Date:         Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:05:11 -0700
Reply-To:     z <gzuckier@SNAIL-MAIL.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         z <gzuckier@SNAIL-MAIL.NET>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      proc freq running out of space
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi and thanks in advance.
That said; I am running proc freq in a purely inquisitive attempt on a
pretty large dataset. (19 million records, 16 fields; 6 fields of
which I am doing the proc freq on).
As far as I can tell, each of these 6 fields is just a bunch of codes,
i.e. there are only a few possible values, 5 or 6. But I am filling up
the SAS work space.
So, my question is, does a proc freq on a large number of obs with
only a few values fill up the work space? Because, frankly speaking,
it seems to me that all the code would do is read down the file and
keep tabs on how many of each value it's encountered, which would be a
tiny file 2 fields wide and as many obs as there are distinct values,
i.e. 6 at most.
Or, is this telling me that one of the fields has a large number of
distinct values that I don't know about, which makes intuitive sense
to me, but doesn't match what I think the reality of the situation is?