In SAS^® 9.1.3 Service Pack 3 and Service Pack 4, SAS/ACCESS^® Interface to PC Files supports importing and exporting SPSS files. However, if the option DBMS=SPSS is specified with PROC IMPORT, the following error messages are generated:

ERROR: DBMS type SPSS not valid for import.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

To circumvent the problem, specify the DBMS=SAV option. For example:

proc import out=work.class file=spsstest dbms=sav replace;
run;

Beginning with SAS^® 9.2, both DBMS=SAV and DBMS=SPSS are supported.

It is possible to receive an error that DBMS type SAV is not valid for import if you do not have SAS/ACCESS to PC Files. If that is the case, SPSS documents another method that retains value labels. Using SPSS, save the file as a sas7bdat file (retain value labels by clicking on save value labels which creates PROC FORMAT code for you to run in SAS). Otherwise, you will need to save the file as a .por file that can be read in SAS with PROC CONVERT or as tab delimited which SAS can read with the Import Wizard or DATA step. These other methods do not retain value labels.

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