st: Announcing SASdecoder

[David Kantor <kantor.d@att.net>]

Announcing SASdecoder.

I am pleased to announce the release of SASdecoder -- a tool that may 
be useful to Stata users as well as others working in data analysis 
and management. SASdecoder translates specific types of SAS code to 
facilitate the reading of raw data. It writes output as Stata 
dictionaries, Stata do-files, or Stat/Transfer schema files. It 
accepts three forms of input: Column, Formatted, and List. Also 
translates PROC FORMAT with VALUE statements into value label definitions.

This is useful when you are given raw data and SAS code to read it, 
but you don't use SAS.

This has been under development for a long time, and is now available 
as a commercial product.

SASdecoder runs in Windows. Users of other systems can run it on a 
Windows machine, and copy the output to any system that hosts Stata 
or Stat/Transfer.

To give you an idea of its capability, you can obtain a free copy 
that runs in demo mode (with limited functionality). You can also 
download the User Manual.

SASdecoder can be obtained from either
 www.circlesys.com/stattransfer/sasdecoder.html
 (Or www.circlesys.com -- then point to StatTransfer, click 
"SASdecoder Add-on" from the pull-down.)
or
 www.essistant-software.com

You can also find out more about it at those sites.

I am grateful to the many people in the Stata community who have 
tried it in its earlier forms (under the name Sasst) and made helpful 
suggestions. Special thanks go to Steve Dubnoff of Circle Systems, 
for patiently guiding me in taking this project from an idea to a real product.

If you have any questions about this, please see the Websites listed 
above, or write to me directly at kantor.d@att.net

Thanks
--David

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/