Mixed-Type Tables

Like matrices, tables are stored in memory. Consequently, large tables might consume a lot of the RAM on your computer. When you are finished using a table, you can use the FREE statement to free the symbol and release the memory. You can then reuse the symbol.

For example, the following statements create a table and then use the FREE statement to delete the table from memory and free the symbol. The SHOW NAMES statement displays the symbols that have values. Figure 7 shows that the tbl symbol is no longer defined.

proc iml;
x = 1:10;
y = {1 2, 3 4};
tbl = TableCreateFromDataSet("Sashelp", "BWeight");   /* load a big table */
free tbl;                                         /* delete the big table */
show names;
quit;

 SYMBOL   ROWS   COLS TYPE   SIZE                                               
 ------ ------ ------ ---- ------                                               
 x           1     10 num       8                                               
 y           2      2 num       8                                               
  Number of symbols = 3  (includes those without values)