topic Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort in SAS Procedures

Insufficient memory error in proc sort

DmitryErshov — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 16:33:19 GMT

My data is stored in Oracle table MY_DATA. This table contains only 2 rows with 7 columns. But when I execute step:

proc sort data=oraclelib.MY_DATA nodupkey out=SORTED_DATA;
by client_number;
run;

the following error appears:

 ERROR: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of insufficient memory.

If I comment nodupkey option then error disappears. If I copy dataset in work library and execute proc sort on it then everything is OK too.

My memory options:

SORTSIZE=1073741824
SUMSIZE=0
MAXMEMQUERY=268435456
LOADMEMSIZE=0    
MEMSIZE=31565617920
REALMEMSIZE=0

What can be the root of the problem and how can I fix it?

Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort

SASKiwi — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 20:33:08 GMT

Try running your program with the FULLSTIMER SAS option to report on how much memory SAS is using.

Also your LIBREF oraclelib is 9 characters long when 8 is the maximum - is this a typo?

I suspect your sort is happening entirely in SAS as you specify the NODUPKEY option. You could always read the data out of Oracle in a DATA step, then sort separately.

Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 21:28:49 GMT

Pull the table into a SAS dataset, do a proc contents on it, and then repeat the sort.

Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort

Patrick — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:18:35 GMT

I suggest you open a track with SAS TechSupport as memory shouldn't really be an issue with Proc Sort.

One thing you could check:

Is the password for your Oracle connection in grace period? Strange things can happen if this is the case (at least this was true for older SAS versions).

Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort

Ksharp — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:20:05 GMT


proc sort .......  sortsize=3G  tagsort ;

Re: Insufficient memory error in proc sort

DmitryErshov — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 15:25:43 GMT

Thans all!

Patrick,

its a magic but you are absolutely right! My password was in grace period and when I changed it the issue disappeared!

Regards,

Dmitry