SAS Companion for the Microsoft Windows Environment

SAS System Options under Windows

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, in an OPTIONS statement (either in a SAS program or in a SAS autoexec file), in the SAS System Options window, or in SCL programs. Summary of System Options for Windows gives specific information about where each SAS system option can be specified.

Once 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, 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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