SAS system options control many aspects of your SAS session, including output destinations,
the efficiency of program execution, and the attributes of SAS files and data libraries.
System options can be specified various ways: in the SAS command, in a SAS
configuration file, using PROC OPTLOAD or the DMOPTLOAD command (PROC OPTLOAD and the DMOPTLOAD command
load options settings that were previously saved in a SAS data set), in an OPTIONS
statement (either in a SAS program or in a SAS autoexec file), in the
System Options window, or in
SCL programs.
If you save data in the configuration file, the default location is C:\Program
Files\SASHome2\SASFoundation\9.4\nls\language\sasv9.cfg
where
language is the language of your locale (for example, en for English).
When a
system option is set, it affects all subsequent DATA and PROC steps in a program or SAS session
until it is respecified. For example, the CENTER system option affects all subsequent
output from a program, regardless of the number of steps in the program.
Some SAS system options have the same effect (and usually the same name) as data set
or statement options. For example, the BUFSIZE system option is analogous to the BUFSIZE=
data set option. In the case of overlapping options,
SAS uses the following rules of precedence:
-
data set option values (highest
precedence)
-
statement option values (precedence
over system options)
-
system option values (lowest precedence).