If you run SAS^® 9.3 on Linux for x64 or on Oracle Solaris for x64, and you resize columns using a LENGTH statement, an error similar to the following occurs:

   ERROR:  An exception has been encountered.
   Please contact technical support and provide them with the following
   traceback information:

   The SAS task name is [DATASTEP]
   Segmentation Violation

   Traceback of the Exception:

   /sasgen/dev/mva-d312h1/SAS/laxnd/sas [0x5ca869]
   /sasgen/dev/mva-d312h1/SAS/laxnd/sas [0x5ca825]
   /sasgen/dev/mva-d312h1/SAS/laxnd/sas [0x42d241]
   /sasgen/dev/mva-d312h1/SAS/laxnd/sas [0x42cd4a]
   /sasgen/wky/mva-v930/sasdvd/com/laxnd/tkmk.so(bkt_signal_handler+0x316)
   [0x2b9b09f92e72]
   /lib64/libpthread.so.0 [0x2b9b09788d60] [0x2aaaae283f6f]

The same problem exists for SAS^® 9.3 on Microsoft Windows for x64. An error similar to the following occurs:

   ERROR:  An exception has been encountered.
   Please contact technical support and provide them with the following    traceback information:

   The SAS task name is [DATASTEP]
   ERROR:  Read Access Violation DATASTEP
   Exception occurred at (057E1417)
   Task Traceback
   Address   Frame     (DBGHLP API Version 4.0 rev 5)
   0000000001DA59AE  0000000006D1F8E8  tkmk:tkBoot+0x498E

Select the Full Code tab for an example program that replicates the problem.

Operating System and Release Information

data tempdata;     
    length col1 $36 col2 $32  col3 $12  col4 $223  col5 $3;
    output;
run;

data temp;
    length col2 $32 col3 $12  col4 $385  col5 $3;
    set tempdata;
run;

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.3_M1 is available at: