SAS System Options under Windows

SORTSIZE System Option: Windows

Specifies the amount of memory available to the SORT procedure.

Default:	64M
Valid in:	configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement, SAS System Options window
Category:	Sort: Procedure options
	System administration: Memory
PROC OPTIONS GROUP=	MEMORY
	SORT
Windows specifics:	Default value
See:	SORTSIZE System Option in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary

Syntax
Details
Comparisons
See Also

Syntax

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

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

n | nK | nM | nG: specifies the amount of memory in multiples of 1; 1,024 (kilobytes); 1,048,576 (megabytes); and 1,073,741,824 (gigabytes) respectively. 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 an X. For example, the value 2dx sets the amount of memory to 45 bytes.
MIN: specifies the minimum amount of memory available.
MAX: specifies the maximum amount of memory available.

Details

By default, this option is set to the maximum amount of memory available. The SORTSIZE system option can reduce the amount of swapping SAS must do to sort the data set. If PROC SORT needs more memory than you specify, it creates a temporary utility file in your Saswork directory in which to store the data. The SORT procedure's algorithm can swap unneeded data more efficiently than Windows can.

Comparisons

The SORTSIZE option is similar to the REALMEMSIZE option. SORTSIZE only affects the SORT procedure. REALMEMSIZE affects multiple procedures.