Convert SAS Programs to Stata?

[Shelley Perritt]

Hi

I am a current SAS user and I want to be able to convert some of my SAS programs to Stata. Since it may take me awhile to learn Stata well enough to do that, is there any Stata add in or consulting group that would offer those services? Thanks.

[William Lisowski]

Welcome to Statalist, Shelley.

I'm pessimistic that you'll find any Stata add-in to convert SAS programs to Stata. There are some fundamental differences in the design of the two programs, like the lack of a "data step" in Stata, that makes automation of the process difficult.

Perhaps someone will be able to help you as a consultant.

And it may not be as difficult as you think to make the transition to Stata. I'm sympathetic to you as a new user of Stata - it's a lot to absorb. .

When I began using Stata in a serious way, I started, as have others here, by reading my way through the Getting Started with Stata manual relevant to my setup. Chapter 18 then gives suggested further reading, much of which is in the Stata User's Guide, and I worked my way through much of that reading as well. There are a lot of examples to copy and paste into Stata's do-file editor to run yourself, and better yet, to experiment with changing the options to see how the results change. I had the luxury of doing this over a few days while I was awaiting the start of the project I would be using Stata on.

All of these manuals are included as PDFs in the Stata installation (since version 11) and are accessible from within Stata - for example, through the PDF Documentation section of Stata's Help menu. The objective in doing the reading was not so much to master Stata as to be sure I'd become familiar with a wide variety of important basic techniques, so that when the time came that I needed them, I might recall their existence, if not the full syntax, and know how to find out more about them in the help files and PDF manuasl.

The Stata documentation is really exemplary - there's just a lot of it. The path I followed surfaces the things you need to know to get started in a hurry and to work effectively. And you might find that your simpler SAS programs yield readily to the techniques you learn.

[Monica White]

Hm. Do you have access to Stat/Transfer?

[Nick Cox]

It is just an impression but

0. Automated translation of code is in general out of the question here.

1. There are consultants, several on this list, who use Stata almost all the time, but I don't know anyone who accepts commissions to translate code. But if you are serious about seeking paid help, you should invite qualified people to send you a personal message. Both parties should be cautious about identities and establishing credentials.

2. Translating code isn't just a matter of being fluent in two (or more) languages. I'd expect a dialogue in terms of what data you have and what you want to do. Often a closely literal translation would be false service as what you want is possible in quite different ways (or sometimes not possible at all without original programming).

3. I'd expect anyone who does this (and as above I don't know anybody) to charge hundreds of dollars USD or the equivalent for even a few hours' work.

I have never used SAS (unless you mean the airline, and you don't).

[Bruce Weaver]

Hi Shelley. You might find this UCLA page helpful.

• http://stats.idre.ucla.edu/stata/faq...mand-in-stata/

Cheers,
Bruce

[Bob Fitzgerald]

Shelley,

You may find the following location helpful. http://www.cpc.unc.edu/research/tool...s/sas_to_stata

Bob

[Andrew Lover]

And one more for the list: http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/courses...g_SAS_Mind.pdf

And just to highlight, there's really no such thing as translating a block of code. Aside from really trivial analyses, it will really be an entirely new analysis based on the broad outline of the SAS scripts you have.