readstat CLI Demo

Demonstrates converting a SAS .sas7bdat file to CSV, NDJSON, Parquet, and Feather using the readstat command-line tool.

Quick start

Linux / macOS

# Build the CLI (from repo root)
cargo build -p readstat-cli

# Run the conversion script
cd examples/cli-demo
bash convert.sh

# Verify the output files
uv run verify_output.py

You can also pass a specific path to the readstat binary:

bash convert.sh /path/to/readstat

Windows (PowerShell)

# Build the CLI (from repo root)
cargo build -p readstat-cli

# Run the conversion script
cd examples/cli-demo
./convert.ps1

# Verify the output files
uv run verify_output.py

You can also pass a specific path to the readstat binary:

./convert.ps1 -ReadStat C:\path\to\readstat.exe

What it does

The convert.sh (Bash) and convert.ps1 (PowerShell) scripts:

1. Displays metadata for the cars.sas7bdat dataset (table name, encoding, row count, variable info)
2. Previews the first 5 rows of data
3. Converts the dataset to four output formats:
   • cars.csv — comma-separated values
   • cars.ndjson — newline-delimited JSON
   • cars.parquet — Apache Parquet (columnar binary)
   • cars.feather — Arrow IPC / Feather (columnar binary)

The verify_output.py script validates all output files:

• Checks row and column counts match the expected 1,081 rows x 13 columns
• Verifies column names are correct
• Confirms cross-format consistency (all four formats contain identical data)

The cars dataset

Columns: Brand, Model, Minivan, Wagon, Pickup, Automatic, EngineSize, Cylinders, CityMPG, HwyMPG, SUV, AWD, Hybrid

Expected output

Using readstat: /path/to/readstat
Input file:     /path/to/cars.sas7bdat

=== Metadata ===
...

=== Preview (first 5 rows) ===
...

Converting to CSV...
  -> cars.csv
Converting to NDJSON...
  -> cars.ndjson
Converting to Parquet...
  -> cars.parquet
Converting to Feather...
  -> cars.feather

Done! All output files written to /path/to/examples/cli-demo
Run 'uv run verify_output.py' to validate the output files.