Connect to SAS Data Sets Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for SAS Data Sets into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets to transfer SAS Data Sets data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to SAS Data Sets in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to SAS Data Sets:

1. Add a new database driver for SAS Data Sets: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL:

   jdbc:sasdatasets:
   

4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class:

   cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.SASDataSetsDriver
   

   👁 The JDBC driver configuration. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Create a new SAS Data Sets connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the SAS Data Sets driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

   Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

   Connecting to Local Files

   • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
   • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

   Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

   While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

   Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAS Data Sets JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar
   

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   A typical connection string is below:

   URI=C:/myfolder;
   

10. Enter your username and password if necessary. 👁 The connection to the JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)
    

You can now use your SAS Data Sets connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve SAS Data Sets data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. 👁 A Retrieve operation to select data. (Salesforce is shown.)
With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the SAS Data Sets data.