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BHARAT_SAS
Obsidian | Level 7

I want to know very basic information.. 

I know some of it, like liberef should be 1 to 8 character. 

1) max number of columns in sas data set? 

2) max number of row/observation in sas data set? 

3) coloum character limit? 

4) max number of characters in a cell? 

5) max number of code windows or log windows that we can open same time? 

6) max number of permanent libraries that we can assign? 

 

I am asking these questions coz even my sas certified trainer was also unable to answer few of them. 

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ballardw
Super User

@BHARAT_SAS wrote:

I want to know very basic information.. 

I know some of it, like liberef should be 1 to 8 character. 

1) max number of columns in sas data set? More than you should ever use, thousands, to some extent columns and rows are related to operating system file sizes and lengths of variables.

2) max number of row/observation in sas data set? Can exceed what is expressed in a 16 digit integer

3) coloum character limit? Variable length limit is 32767 characters.

4) max number of characters in a cell? None, SAS does not have "cells".

5) max number of code windows or log windows that we can open same time? 

6) max number of permanent libraries that we can assign? 

 

I am asking these questions coz even my sas certified trainer was also unable to answer few of them. 


Since there are a number of different SAS environments, Foundation or Base SAS , EG, SAS Studio stand alone or server the number of "code" windows could vary. Log as far as I've seen is limited to one but you can programatticaly direct log output to different files.

Libraries could be limited by your installation, especially in a server environment. In stand alone BASE SAS I've had as many as 40 defined libraries but you can start getting a performance degredation as SAS maintains the metadata about the SAS files in the libraries.

 

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4 REPLIES 4
PaigeMiller
Diamond | Level 26

I think the answer really depends on your computer hardware and not on SAS itself. I believe you can consider the answer to all of your questions to be essentially unlimited -- except #3, a column name can have up to 32 characters, and #4 there is a max number of characters you can have in a cell, but it's huge, I have never ever come close to this limit and you can look it up in SAS Help if you really want to know, but for any practical purpose, there is no limit.

--
Paige Miller
ballardw
Super User

@BHARAT_SAS wrote:

I want to know very basic information.. 

I know some of it, like liberef should be 1 to 8 character. 

1) max number of columns in sas data set? More than you should ever use, thousands, to some extent columns and rows are related to operating system file sizes and lengths of variables.

2) max number of row/observation in sas data set? Can exceed what is expressed in a 16 digit integer

3) coloum character limit? Variable length limit is 32767 characters.

4) max number of characters in a cell? None, SAS does not have "cells".

5) max number of code windows or log windows that we can open same time? 

6) max number of permanent libraries that we can assign? 

 

I am asking these questions coz even my sas certified trainer was also unable to answer few of them. 


Since there are a number of different SAS environments, Foundation or Base SAS , EG, SAS Studio stand alone or server the number of "code" windows could vary. Log as far as I've seen is limited to one but you can programatticaly direct log output to different files.

Libraries could be limited by your installation, especially in a server environment. In stand alone BASE SAS I've had as many as 40 defined libraries but you can start getting a performance degredation as SAS maintains the metadata about the SAS files in the libraries.

 

BHARAT_SAS
Obsidian | Level 7

Thank you for reply. 

Variable limit =32767, that's what I was eager to know. 

AlanC
Barite | Level 11

1) Depends on the O/S, I am pretty sure. I have created millions to test limits. Probably 2^32 for 32-bit O/S, 2^64 for 64 bit systems

2) See #1

3) 2^32 is a guess

 

For the others, simulate it and see the answer. Always good to do stuff like that.

 

do test; 

   x = 1;

   do i = 1 to 1000000;

        output;

   end;

run;

 

Try various combinations.

 

 

 

 

 

https://github.com/savian-net

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