Date:         Thu, 6 May 1999 14:07:59 -0700
Reply-To:     "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Organization: Self Analysis
Subject:      Re: UNIX - is there a var or observation limit?
Comments: To: "Stetz, Cynthia (PCM - NJ)" <CStetz@NA2.US.ML.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> Date:    Thu, 6 May 1999 16:09:34 -0400
> From:    "Stetz, Cynthia (PCM - NJ)" <CStetz@NA2.US.ML.COM>
> Subject: UNIX - is there a var or observation limit?
>
> A user is getting the following message:
>
> ERROR: Insufficient space in file ME.RECNEW01.DATA.
> ERROR: Write to ME.RECNEW01.DATA failed. File is full and may be damaged.
>
> There is plenty of room in the directory he is trying to write to for this
> file.  I'm wondering if he is hitting some kind of PDV buffer limit.  He's
> got 287 variables and an observation length of 2186.  In a previous step, he
> was able to create a dataset with 286 variables.  The step that abended was
> creating a numeric variable of length 3 from the division of two other
> variables.
 
This is commonly encountered when running into the Unix 2GB filesize
limitation.  Even if your Unix natively supports large files (Digital
Unix, HPUX 10.20, last Fall's release of Solaris), SAS doesn't in any
6.x release.
 
If you can track down your SAS work library, check the total file size.
If it's in the neighborhood of 2GB, you've found the problem.  User disk
quotas or ulimit settings might also cause similar results, though I've
not encountered them myself.  If the first suggestion doesn't pan out,
talk to your local sysadmin.
 
There is also a bug affecting partitioned PROC SQL files -- including
datasets, views, and temporary working files -- where a similar message
appears when the total size of all _partitioned files_ is 2GB, even
though the individual file sizes are less than this.  There is a patch
available from SAS Tech Support as of March, 1997.
 
Use SAS large file support (options -sasvlfs) and a partitioned work
library to get around the problem.  Documentation is online, under 6.11
changes and enhancements for Unix -- not very intuitively located,
you'll have to dig for it.
 
--
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
 
    What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    Welchen Teil von "Gestalt" verstehen Sie nicht?
 
  Web: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/
  SAS for Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html