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Reserve a classroom

Schedule for
10/03/2009

Main Lab
140 Prospect St.
Room 101
No Events Today

Rosenkranz Hall
115 Prospect St.
Room 01
No Events Today

Consultant's Desk
140 Prospect St.
Room 100
12- 3:30pm Jeremy Green
3:30- 7pm Adrian de la Garza

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DBMS/COPY converts datasets between different software formats. It supports a whole range of formats, from ASCII text files to Excel spreadsheets and SAS datasets.

Make sure your input data file names have the standard three-charcter extension. For example an Excel file has a default extension of .XLS , SAS 6.04 uses .SSD . If the file you want to translate does not have the default extension, DBMS/COPY will not recognize it.

Interactive Converting

In the following we describe step by step the process of converting a dataset.
  1. Start DBMS/COPY by clicking the icon in the Windows Application Group.
  2. In the DBMS/COPY Program Window, click Interactives.
  3. In the Input Database Window, select the format of your original file in Files of Type.
  4. Depending on the type of your original file, you have to supply different information.
    Original File is a Spreadsheet
    In the SpreadSheet Grabber, select the Data Area by either dragging the mouse or using the cursor keys while holding down the shift key.
    Still in the SpreadSheet Grabber, select the row of Variable Names (if you supply them)
    Original File is an ASCII file
    In ASCII Input Format Options, check the options.
    In the ASCII Dictionary Builder, check the variable names and types as well as the exact length of each variable.
  5. In the Power Panel, you get a chance to filter data and drop or rename variables.
    Let's assume, we don't want any change, so click OK.
  6. In the Output Database Window, select the format you want to convert to in List Files of Type
  7. In the Transfer Verification Window, you can save this batch file, if you plan to rerun the conversion.
    Usually, you just click Do-It!
  8. The Processing Window displays some information on the status of conversion.
    If you don't plan to convert a second dataset, close it by clicking Done

Batch mode

While most users will find the ability to translate files using the interactive screen sufficient, DBMS/COPY includes a batch language. This feature is most useful for people who need to perform repeated conversions of the same files or are simply looking for an easy way to make modifications to their datasets, without going through all these different menus.

The easiest way to use the batch language is, converting one dataset interactively, and save the batch file displayed in the Transfer Verification Window. Now you can edit this file and run it again using Open Batch in DBMS/COPY.

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