Threaded procedures (for example, PROC SORT and PROC SQL) might return incorrect values if the DESCENDING option is specified on the BY or ORDER BY statement.

The following error is then generated:

ERROR: BY variables are not properly sorted on data set WORK.XXX.DATA.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

One solution is to turn off threading by specifying the NOTHREADS system option.

Operating System and Release Information

 data foo;
   length v1 $ 32767;
   length v2 $ 10;
   length v3 $ 32;
   v1=repeat(" ",32765);
   input v2 v3;
   cards;
  A 9
  B 8
  C 7
  D 6
  E 5
  F 4
  G 3
  H 2
  I 1
  J 0
  ;
  run;

  option sortpgm=sas;

  proc sort data=foo out=bar threads;
   by DESCENDING v3 DESCENDING v2;
  run;

  proc print data=bar;
   var v2 v3;
  run;

  data _NULL_;
   set bar;
   by DESCENDING v3 DESCENDING v2;
  run;

A fix for SAS 9.1.3 (9.1 TS1M3) for this issue is available at:

A fix for SAS 9.1.3 (9.1 TS1M3) with Asian Language Support (DBCS) for this issue is available at: