Scripting Guide - SAS

Chapter 8 Programming Methods 213
Advanced Scoping and Namespaces
qualified and unqualified variable named references is important to understand. A qualified named
reference uses the : and :: operators to provide specific information about where a referenced variable
resides, or where it is created.
Examples of qualified named references include the following:
:var
::globalvar
datatable:var
nsref:var
"nsname":var
An unqualified named reference provides no explicit information to completely identify where a variable
resides or where it is created. No scoping operator (: or ::) is specified in the reference. To change the
behavior of JMP when resolving unqualified named variable references, use the Names Default To Here
function. For more details about variable name resolution, see the “Name Resolution” on page 97 in the
“JSL Building Blocks” chapter.
Table 8.8 Resolving Access to a Variable in JMP 8 versus JMP 9 and Later
JMP 8
JMP 9 and Later
1. If it is followed by a pair of parentheses ( ), look it up as a function.
2. If it is prefixed by : or an explicit data table reference, look it up as a data table column or table
variable.
3. If it is prefixed by ::, look it up as a global variable.
4. Not applicable. If it is an explicit scope reference (such as
group:vowel) look it up in the user-defined
group namespace, which could be represented
as a data table or namespace.
5. If it is in a Local or Parameter function,
look it up as a local variable.
If it is in a Local or Parameter function,
look it up as a local. If it is nested, repeat until
a function call boundary is found.
6. If it is in a user-defined function, look it up as a function argument or local variable.
7. Not applicable. Look it up in the current scope and its parent
scope. Repeat until the Here scope is
encountered.
8. Not applicable. Look it up as a variable in the Here scope.
9. Look it up as a global variable.
10. Look it up as a data table column or table
variable.
Look it up as a data table column or table
variable.
11. Look it up as a platform launch name (for example, Distribution, Bivariate, Chart, and so on).