Yes - I know SAS can't read a zipped dataset. My point is the overall compression is poor. Does anything you say mean SAS could not use greater compression using more CPU? No. I would be surprised if there wasn't at least some scope to further leverage the current multi-cpu universe we inhabit. I don't believe compress=YES has been updated since 7bdat which is what, 30 years old? Then multi-cpu was mainframe and cpu time was costly. No longer the case. Time for an upgrade. ... View more

Well, excuse me but "duh". 40 data test; 41 length test $1000.; 42 do i=1 to 100000000; 43 test=" 43 ! .... 43 ! ..."; NOTE: The quoted string currently being processed has become more than 262 characters long. You might have unbalanced quotation marks. 44 output; 45 end; 46 drop i; 47 run; NOTE: The data set WORK.TEST has 100000000 observations and 1 variables. NOTE: Compressing data set WORK.TEST decreased size by 97.82 percent. Compressed is 33607 pages; un-compressed would require 1538462 pages. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 56.63 seconds cpu time 48.06 seconds Output dataset size is 2gb *compressed*. SAS would have written 100s of GB without the compress option being set. That's a 1000 character string about 99% whitespace. Now, if, as I said, you compress the output dataset with 7z, on fast, the resulting output dataset is <200mb. Like I said, SAS has * a lot * of scope for additional compression. ... View more

On the CPU count option, I find CPU use is relatively low in SAS, especially with large datasets. There is loads of room for SAS to use higher compression on datasets and hence more CPU and I don't know why this hasn't been done. I found during lockdown compressing a compressed SAS dataset with 7z on fast could reduce filesize by ~90%. Depending how the compressed dataset is unpacked in the computation this may yield some benefit. It certainly would in writing output datasets. ... View more

I was also wondering about RAM but I expect you'd need, what, 128GB to make a difference on this query? Most will be done in I/O. I don't use more than 16-24GB and the 80GB dataset I normalize can't be done much in memory obviously. ... View more

Are the tables native sas, are they indexed, do you have any I/O constraints e.g. network, disk? Sometimes with SAS I've found multi-table joins don't seem to be well optimised and I break the query into smaller chunks. At least I do this to get a baseline. ... View more

Something about proc export, which uses ODS under the hood (so I understand) writes to the log in such a way that it bypasses whatever it was in the log break routine that has failed when killing code. Again, this only happens in some cases - sometime if you kill code it dies gracefully and the log is unimpacted. When it does stop updating, there is something about interupting the call to ODS in an export statement that manages to restart the log write. ... View more

Apologies for my slightly cheeky reply and thank you for your good humour.   Interrupting the export does indeed rekindle a frozen SAS log in 9/10 occasions. Afraid I have no idea why it works but it does. I understood it was something to do with pinging the ODS system.   Yes the thread is old, but then it has not been resolved, so it is relevant I think to keep it open. ... View more

Well done Tom, a text book example of not even begining to address the question. The thread is ancient because it hasn't been answered / resolved. Imagine this: my brake pedal stops working if I drive at 71mph with the windows down and the manufacturer suggests, a) the speed limit is 70mph and I shouldn't be driving at 71mph and b) consider driving with the windows up above 65.   I run this code frequently (and please don't lecture me why I shouldn't be breaking running code - its quite possible I've been using SAS for longer than you've been alive). Hint, this restores a log that has stopped updating,   King Regards.   /*--------------------------------------*/ /*!!!Kill this code during the export!!!*/ /*--------------------------------------*/ data temp; do i=1 to 1000; x=1; output; end; run; proc export data = temp outfile="c:\temp\temp.xls" replace;run; ... View more

Please note this is still an issue. Also worth noting the standard unhelpful responses above "are you sure you should be generating errors"; "are you stopping it correctly"; "what are your system details"; etc.   All of those just indicate the poster is unfamiliar with the issue and add zilch.   Just to add, it can occur (in Windows 10, SAS 9.4 32 bit) whether you interupt with the exclamation mark or by any other way.   I am surprised no one in SAS has encountered this issue and so fixed it, although perhaps they always write error free code and so never need to stop it? ... View more

It is necessary to first close html ods. NOTE: AUTOEXEC processing completed. 1 ods html close; 2 ods html file="L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls"; NOTE: Writing HTML Body file: L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls 3 ods html file="L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls"; NOTE: Writing HTML Body file: L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls ... View more

NOTE: AUTOEXEC processing completed. 1 ods html file="L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls"; NOTE: Writing HTML Body file: L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls ERROR: A component of C:\Users\1\AppData\Local\Temp\SAS Temporary Files\_TD9600_1_\L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls is not a directory. ERROR: No body file. HTML output will not be created. 2 ods html file="L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls"; NOTE: Writing HTML Body file: L:\SAS Projects\Check 201503.xls ... View more

I have this same issue. No code change. Run once, get the error. Resubmit, runs fine. wcpatton wrote: Andre, Running that code I get the results viewer window, but no excel output. Preferences - Results options do not seem to give me the opposite with any combination. I want No results viewer, output only to excel. I run the ODS once and get this kind of error: ERROR: A component of C:\SAS\Work\_TD5324_PC2UA2120QB8_\G:\REPORTS\fakename.xls is not a directory. ERROR: No body file. HTML output will not be created. If I run it again, then I get no error.  WTF 9.3? ... View more