Global Macro Variables and Their Associated Metadata

Global macro variables and their associated metadata can be found in the standardmacrovariables and standardmacrovariabledetails data sets in the standard control folder.

The following displays show examples of the standardmacrovariables data set and the standardmacrovariabledetails data set.

Example of the standardmacrovariables Data Set

Example of the standardmacrovariabledetails Data Set

The standardmacrovariables and standardmacrovariabledetails data sets can be easily merged with the following SAS code:

proc sql;
  select smv.*, smvd.macrovalue, smvd.macrovaluelabel, smvd.default
  from control.standardmacrovariables smv,
       control.standardmacrovariabledetails smvd
  where smv.macrovariable = smvd.macrovariable;
quit;

Here are several commonly used global macro variables that are not defined in the properties files previously described:

Global Macro Variable	Example	Comments
_cstGRoot	C:\cstGlobalLibrary	This variable is required. It defines the location of _cstGlobalLibrary. It is set with the autocall macro %CSTUTIL_SETCSTGROOT, which is called in most framework macros. It is used most often in SASReferences paths to enable relative path mobility.
_cstSRoot	C:\cstSampleLibrary	This variable is optional. It defines the location of _cstSampleLibrary. It is set with the autocall macro %CSTUTIL_SETCSTSROOT, which is called in most sample driver programs to derive the studyRootPath and studyOutputPath global macro variables.
studyRootPath	C:\Study1	This variable is optional. It defines the location of study data and metadata. It is often set in user-defined driver programs (for example, validate_data.sas). It is used in SASReferences paths to limit the changes that are required when changing input data sources, which facilitates portability.
studyOutputPath	C:\Study1\output	This variable is optional. It defines the location of generated output. It is often set in user-defined driver programs (for example, validate_data.sas). It is used in SASReferences paths to limit the changes that are required when changing output locations, which facilitates portability.