Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the SASxpt ODBC Driver to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

SAS XPORT files Icon SASxpt ODBC Driver

The SASxpt ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from SAS xpt (XPORT) file data, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access SAS xpt (XPORT) files like you would a database - read, write, and update through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

Replicate SAS xpt Data from PowerShell



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



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

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

You can also write PowerShell code to download SAS xpt data. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for SAS xpt

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.

Connecting to Local SASXpt Files

You can connect to local SASXpt file by setting the URI to a folder containing SASXpt files.

Connecting to S3 data source

You can connect to Amazon S3 source to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

  • URI: Set this to the folder within your bucket that you would like to connect to.
  • AWSAccessKey: Set this to your AWS account access key.
  • AWSSecretKey: Set this to your AWS account secret key.
  • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

Connecting to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

You can connect to ADLS Gen2 to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

  • URI: Set this to the name of the file system and the name of the folder which contacts your SASXpt files.
  • AzureAccount: Set this to the name of the Azure Data Lake storage account.
  • AzureAccessKey: Set this to our Azure DataLakeStore Gen 2 storage account access key.
  • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

Connect to SAS xpt

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

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

Back Up SAS xpt 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 " + $SampleTable_1 $cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($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 xpt 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 commands to SAS xpt through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve SAS xpt Data

$sql="SELECT Id, Column1 from SampleTable_1" $da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{ Write-Host $1[$_] } }