is still the most relevant/helpful response that you can provide.
For this particular example, SAS has import/export utilities that can do similar work if you have SAS/ACCESS to PC Files (to read the Excel files). And if you don't have SAS/ACCESS but do have ability to call OS commands (required by R integration methods), then you can achieve the same by using VB Script or PowerShell or Python without needing a specialized R environment.
For people who do have R on their SAS environment, the main benefit is the ability to reuse R packages to experiment with methods that others have contributed to the R community, or perhaps to reuse work created by colleagues who use R primarily. See this demo and discussion from Rick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmRQ3MtkG6A
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