Overview

The following global macro variables are used by the SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit. Most SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit global macro variables that are provided by SAS are defined in property files in the form of name and value pairs, such as:
_cstDebug=
Each registered standard, including CST-Framework, has an initialize.properties file. This file specifies global macro variables that are required by the standard and are available for use in any SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit processes that reference the standard. Each registered standard might have an action-related properties file that specifies global macro variables that are needed for processes performing the action. An example of this type of file is validation.properties.
A properties file is processed in one of two ways:
  • A direct call is made to the SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit utility macro %cstutil_setproperties in a code module, such as a driver program like validate_data.sas.
  • The file is included in the SASReferences data set (with type=properties), in which the %cstutil_allocatesasreferences macro calls %cstutil_setproperties.
Global macro variables can be deleted at the end of a process if the SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit utility macro %cstutil_cleanupcstsession is called with the _cstDeleteGlobalMacroVars parameter set to 1.
Two commonly used global macro variables are not defined in the properties files previously described. The _cstGRoot global macro variable defines the location of _cstGlobalLibrary and is set with the autocall macro %cstutil_setcstgroot. This macro is called in most framework macros. The &studyRootPath global macro variable defines the location of the study data and metadata. It is often set in user-defined driver programs (for example, validate_data.sas).