---
name: "readstat"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "readstat"
version: "1.1.9-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/readstat"
---

# readstat(1)

read and write data set files from SAS, SPSS, and Stata

## NAME

readstat - read and write data set files from SAS, SPSS, and Stata

## SYNOPSIS

**readstat** *input-file*

**readstat** \[**-f**\] *input-file* *output-file*

**readstat** \[**-f**\] *input-file* *metadata-file* *output-file*

## DESCRIPTION

**readstat** converts data set files from popular statistics packages stored in both plain-text and binary formats.

In the first invocation style, **readstat** displays metadata from *input-file*, including the row count, column count, text encoding, and timestamp. *input-file* should be a file with one of the following extensions:

- *sas7bdat*

  SAS binary file, created with SAS version 7 or newer

- *xpt*

  SAS portable file, version 5 or version 8, created with the SAS XPORT command

- *sav*

  SPSS uncompressed binary file

- *zsav*

  SPSS compressed binary file

- *por*

  SPSS portable file

- *dta*

  Stata binary file, version 104 or newer

If the row count cannot be determined from the file header, which is sometimes the case with SPSS binary files and always the case with SPSS portable files, **readstat** will report a value of -1.

In the second invocation style, **readstat** converts *input-file* to *output-file*, e.g. a SAS portable file to a Stata binary file.  In addition to the preceding extension list, *output-file* may have extension *csv* or *xlsx*, which creates a CSV or Excel file, respectively.

The third invocation style is used when additional metadata about the input file, such as value labels or column widths, is stored in a separate file. Several types of metadata file are supported:

- *sas7bcat*

  SAS binary "catalog" file, created with SAS version 7 or newer, containing value labels

- *json*

  JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file, containing column metadata that cannot be gleaned from the input CSV. For details, see the manual page for  the **extract\_metadata** command.

- *dct*

  Stata dictionary file, containing the data layout and column metadata for a plain-text input file.

- *sps*

  SPSS command file, describing the data layout and column metadata for a plain-text input file.

- *sps*

  SAS command file, describing the data layout and column metadata for a plain-text input file.

The last three formats can be used for both fixed-width and delimiter-separated (e.g. tab-separated) input files. These are commonly distributed along with plain-text ASCII data sets.

Both input and output formats are implied by the file extension.

## OPTIONS

- **-f**

  Overwrite any existing *output-file*.

## BUGS

SAS binary files created by **readstat** do not open with current versions of SAS.

The finer details of format strings (e.g. "%8.2g") are not properly converted between file formats.

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Evan Miller, and others where indicated.