System Options under UNIX

MAXMEMQUERY System Option: UNIX

Specifies the maximum amount of memory that is allocated per request for certain procedures.

Default:	256M
Valid in:	configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement, SASV9_OPTIONS environment variable
Category:	System administration: Memory
PROC OPTIONS GROUP=	MEMORY
UNIX specifics:	all

Syntax
Details

Syntax

-MAXMEMQUERY n | nK | nM | nG | hexX | MIN | MAX

MAXMEMQUERY=n | nK | nM | nG | hexX | MIN | MAX

n | nK | nM | nG: specifies the limit in multiples of 1 (bytes); 1,024 (kilobytes); 1,048,576 (megabytes); or 1,073,741,824 (gigabytes). You can specify decimal values for the number of kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. For example, a value of 8 specifies 8 bytes, a value of .782k specifies 801 bytes, and a value of 3m specifies 3,145,728 bytes.
hexX: specifies the amount of memory as a hexadecimal value. You must specify the value beginning with a number (0-9), followed by hexadecimal characters (0-9, A-F), and then followed by an X. For example, 2dx sets the amount of memory to 45 bytes.
MIN: specifies 0 bytes, which indicates that there is no limit on the total amount of memory that can be allocated per request by each SAS procedure. These memory allocations are limited by the value of MEMSIZE.
MAX: specifies a limit of 9,007,199,254,740,992 bytes on 64-bit machines.

Details

Some SAS procedures use the MAXMEMQUERY option to specify the largest block of virtual memory that a procedure can request at one time. By contrast, the MEMSIZE option places a limit on the total amount of virtual memory that SAS dynamically allocates at any time. This virtual memory is supported by a combination of real memory and paging space. The operating environment begins paging when the amount of virtual memory that is required exceeds the real memory that is available. To prevent paging and the associated performance problems, the MAXMEMQUERY and MEMSIZE system options should be set to a subset of real memory.

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