SAS Companion for the OpenVMS Operating Environment

SAS System Options under OpenVMS

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 in various ways: at SAS invocation, in a SAS configuration file, in an OPTIONS statement (either in a SAS program or in a SAS autoexec file), in the System Options window, in SCL programs, or in the VMS_SAS_OPTIONS DCL symbol.

Most SAS system options are completely described in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary. Only the system options that have syntax or behavior that is specific to the OpenVMS operating environment are documented here. Summary of SAS System Options under OpenVMS is a summary of all SAS system options and gives specific information about where each system option can be specified.

Once a system option is set, it affects all subsequent DATA and PROC steps in a program or SAS process until it is respecified.

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, the SAS System uses the following rules of precedence:

data set option values (highest precedence)
statement option values (precedence over system options)
system option values (lowest precedence).

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