"Unable to allocate 21474383647 bytes of memory" on changing datatype

[Izbiz]

Hi All,

I changed one thing in my work flow; changing one columns' datatype from V_String to String using the select tool so that I can use it as a Primary key in SQL. After the change I immediately got the error, "Unable to allocate 21474383647 bytes of memory" and the workflow now runs extremely slowly with this error.

I have changed my join/sort memory to be a quarter of the RAM as recommended, that's 2000 Megabytes on my machine. 

Does anyone know anything else about this error?

Thanks!

[BenMoss]

It sounds like you just need to optimise the field length of the field you have changed to a string. 

Ben

[MarqueeCrew]

@Izbiz,

I'll take this a step further.  I would try putting an AUTO FIELD Tool in and see what happens.  I will also tag a friend, @RachelW so that she has visibility to the question.

Cheers,

Mark

[Izbiz]

Hi @BenMoss

When I changed it to a string, it automatically put "1073741823" in the size column - what would be the optimal size for a string here? The longest string is 8 characters long.

Thanks

[BenMoss · Accepted solution]

In that case, 8 works!. Alternatively, as @MarqueeCrew suggests, if you use the autofield tool it will automatically detect the optimal length for the field. 

Ben

[Izbiz]

Ok great! I'll do that

Strange that it automatically allocates the biggest (in the billions!) size possible

Thanks

[Izbiz]

Hi @MarqueeCrew

Thanks, hadn't heard of the AutoField tool until now, looks handy. In the end I just changed the size of the string field to be 20 which fixed it.

[RachelW]

Great conversation here! I'm looking into the default v_wstring size. 21474383647 is quite large. It was chosen to prevent errors with data truncation. @Izbiz What's the typical size of your records with v_wstring type?