ARCHIVED: On Quarry at IU, how to I use Stat/Transfer to convert multiple SAS data sets into SPSS and Stata?

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

Note: After seven years of production service, Indiana University's Quarry research computing cluster was decommissioned January 30, 2015. IU students, faculty, and staff can request accounts on Karst, IU's newest high-throughput computing cluster; for instructions, see ARCHIVED: Requesting an account. User data on Quarry has not be removed; you can access your old home directory data on Quarry from your account on any other IU research computing resource (see Available access to allocated and short-term storage capacity on IU's research systems). All software modules that were available on Quarry are available on Karst. If you have questions or concerns about Quarry's retirement, or need help, contact the High Performance Systems group.

At Indiana University, Stat/Transfer is available on the Quarry cluster.

To use Stat/Transfer on Quarry, add it to your user environment by loading the Stat/Transfer module:

  module load stattransfer

You can use Stat/Transfer to convert data from one format to another:

  • To convert an SAS data set (a1.sas7bdat) into an SPSS file (a1.sav), enter:
      username@q0142: ~> st a1.sas7bdat a1.sav
  • To convert the same SAS data set into a Stata file (a1.dta), enter:
      username@q0142: ~> st a1.sas7bdat a1.dta

To convert multiple files to other formats, use a shell script:

  1. Create a script file (e.g., multiples) using nano, the default editor on Quarry. At the command prompt, enter:
      username@q0142: ~> nano multiples
  2. To convert, for example, the SAS data sets a1.sas7bdat through a5.sas7bdat into SPSS (a1.sav through a5.sav) and Stata (a1.dta through a5.dta) data sets, add these lines to your script file:
       #!/bin/bash
    
       st a1.sas7bdat a1.sav
       st a2.sas7bdat a2.sav
       st a3.sas7bdat a3.sav
       st a4.sas7bdat a4.sav
       st a5.sas7bdat a5.sav
    
       for ((i=1; i<=5; i++))
       do
          st 'a'$i'.sas7bdat' 'a'$i'.dta'
       done

    Note: In this example, the input and output files are in the same working directory.

  3. To save your file and exit nano, press Ctrl-x, then y, and then Enter or Return.
  4. To set the permissions for the multiples script, enter:
      username@q0142: ~> chmod 500 multiples
  5. To run the multiples script, enter:
      username@q0142: ~> ./multiples

    You should find the converted SPSS (a1.sav through a5.sav) and Stata (a1.dta through a5.dta) data sets in the working directory.

If you have questions about using statistical and mathematical software at Indiana University, contact the UITS Research Applications and Deep Learning team.

This is document azcf in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2023-05-09 14:42:50.