Reading sas7bdat files with Python's adodbapi

Question

I'm trying to read a sas7bdat file from SAS (product of the SAS Institute) into Python.

Yes, I'm a aware that we could export to *.csv files, but I'm trying to avoid that as that will double the number of files we need to create.

There's good documentation for doing this in Visual Basic. Still, I want it in Python. For example, in VB you could write...

Dim cn as ADODB.Connection
Dim rs as ADODB.Recordset

obConnection.Provider = "sas.LocalProvider"
obConnection.Properties("Data Source") = "c:\MySasData"
obConnection.Open

rs.Open "work.a", cn, adOpenStatic, adLockReadOnly, adCmdTableDirect

To open your dataset.

But I can't crack the nut to make this work in python.

I can type...

import adodbapi

cnstr = 'Provider=sas.LocalProvider;c:\\MySasData'

cn = adodbap.connect(cnstr)

And a can get a cursor...

cur = cn.cur()

But beyond that, I'm stumped. I did find a cur.rs, which sounds like a recordset, but it is an object with a type of None.

Also, to preempt some alternative methods...

1. I do not want to create *.csv files in SAS.
2. The computer with Python does not have SAS installed, but does have the Providers for OLE DB installed. I know for a fact that the VB code I provided works without SAS in read-only mode. You can download these drivers here: http://support.sas.com/downloads/browse.htm?cat=64
3. I am not expert in SAS. Honestly, I find their tool cumbersome, confusingly documented, and slow. I noticed that there are some other products listed called "IOMProvider" and "SAS/SHARE". If there's an easier way of doing this using those ADO providers, feel free to document it. However, what I'm really looking for is a way of doing this entirely within Python with a relatively simple bit of code.
4. Oh, and I'm aware of Python's sas7bdat package, but we're using Python 3.3.5 and it doesn't seem to be compatible. Also, I couldn't figure out how to use it on 2.7 anyways as there's not a lot of documentation and even a question on how to use the tool, which, to this day, is unanswered. Python sas7bdat module usage

Thanks!

Answer 1

Didn't test it with SAS as I don't have a provider installed currently, it should go like this:

cn = adodbapi.connect(cnstr)

# print table names in current db
for table in cn.get_table_names():
    print(table)

with cn.cursor() as c:
    #run an SQL statement on the cursor
    sql = 'select * from your_table'

    c.execute(sql)

    #get the results
    db = c.fetchmany(5)

    #print them
    for rec in db:
        print(rec)

cn.close()

EDIT: Just found this http://support.sas.com/kb/30/795.html so you might need to use other provider for this method, have a look at IOM privoder (https://www.connectionstrings.com/sas-iom-provider/ , http://support.sas.com/documentation/tools/oledb/gs_iom_tasks.htm)