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ShufeGuoding
Obsidian | Level 7

How many variables can we have in a sas dataset? 

3 REPLIES 3
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Apply Maxim 6 and do a google search for "sas maximum number of columns in dataset".

For all practical purposes, the answer is "unlimited". But your question points to a problem in data design; you never should contemplate a structure that makes you ask this question.

 

In all my time running a major insurance company's data warehouse, I never had the need to go beyond a few hundred columns. And those were rare exceptions when preparing data with lots of boolean variables for regression analysis.

Satish_Parida
Lapis Lazuli | Level 10

See the following Link
https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Enterprise-Guide/Recommended-maximum-number-of-variables-for-data...

Check the 1st answer, you can test out the number of maximum variables possible.

But the concern will be hitting the memory, while accessing or writing into the data set or simply storing it.

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