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SAS Data Sets Icon SAS Data Sets ODBC Driver

The SAS Data Sets ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from SAS Data Sets, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access SAS Data Sets data like you would a database - read, write, and update through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

Replicate SAS Data Sets Data from PowerShell



Write a quick PowerShell script to query SAS Data Sets data. Use connectivity to the live data to replicate SAS Data Sets data to SQL Server.



The CData ODBC Driver for SAS Data Sets enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real SAS Data Sets data with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating SAS Data Sets data to other databases. This article shows how to replicate SAS Data Sets data to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to execute create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for SAS Data Sets

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

Connecting to Local Files

  • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
  • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

Connect to SAS Data Sets

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to SAS Data Sets data in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection $conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData SASDataSets Source x64"

Back Up SAS Data Sets Data to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

  • CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

  • CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

    Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open() # Create and execute the SQL Query $SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $restaurants $cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn) $count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery() $conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve SAS Data Sets data in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples CRUD commands to SAS Data Sets through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve SAS Data Sets Data

$sql="SELECT name, borough from restaurants" $da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{ Write-Host $1[$_] } }

Update SAS Data Sets Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("UPDATE restaurants SET cuisine='American' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert SAS Data Sets Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("INSERT INTO restaurants SET cuisine='American' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete SAS Data Sets Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("DELETE FROM restaurants WHERE Id = @myid", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()