topic Re: I received a note in my LOG file noting a threaded sort was used, and I do not what it means. in SAS Programming

I received a note in my LOG file noting a threaded sort was used, and I do not what it means.

zdblizar — Tue, 02 May 2017 14:21:27 GMT

Hello,

I am working with a large data set. I sorted the data set, using 3 BY variables to do the sort. I received in my LOG file a NOTE that went something like this: "SAS Threaded sort was used" not the exact message but quite close. I want to know whether this is a "bad" thing, or if I should be worried that my data has been compromised? Why was a threaded sort used in this instance? Thank you for your time!

Re: I received a note in my LOG file noting a threaded sort was used, and I do not what it means.

PeterClemmensen — Tue, 02 May 2017 14:23:19 GMT

http://support.sas.com/kb/39/705.html

Re: I received a note in my LOG file noting a threaded sort was used, and I do not what it means.

RW9 — Tue, 02 May 2017 14:26:29 GMT

If your computer/server has multiple Cores, it can do multiple things at once. Each of these things is called a thread. For instance, SAS might break up the data into several chunks and send each of those chunks to seperate cores, each core doing a thread of its own, which at the end of the process all these threads are woven back together to get the end product.

There is nothing to worry about, the Note just indicates that this was done. Its only really relevant if you have limited time/space on your server and want SAS to use less threads (i.e. taking more time but less resource).