DBMS/Copy

Research Computing >> Software >> DBMS/Copy

Availability

DBMS/Copy 8 is installed in Kellogg's Unix server, skew3.

Description

DBMS/Copy is a utility software that allows users to read and write datasets in different formats: SAS, Stata, Gauss, SPlus, SPSS, etc (both in their PC and Unix versions). A complete list of supported packages is available.

Vendor information

DataFlux Corporation
4001 Weston Parkway
Suite 300
Cary, NC 27513
Phone: (919) 674-2153; (877) 846-3589

Support

Support phone: (919) 531-9000.
E-mail: techsupport@sas.com

The programs' version and serial number can be obtained by selecting "About DBMS/Copy ..." from the Help menu.

Running DBMS/Copy

To run DBMS/Copy in interactive (GUI) mode, you need an X Windows emulator (such as X-Win32). To start the program, type "dbmscopy" at the Unix prompt. The following reference document provides step by step instructions to translate a dataset:

A sample DBMS/Copy session

DBMS/Copy can also run in batch, from a telnet session, specifying either a program name or the input and output datasets with the associated DBMS/Copy "pseudo-extensions" (see below)

Examples and solutions

DBMS/Copy does not start: First, make sure you are emulating X Windows; if not, the error produced when you type "dbmscopy" at the command prompt is "Error: Can't open display:". You may double check by testing with other programs, such as Netscape (netscape) or Acrobat Reader (acroread).

Second, check your .cshrc or .profile to see if the DBMSCOPY environmental variable is set to "/usr/local/dbmscopy8". If you do not have it, include it with the following commands:

For csh and tcsh:
setenv DBMSCOPY /usr/local/dbmscopy8

Bash and ksh:
DBMSCOPY=/usr/local/dbmscopy8 export DBMSCOPY

Cannot read SAS version 8 (*.sas7bdat files) files created by DBMS/Copy: There is a bug in DBMS/Copy which writes SAS files specifying a format not recognized by SAS version 8. In order to read the data in SAS, in your SAS program include the NOFMTERR system option (OPTIONS NOFMTERR;). SAS will issue a warning, but it will read the data.

Running DBMS/Copy from the command line (batch mode): To run DBMS/Copy without an X-Windows emulator, use the "dbmsnox" command.

To recognize the different datasets, DBMS/Copy uses associates an internal extension (a "pseudo-extension") to each file format. Thus, to use DBMS/Copy in batch mode, you must specify either a DBMS/Copy program name or the input and output datasets with their pseudo-extensions.

The following is a sample program (test.prg) that translates a dataset created in SAS for Unix, version 8 (test.sas7bdat, DBMS pseudo-extension "sas7bdat") to a Stata 7 4-byte-floats data file (test.dta, DBMS pseudo-extension "stata74"):


compute;
in=/kellogg/users/staff/ple531/test.sas7bdat
   out=/kellogg/users/staff/ple531/test.stata74;
run;

To run this program from the command line, type:

dbmsnox PLUS test.prg

Without creating this program, the same translation could be accomplished by typing the following command:

dbmsnox test.sas7bdat test.stata74

Common file types:

File type (extension): DBMS/Copy pseudo-extension:

ASCII (dat) (*) ascii2

Excel 5 (xls) xls5

Excel 97/2000 (xls) xls7

Gauss (dat, dht) gauss

Limdep binary (sav) limsav

Limdep ASCII (dat) limdat

Stata v6 8 byte doubles (dta) stata6

Stata v6 4 byte doubles (dta) stata64

Stata v7 8 byte doubles (dta) stata7

Stata v7 4 byte doubles (dta) stata74

Stata SE 8 byte doubles (dta) statase

Stata SE 4 byte doubles (dta) statase4

SAS for Windows v6 (sd2) sd2

SAS for Windows v7 (sd7) sd7

SAS for Windows v8 (sas7bdat) sas7bdat

SAS for Unix v7/v8 (sas7bdat) sas7sun

SPSS for Windows (sav) spsswin

SPSS for Unix spsssun

(*) To read an ASCII file you will need the interactive session (in order to specify the file's structure). If you write a file as ASCII, DBMS will write it as a comma-delimited file with a first row of headers (variable names).