Global Variable Syntax

Note the following points about Global variable assignment and syntax:

• Global variables are identified, and distinguished from Local variables, by a backslash immediately following the %% sign. For example, whereas %%VAR1 is a Local variable, %%\VAR1 is a Global variable.
• A Global variable is assigned an owner at time of creation. This owner can be the component that creates the variable, such as the job, or it can be any other component in the database, such as the job, group, application, or even Control-M. The IOA Global Variable Database has a hierarchical structure to reflect this component hierarchy.
• Backslashes are used to describe the hierarchical structure of the IOA Global Variable Database, much like they are used to describe the directory and subdirectory structure in Unix and DOS.

  The full path of the IOA Global Variable database is indicated as follows:

  %%\product\application\group\job\variablename

• Paths can be specified using the same rules and shortcuts that are available with directories and subdirectories, instead of the full path:
  • A job or SMART Table Entity can assign a Global variable to itself by specifying a backslash immediately following the %% symbol.
  • Paired dots followed by a backslash (..\) indicate movement to the next level up.

  Based on the above, you can see that the variables created in IDJOB8 SET VAR statements have the following owners:

  Table 16 IDJOB8 SET VAR Statement Owners

  Variable	Owner
  %%\VAR1=AAA	Global variable %%\VAR1 is owned by job IDJOB8
  %%..\VAR2=BBB	Global variable %%\VAR2 is owned by group IDGRP3. (The paired dots moved the variable up the hierarchy to the group to which IDJOB8 belongs.)
  %%..\IDJOB9\ VAR1=CCC	Global variable %%\VAR1 is owned by job IDJOB9. (The paired dots move the variable up the hierarchy to group IDGRP3. The \IDJOB9 moves the variable down the hierarchy from IDGRP3 to job IDJOB9.)

• Two variables with the same name but different paths are different variables. This is comparable to the fact that two Unix or DOS files with the same name but different paths are different files.

  In our example, %%\VAR1=AAA and %%..\IDJOB9\VAR1=CCC result in different variables. As indicated in the above table

  • the Global variable %%\VAR1 that equals AAA belongs to IDJOB8
  • the Global variable %%\VAR1 that equals CCC belongs to IDJOB9
• If the particular path has no Group and/or no Application, for example, the job does not belong to a group or application, Control-M utilizes the keyword values NO_APPL and NO_GROUP in the path, as needed.