- Size, bytes -- total size of the column in bytes
- Avg.bytes per symbol -- average size of column values in byte
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These metrics are calculated similarly to memstat data available in QlikView (not available in Qlik Sense so far). Since the structure of QVD files is very close to the internal in-memory data format in Qlik these metrics can be used to optimize (reduce) memory footprint of resident tables which can be desirable for particularly large applications. The most convenient way to inspect resident tables in QViewer is setup a simple generic subroutine as described here. Alternatively, you can insert temporary STORE statements to save resident tables into QVDs and then open them in QViewer manually.
When looking at the memstat metrics in QViewer you would typically want to identify columns that take most of space (hint: click column headers in Table Metadata to sort the grid). A few things that you can do reduce table size:
- Remove unnecessary columns that take a lot of space
- Force Qlik to convert duals to numbers by multiplying them by 1
- Trim text values to remove trailing and leading spaces
- Use integers instead of floats where possible
- Round up floats to fewer decimal digits to have fewer distinct values in the column
- Use autonumbers instead of long composite text keys
Remarks
Qlik uses special format for columns with incrementally increasing integers (autonumbers) -- they basically don't take up any space in memory, although QVDs store them as regular columns.
The memstat metrics are calculated correctly even if QVDs are partially loaded in QViewer. Therefore you can use them in the free version of QViewer, or when partial loading was used.
QVDs generated in Qlik Sense v.2 and above are compatible with QVDs generated in QlikView and therefore can be opened in QViewer as well.
The total size is NOT simply the avg. symbol size multiplied by # of rows -- it's calculated using a more complicated logic that accounts data compression.
