PSPP Windows/SET TEMP/File save times

[David Purdy]

Correction: a file save with SET TEMP defined in WinXP has produced no material improvement in lapsed time over a comparable file save without SET TEMP defined (>90 minutes to save 9 Mb; see earliest message):

 

1) Source SPSS .sav file 417 fields x 510,121 records = 265 Mb

 

2) Delete all but 8 fields, reduces .sav file to 4 Mb

 

3) Save process took approx. 1hr 40 mins (8:40-10:20 pm)

 

PC = WinXP Pro SP3, 78 Gb hard disk space available, 2048 Mb RAM (Dell Dimension 8300 3.2GHz Pentium 4)

 

Regards,

 

Dave.

 

----- Original Message -----

From: unknown-1

To: David Purdy

Cc: address@hidden

Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 9:37 PM

Subject: Re: 0.6.0-10 PSPP windows - Queries (WinXP)

 

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2) Quicker 'Save' - I've had some mixed results, maybe influenced by working with a large file (>500,000 records).   After trying something similar to the very slow save reported earlier (after deleting all but about 7 fields), I got the impression that the file was being created much more quickly.

Nice that is what I expected from using the temp variable/directory.

 

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----- Original Message -----

From: David Purdy

To: address@hidden

Cc: Ben Pfaff [PSPP]

Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 11:08 AM

Subject: Re: 0.6.0-10 PSPP windows - Queries (WinXP)

Ben,

 

Many thanks for the feedback.

 

> 1) Very long file save time ?

 

I was using the GUI version - the disk didn't seem to be especially active, nor PSPP using a lot of CPU time (I think).   I should mention that the file was saved in the 'portable' format (9Mb/90mins) - I've since saved the 'portable' file in the 'system' format instead (3Mb/2 mins), and the 'system' version also seems to load much more quickly.

 

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----- Original Message -----

From: Ben Pfaff

To: David Purdy

Cc: address@hidden

Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 4:52 AM

Subject: Re: 0.6.0-10 PSPP windows - Queries (WinXP)

"David Purdy" writes:

> 1) Very long file save time ? - I'm using a large third party SPSS .sav file
> (417 fields x 510,121 records = 265 Mb), but am only interested in 7 fields. 
> To ease the processing load, I deleted the unwanted fields in PSPP, but the
> resultant .sav file took over 90 minutes to save (9 Mb).   Are there any
> settings that could be adjusted to reduce the file save time ?

Wow!  That's a long time.  I don't know, off-hand, why it would
take that long.  Is the disk active during that time?  Is PSPP
using a lot of CPU time?  Is this in the GUI or the command-line
syntax version?

Increasing the workspace to a value larger than the size of your
file might help, e.g. SET WORKSPACE=300000.

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