I'm merging 2 datasets count = 6,437,567 variables =  22   file size = 1.2 GB   page size =  65,536   # pages = 18,566 count = 2,276,587 variables = 917  file size = 2.4 GB   page size = 131,072  # pages = 19,726 The resulting dataset has:      count = 6,437,567   variables = 924  file size = 21.8 GB  page size = 131,072  # pages = 170,379   I didn't expect to get 22 GB when merging 1GB with 2GB   This is a straight merge without any calculations (dropping/merging a few fields) I get the same results with a data step merge as with SQL (left join) None of the character fields are excessively long (the longest is 40 and only a few are that long) All 3 datasets use CHAR compression;  no indexes yet Dataset option REUSE = YES reduced the output from 23 GB to 22 GB I'm using SAS-EG 9.0401M5 in Linux Does it really make sense for the output dataset to be 22 GB ? ... View more

The current documentation on the picture format seems to imply that we should use both the %S and the %s directives in order to display the seconds and the fractional seconds. From what I see (in SAS version 9.04.01 M4) we should use only the %s directive by itself. It displays both the full and the fractional seconds.   Example: proc format; picture fm_db2_date_time (default=26) other = '%Y-%0m-%0d %0H:%0M:%000000s' (datatype=datetime) ; run; proc sql; select dhms('01may2012'd,13,5,2.876543) format=datetime26.6 'built-in format' ,dhms('01may2012'd,13,5,2.876543) format=fm_db2_date_time26.6 'picture format' from sashelp.class(obs=1) ;quit;   I wanted to submit a request for a usage note, but I couldn't find how to do that.   ... View more