Date:         Wed, 12 Jun 2002 11:04:29 -0700
Reply-To:     Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "David L. Cassell" <Cassell.David@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Creating Subsets of Data Based on Variable Values
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Michael G Sadof <msadof@ix.netcom.com> replied [to me] and pointed out:
> Excellent solutions to all.   However we really did need to do this
one
> time.   When working on an old version of Solaris-Unix there was a
limit to
> the file size.  We needed to break up the large incoming file to
reasonable
> units (let's say by state) so that we could process.   Thankfully
Solaris
> version 7 (or whatever) has increased the file size limit and the
dataset
> can be processed with a BY statement.

A good point.  But, as I said, this leads to more headaches
somewhere else.  Another case that has come to me was a large
data set which had to broken up into smaller pieces so that
a Pointy-Haired Boss could look at chunks in an Excel spreadsheet.
But that case was doable without really subdividing the data set
and simply selecting chunks as needed, using an index.  [It's
never possible to fix the underlying problem when the underlying
problem is your boss. :-]

David
--
David Cassell, CSC
Cassell.David@epa.gov
Senior computing specialist
mathematical statistician