Conversion of SAS Code to Python

[Mayank_61]

Hi,

Is there any way in which we can automate the conversion of a SAS code to Python.

The automation process not necessarily need to be in SAS, it can also be in python with some predefined python library.

Any link to the solution or some predefined workflow will be really helpful.

Thank you

Regards,

Mayank 

[r_behata]

Check SASPy

[Quentin · Accepted solution]

I doubt there's a good way.  See this thread with same question:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Data-Science/SAS-to-Python/td-p/729384

If you google a bit you'll fine companies selling translations / translators, but I'm not sure I would trust them.  One has a 90% guarantee.  Hard to imagine something worse than correctly translating 90% of a program into a new language.

If you're going to switch to python, probably better to invest in hiring / learning python, and have python programmers sit down with requirements and build in python.  SAS code is pretty easy to read, so if you have requirements, SAS code, and a few people who know SAS, would think it could be done.  Of course it's a big migration (potentially), you might want to rearchitect your full analytic environment at one time, not just switch the language.

[Sajid01]

Hello @Mayank_61 

I agree with what @Quentin has suggested.

SAS and Python are two different application softwares which perform identical set of tasks for example data analysis, statistics etc in their own distinct way. But there is no one to one corrospondence between a function in SAS with that in Python. Any translator, if available, may not be effiecient.
It is better to focus on the task a SAS program does and write the same job in Python. This will require more resources in development but save time in debugging a faulty translation.

[maryana]

I am just doing a market research on Automatic tool/services for translating from SAS code to python (don't want to use them).

So far, I found wise with data, SAS2PY and Semantic Designs.

Would you please name the translator tool/services if you know any more?

Thanks

[kbohle]

Hi,

please look at https://www.wisewithdata.com/sas-to-pyspark-migration-solution-2/

This company I found in addition to the two you already listed.

I found in addition a Web based tool doing translations between differnt programming languages. This tool offers a lot of programming languages including SAS and Python.

https://codeconverter.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6cKiBhD5ARIsAKXUdyb7-UR64w8VG8vk7aDhWYX8PXhR1sAlOgsAXl-mAxT...

[Arjun-V]

We tested and fond that our tool perform far better than wisewithdata, leap logic, sas2py and symantic designs

[Kurt_Bremser]

What I said in the thread @Quentin linked to still holds true. Start with the original requirements, and have the program(s) rebuilt from scratch by (a) Python specialist(s). Don't even think about a "conversion" that will have you end up with a piece of unmaintainable junk.

If this proves to make no sense economically, stay with SAS.

Keep in mind: this is not like translating PASCAL to C. The paradigms are completely different.

[SASKiwi]

Just to add to the specific SAS to Python code conversion discussion, I've never seen a reliable, automatic way to convert from ANY computer language to ANY other one where the architecture and syntax is radically different. It's a different story where you have different flavours of the same computer language like SQL, BASIC, C and so on but that's not what we are talking about here. And let's not get started on software that's incompatible between versions...  

[Arjun-V]

Hi Mayank,

We have exactly done the same. We have parsed SAS code and converted into Python code. We were able to achieve 95% during the automation process and 5% manual intervention is needed to do some configuration etc. If you are interested, you can reach out to me and discuss in detail. 

My name is Varatharajkumar (Als.) Arjun, from Chennai, India. I am the Founder and COO of Rushmore Technologies Private Limited.

My Mail id : arjun@rushmoretech.in

Mobile No: +91 9840171191.

You can feel free to reach me anytime at your convenience. Thank you.