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The BMDP, SPSS, and OSIRIS Engines

Interface library engines, which read from files formatted by other software, include the following:

BMDP

reads BMDP save files.

OSIRIS

reads OSIRIS data and dictionary files that have not been translated from EBCDIC to ASCII.

SPSS

reads SPSS files generated in SPSS Releases 1-9 and SPSS-X files in either compressed or uncompressed format. The engine can also read the SPSS Portable File Format, which is analogous to the transport format for SAS data sets.

You can use these engines in any applications that do not require random access. The engines are especially useful with the CONTENTS procedure and its _ALL_ option to determine the contents of an entire system file at once. These engines are automatically invoked by the CONVERT procedure. (See Procedures for more information about PROC CONVERT.)

Restrictions on the Use of These Engines

Because these are sequential engines, they cannot be used with the POINT= option in the SET statement, or with the FSBROWSE, FSEDIT, or FSVIEW procedures in SAS/FSP software. You can use PROC COPY or a DATA step to copy an OSIRIS, BMDP, or SPSS file to a SAS data set, and then use the POINT= option, or browse or edit the file with SAS/FSP software.

Also, because these engines are read-only engines, some procedures, such as PROC PRINT, will warn you that you are using a sequential engine because the observation number must be determined by the procedure, not by the engine.

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