massdesas

Version 1.0.3 | 2026-10-13

Quick Start · Installation · Options · Stored Results · Stata-Tools · Report a bug

massdesas recursively converts SAS .sas7bdat datasets to Stata .dta files, preserving the directory tree and writing each result beside its source. It is for Stata users who need to batch-convert a collection of SAS files with optional lowercase variable names and controlled source-file deletion.

Quick Start

After installing it and its two SSC dependencies, point directory() at a folder containing at least one .sas7bdat file:

massdesas, directory("/path/to/sas_files") lower
return list

The command writes .dta files beside the SAS sources, including those in subfolders, and reports the conversion counts in r(). Omit lower when imported variable names should retain their original case.

Features

• The whole tree, in place. Every *.sas7bdat under the root and its subdirectories is imported with import sas and saved beside its source under the same base name, replacing any existing .dta of that name.
• One bad file does not stop the batch. A file that fails is counted in r(n_failed) and the rest are still converted; a missing root or a root with no SAS files is an error, not an empty success.
• Sources deleted only on success. With erase, each .sas7bdat is removed only after its .dta has been saved.
• Your session is left as found. The data in memory and the working directory are restored afterwards.

Requirements

• Stata 14 or later
• Stata's built-in import sas command
• The SSC packages filelist and fs

Installation

capture ado uninstall massdesas
net install massdesas, from("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tpcopeland/Stata-Tools/main/massdesas") replace
ssc install filelist, replace
ssc install fs, replace

Commands

Command	Description
massdesas	Recursively convert .sas7bdat files to sibling .dta files

Options

massdesas [, directory(directory_name) erase lower]

Option	Default	Description
directory(directory_name)	Current working directory	Root directory to search recursively for .sas7bdat files
erase	Off	Permanently delete each original SAS file after its conversion succeeds
lower	Off	Pass case(lower) to import sas so imported variable names are lowercase

Stored Results

After a successful run, massdesas stores the following results:

Result	Type	Description
r(n_converted)	Scalar	Number of SAS files successfully converted
r(n_failed)	Scalar	Number of SAS files that failed to convert
r(directory)	Local macro	Root directory used for the conversion

QA

QA suites and how to run them are documented in qa/README.md.

Version History

• 1.0.3 (2026-10-13): The internal cd, filelist, replace, and levelsof calls no longer print to the console (lines such as file ... saved as .dta format and (0 real changes made) preceded the summary); the Conversion complete summary and failure messages are unchanged.
• 1.0.2 (2026-08-05): Documented that converted .dta outputs overwrite existing same-named files and standardized package author metadata.
• 1.0.1 (2026-08-05): Fixed SAS filename quoting, preserved the complete basename when it contains .sas7bdat, and ensured the caller's data are restored after unexpected errors.
• 1.0.0 (2026-04-08): Initial Stata-Tools release

Author

Timothy P Copeland, Karolinska Institutet

Questions and bug reports: GitHub issues. Please include the first line of which massdesas and your Stata version.

To cite: Copeland TP. massdesas: Convert a tree of SAS datasets to Stata. Stata-Tools, https://github.com/tpcopeland/Stata-Tools/tree/main/massdesas. Please give the version you used (which massdesas prints it).

License

MIT (see LICENSE)