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KGeorge
Calcite | Level 5

I would like to initialize a matrix using the j function thus A=j(20000,20000) but I get the following error:

ERROR: (execution) Unable to allocate sufficient memory. At least 2147483647 more bytes required.

I have 4GB RAM on a PC running Windows 7, I tried it in SAS 9,2 and 9,3 to no avail. How can I initialize vector A for large values of the rows and columns? How far does IML go in this regard?

Many thanks in advance,

George

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
Rick_SAS
SAS Super FREQ

A 20000 x 20000 matrix has 4x10^8 elements. Each element is a double, which requires 8 bytes, for a total of roughly 3.2GB. The current version of SAS/IML software supports matrices up to 2BG of addressable space. For 32-bit operating systems, this is the maximum size of memory that the OS allows you to allocate in a single chunk.

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5 REPLIES 5
Rick_SAS
SAS Super FREQ

A 20000 x 20000 matrix has 4x10^8 elements. Each element is a double, which requires 8 bytes, for a total of roughly 3.2GB. The current version of SAS/IML software supports matrices up to 2BG of addressable space. For 32-bit operating systems, this is the maximum size of memory that the OS allows you to allocate in a single chunk.

KGeorge
Calcite | Level 5

Thanks for the information, Rick.

FFR
Calcite | Level 5 FFR
Calcite | Level 5

Will there be a future release of IML which is able to adress more than 2GB? I have tons of RAM and cant use it to handle huge matrices with SAS:-(

Rick_SAS
SAS Super FREQ

I can't comment on future releases, but SAS developers are aware that customers would like to use 64-bit operating systems to address more RAM.

Hutch_sas
SAS Employee

We are working to overcome this memory limitation on 64-bit windows within the next few releases. 64-bit linux or unix hosts do not have this limitation.

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