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Comparison of limits

Maximum size limits Stata/BE Stata/SE Stata/MP
# of observations (1) 2,147,483,619 2,147,483,619 1,099,511,627,775
# of variables 2,048 32,767 120,000
# of right hand side variables 798 10,998 65,532
# characters in a command 264,408 4,227,159 4,227,159
# of interacted continuous variables
# of interacted factor variables
64
8
64
8
64
8
length of string in string expression (bytes) 2,000,000,000 2,000,000,000 2,000,000,000
# of characters in a macro (2) 264,392 4,227,143 15,480,200
length of a variable name (characters)
length of ado-command name (characters)
length of a global macro name (characters)
length of a local macro name (characters)
length of a str# variable (bytes)
length of a strL variable (bytes)
32
32
32
31
2,045
2,000,000,000
32
32
32
31
2,045
2,000,000,000
32
32
32
31
2,045
2,000,000,000
frames (# of frames) 100 100 100
import sas (# of variables) 2,048 32,766 32,766
import spss (# of variables) 2,048 32,766 32,766
infile
record length without dictionary
record length with a dictionary
 
none
524,275
 
none
524,275
 
none
524,275
infix
record length with a dictionary
 
524,275
 
524,275
 
524,275
label
length of dataset label (characters)
length of variable label (characters)
length of value label string (bytes)
length of name of value label (characters)
# of codings within one value label
 
80
80
32,000
32
65,536
 
80
80
32,000
32
65,536
 
80
80
32,000
32
65,536
label language
# of different languages
 
100
 
100
 
100
matrix (3)
dimension of single matrix
 
800x800
 
11,000x11,000
 
65,534x65,534

Notes
  1. For Stata/MP, the maximum number of observations is 1,099,511,627,775, and for Stata/SE, the maximum number is 2,147,483,619. In practice, both editions are limited by memory.
  2. The maximum length of the contents of a macro is fixed in Stata/BE and settable in Stata/SE and Stata/MP. The currently set maximum length is recorded in c(macrolen); type display c(macrolen). The maximum length can be changed with set maxvar. If you set maxvar to a larger value, the maximum length increases; if you set maxvar to a smaller value, the maximum length decreases. The relationship between them is maximum_length = 129*maxvar + 200.
  3. In Mata, matrices are limited only by the amount of memory on your computer.
Determining which edition of Stata you are running

Type
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The response will be Stata/MP, Stata/SE, or Stata/BE. Other information is also shown, including your serial number.

View the list of detailed size limits.