SAS on Feng Jiang

Export R Data to SAS

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem

Importing SAS data into R is straightforward: the haven package provides read_sas(), which reads *.sas7bdat files into an R data frame. Going the other direction is harder. In my experience, *.sas7bdat files created by haven::write_sas() were not reliably readable in SAS.

At first, it seems that a shared data format should solve the problem. R can export CSV files, and SAS can import them. Wouldn’t that be enough?

Run a SAS Script from R

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Unlike SAS, which can host an R session after the right setup, R cannot host a SAS session directly.

R can, however, call operating-system commands with system(). SAS can also run a .sas script from the command line. Connecting these two sides together, an R script can launch SAS and run a .sas script file.

The command-line syntax for running a SAS script is:

"C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sas.exe" -SYSIN "path\to\example.sas"

In R, call that command through system():

Run R Code in SAS

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

SAS can run R code inside a SAS program, but only after R support is enabled. The setup has two parts: turn on R integration in SAS, and tell SAS where R is installed.

Set Up R Support in SAS

First, launch SAS with R support enabled. You can do this in either of two ways:

Add -RLANG to the SAS command line.
Add -RLANG to the end of the SAS configuration file, sasv9.cfg.

Second, tell SAS where to find R. You can do this in either of two ways: