sort execution failure

[trich12]

I've been trying to run a proc sql and get a sort execution failure every time.  Here is the code:

proc sql;

   create table _temp (drop=evtdate)

   as select a.*, a.evtdate as _edate format date9., b.*

   from _temp a left join _caldates (drop=time) b

   on b.evtdate-a.evtdate>=0

  group by a.evtdate

  having (b.evtdate-a.evtdate)=min(b.evtdate-a.evtdate);

  quit;

And the error message:

NOTE: SAS threaded sort was used.

ERROR: Sort execution failure.

1247    quit;

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

NOTE: PROCEDURE SQL used (Total process time):

      real time           1:08:58.65

      user cpu time       2:08.34

      system cpu time     11:55.76

      Memory                            68343k

      OS Memory                         78456k

      Timestamp            5/22/2013  12:20:47 PM

The dataset _temp has 9468 observations and 222 variables. The dataset _caldates has 9351 observations and 6 variables.  I would not expect these datasets to be too large to cause this problem from what I've seen about the sort execution failure.  Any help would be so appreciated!  Thanks!

[Doc_Duke]

It appears you are running out of memory because you are asking SQL to do a Cartesian product.

[PGStats]

1) Are the datasets _temp and _caldates already sorted by evtdate?

2) Which evtdate are you trying to drop from the result?

PG