Write (Experimental)

Writing support is experimental and compatibility varies across tools. Stata roundtrip tests are included; SPSS roundtrip coverage is limited.

Supported formats:

• Stata: .dta
• SPSS: .sav, .zsav
• SAS CSV import bundle: .csv + .sas script via write_sas_csv_import (not binary .sas7bdat)

from polars_readstat import write_readstat, write_sas_csv_import

write_readstat(df, "/path/out.dta")
write_readstat(df, "/path/out.sav")

write_readstat(
    df,
    "/path/out.dta",
    value_labels={"sex": {1: "Male", 2: "Female"}},
    variable_labels={"sex": "Sex of respondent", "age": "Age in years"},
    compress=True,
    threads=8,
)

csv_path, sas_script_path = write_sas_csv_import(
    df,
    "/path/out/sas_bundle",
    dataset_name="my_data",
    value_labels={"sex": {1: "Male", 2: "Female"}},
    variable_labels={"sex": "Sex of respondent"},
)

Key parameters:

Parameter	Formats	Notes
value_labels	dta, sav, zsav	Dict mapping columns to {coded_value: label}.
variable_labels	dta, sav, zsav	Dict mapping columns to descriptive labels.
compress	dta	Write compressed Stata file (.dta). No effect for SPSS (.sav).
threads	dta	Number of threads for writing.

Notes:

• write_readstat(..., format="sas") is intentionally unsupported because it implies binary .sas7bdat output.
• Use write_sas_csv_import(...) to generate a SAS-ingestible bundle (.csv + .sas import script).