Using SPDE should be faster than using proc sort. And SAS is not very efficient when dealing with 10k-char strings. Do you want to try this? data WORDS; * Generate sample data; length WORD $10000; do I=1 to 100e6; WORD=repeat( cats(int(ranuni(1)*100)), abs(int(rannor(1)*99)) ); output; end; run; data _null_; * find longest string; set WORDS ; retain LEN; LEN=max(LEN,length(WORD)); if LASTOBS then call symputx('len',LEN); run; %let wdir=%sysfunc(pathname(WORK)); libname W spde "&wdir" partsize=1T compress=binary; data W.WORDS1; * Copy data to SPDE and trim variable; length WORD $&len.; proc append data=WORDS base=W.WORDS1 force; run; data COUNTS; * Derive word cardinality; set W.WORDS1; by WORD; CNT+1; if last.WORD then do; output; CNT=0; end; run; This uses 35 minutes: 37 data _null_; 38 set WORDS end=LASTOBS; 39 retain LEN; 40 LEN=max(LEN,length(WORD)); 41 if LASTOBS then call symputx('len',LEN); 42 run; NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 4:09.76 user cpu time 3:53.46 system cpu time 15.75 seconds 43 44 data W.WORDS1; 45 length WORD $&len.; 46 proc append data=WORDS base=W.WORDS1 force; 47 run; NOTE: PROCEDURE APPEND used (Total process time): real time 4:55.10 user cpu time 7:17.37 system cpu time 36.93 seconds 48 49 data COUNTS; 51 set W.WORDS1; 52 by WORD; 53 CNT+1; 54 if last.WORD then do; 55 output; 56 CNT=0; 57 end; 58 run; NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 26:15.31 user cpu time 13:07.46 system cpu time 14:12.42 on my old server. So old I cannot use rand('uniform') !  🙂   ... View more

Check if you have meeting organizer listed. Also mention from=<your email> in the filename.  ... View more

While a bypass was looked at as to avoid using a credential file on the linux home folders for SAMBA- In the end I just created an an autocall macro that a user has to enter in credentials one time only that ports over to the other servers as well.    The SAS PWDECODE is handy but I also don't want to actually risk sending out passwords to a website.     Lawrence       ... View more

Thank you. The problem lied in card number, I had to cast the column to varchar like this cast(cardnum as varchar(16)) as cardnumber then this worked. I never thought this is causing the issue based on the error message. ... View more