Warning: Max. log size reached : questions on printto?

[ak2011]

Hi,

I am working with a large dataset  in SAS  Studio with over 100,000 obs and I receive this warning from SAS: Maximum log size reached...

I read SAS online documentation and someone suggested proc printo log= '/folders/myfolders/ak. log

Comments/questions on this:

1. a.Will SAS create the ak.log file or I have to create it myself in SAS studio or any other drive out like "C" out of SAS studio?

b. Can it be any extentions like .pdf or .doc for the printto statement or it is specifically .log

2. Should I write the printto statatement before or after reading the large dataset or before or after the proc print statement of the large dataset? Where exactly in the data steps should the proc printo statement be written?

3. I tried the proc printot statement before reading the large dataset and I received nothing in SAS log to see if there are errors, warnings or notes in my code.

4. a. If SAS Studio cannot effectively handle over 100,000 obs, do you think R can do that easily? ie. Will R also give the same warning like SAS Studio? b. Will  regular SAS (not Studio) also give the same warning message if I were to use the same 100000+ records that I am using?

Thanks in advance.

ak.

[PaigeMiller]

1. SAS creates the file
2. You can use any extension you want, but since it will be a text file, either .log or .txt seem to make sense. You could call it .pdf but it will still be a text file (and probably won't open properly)
3. Once you execute the PROC PRINTTO LOG= statement, nothing gets written to the log. 
4. R questions belong in an R forum

[ak2011]

Thanks for your response.

[Reeza]

SAS Studio can handle 100K observations, you have something wrong with your CODE if you're getting that many errors in your log. Observation counts don't affect the log, code, errors and warnings do.

[ak2011]

Thanks. I would recheck my code to see if there are no errors.

[Kurt_Bremser]

SAS Studio is a web application. The log needs to be displayed as part of a web page, and large pages can overwhelm the browser. The behaviour you see is designed to prevent this.

The question is now, what causes the log to grow so big? Normally, any single step will only write its code and some NOTEs about observations read and written, and time spent. Even data ERRORs are limited in number. So you have something else in your code that causes the log to blow up. Unnecessary put statements, for example. Or you run something in a (macro?) loop that causes repeated logging of the same step.

Please post the offending code.

[ak2011]

Thanks. I would recheck my SAS code.

[Shmuel]

To add to previous answers I relate to proc printto usage:

proc printto log='/folders/..........log';   /* or .txt  */
run;

.... your code ....

proc printto; run;   /* to close the log file */

you can try run your code with options obs=1; and check the log, but you will probably have the same issue. See @Reeza's post.

In such case don't forget to run options obs=max; to have a full run again.

You can run your code step by step and check which step makes the issue.

Does the code contain one or more of the options:

  options symbolgen mprint mlogic source2 errors=

the first 3 options are used to debug macros and may cause the issue.

define options errors=3 or any other small number, in order to display data errors like illegal dates.

[ak2011]

Thanks again.