If you get these errors out-of-the-box (i.e. you have not made any changes to the samples), I wonder if you have some installation issues. If you are using your own source_* data sets, you might have some issues in your source_* data, likely the source_study data set. In case the first program has issues (i.e. does not create consistent CRT-DDS model data sets), this will be a problem for the second program, that uses these datasets to cretae a define.xml file. The driver validate_crtdds_data.sas would validate the content of these data sets. In both cases I suggest you contact SAS Support (Technical Support Form). Without seeing LOG files it is very hard to know what your issue is. Lex Jansen Software Developer @ SAS ... View more

Hi Michael, The following 2 sample drivers that ship with SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit 1.5 should run out-of-the-box: C:\cstSampleLibrary\cdisc-crtdds-1.0-1.5\programs\create_crtdds_from_sdtm.sas C:\cstSampleLibrary\cdisc-crtdds-1.0-1.5\programs\create_crtdds_define.sas The first one converts the metadata in C:\cstSampleLibrary\cdisc-sdtm-3.1.3-1.5\sascstdemodata\metadata to the SAS representation of define.xml in the folder C:\cstSampleLibrary\cdisc-crtdds-1.0-1.5\data. The second one creates a define.xml file from this data in: C:\cstSampleLibraryCST\cdisc-crtdds-1.0-1.5\sourcexml In case these samples drivers do not run out-of-the-box, you may want to contact SAS Tech Support (Technical Support Form) to describe the exact issues and problems you are having. It will always help to set _csDebug=1 in these drivers and provide Tech Support with a LOG file created by the programs. Hope this helps, Lex Jansen Software Developer @ SAS ... View more

Since this is not a SAS question perse, I think you will have a higher chance to get an answer when asking in a CDISC forum. I would suggest the "SDTM - Experts" discussion group on LinkedIn: CDISC - SDTM Experts | LinkedIn CDISC also has a discussion forum, unfortunately with a lot of spam, and much less traffic: Public Discussion Forum Lex@SAS ... View more

You may want to check this with SAS Tech Support: http://support.sas.com/ctx/supportform/createForm Lex@SAS ... View more

I'm glad that it got resolved. We really need a better metadata transport vehicle than Excel! Lex Jansen Software Developer@SAS ... View more

Most likely you have some characters in your source data that are not recognized by the UTF-8 encoding. A typical example are the 'curly quotes' in text copied from Microsoft Word or Excel. It would be best to fix this in your source data. Another option might be to run the %crtdds_write macro with a different _cstOutputEncoding parameter. Try _cstOutputEncoding=ISO-8859-1 or _cstOutputEncoding=WLATIN1 Also see this usage note:   48520 - SAS® Clinical Standards Toolkit version 1.4 - ERROR: Invalid byte 1 of 1-byte UTF-8 sequence.  PLease note that you do not need to change the macro, but can call it with a different encoding. If this does not help, please open a ticket with SAS Support (Technical Support Form). SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit 1.5 (released next week) will have better encoding support. Lex Jansen Software Developer@SAS Message was edited by: Lex Jansen Added usage note reference and CST 1.5 ... View more

The XML schema for the define.xml does not allow the SASFormatName attribute to be longer than 8. You could use "$LBTESTC" as alternative. As far as the Schema instance namespace: CST v1.5 does not create the Schema Instance namespace in define.xml. The SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit follows the recommendation from the XML Schema Validation for define.xml White Paper (http://www.cdisc.org/define-xml). This paper states: Many tools enable you to link the schema to the define.xml file at validation time, and this method is generally considered to be a robust option for referencing the schema. This approach is often preferred because the consuming application is typically better suited to establishing the location of your local schema repository. Another approach is to set the value of the xsi:schemaLocation attribute within the define.xml file itself. This attribute value allows you to tie the define.xml document to the define-1-0-0.xsd schema. This link is not mandatory, but with many validators it does help the tool to locate the schema. The W3C Schema Recommendation considers the xsi:schemaLocation value as a hint to the validating software on where to find the schema. In general, validation tools will use a handful of possible strategies to identify and locate the define.xml schema for validation purposes: -    Use the xsi:schemaLocation attribute value to find the schema. Not all tools will make use of this hint. -    Enable the user to set the location of the schema within the validating software at the time of validation processing. -    The validating software may dereference the namespace to retrieve the schema. -    Use logic built-in to the application to determine the location of the define schema. Not all XML parsers employ these strategies in the same way. For example Xerxces, a broadly used XML parser maintained by the Apache Software Foundation uses the information in xsi:schemaLocation to locate the define.xml schema. On the other hand, the MSXML 4.0 parser does not. Since CST does not use the xsi:schemaLocation, it does not define the xsi namespace, since this namespace is not being used in the define.xml as created by CST. We consider the OpenCDISC rule DD0002 (DD0002 Missing or invalid namespace reference) too restrictive, since the schema namespace reference only has to be there in case it is used. In the Define-XML version 2 this rule is more clearly defined. There it is clearly stated that the schema location is optional, and that the schema instance namespace is only required when the schema location is provided. I hope this helps. Best, Lex Jansen Software Developer @ SAS ... View more

Hi Susan, Thank you for your comments regarding the SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit in relation to the define.xml. As you noticed, the 39 SAS datasets that define the SAS representation of the define.xml standard contain more ODM content then is typically found in a define.xml file that gets submitted. The reason for this is that there are more use cases for the define.xml than just submitting to the FDA. For this reason SAS choose to include all elements and attributes from ODM that are related to metadata. Whether or not content that is part of the ODM standard, but not specifically mentioned in the define.xml specification has been part of an extensive discussion within the CDISC XML Technologies team, and specifically the define.xml development team. In the draft specification for define version 2 it has been formulated as follows: "The XML Case Report Tabulations Data Definitions schema permits vendor extensions, as defined in the ODM 1.3.1 specification, to the elements defined in this specification. Any XML not explicitly specified as part of Define-XML v2.0 will be considered an extension. This includes ODM metadata not explicitly referenced in this specification. Extensions have no meaning implied by the Define-XML standard and the meaning must be agreed by the sender and receiver. That is, define.xml files that use extensions are not wrong, but instead the extensions may be ignored unless the sender and receiver have agreed otherwise." A related problem is that there are currently no formal validation rules for the define.xml (apart from the XML schema). This means that every vendor (OpenCDISC, SAS, ...) must make their own interpretation of the rules, inclusing flagging as ERROR, WARNING, or INFORMATION. It is expected that  the CDISC XML Technologies team will define formal validation rules for the define.xml, so that there can be consistency between the different validation engines. OpenCDISC takes the approach to flag attributes like the ones you saw as "WARNINGS". In my view valid ODM attributes that are not mentioned in the define.xml specification should be flagged as informational, not as "WARNINGS". Receiving systems should be forgiving, and may ignore valid ODM attributes that are not part of the define.xml specification. I recommend that you also bring this issue to OpenCDISC's forum. We will take your comments in consideration when further developing the SAS Clinical Standards Toolkit. At this moment you can already remove the attributes that you mention by using the following code (also attached): libname srcdata "..\data"; data srcdata.definedocument; set srcdata.definedocument; call missing(Id, AsOfDateTime, Description); run; data srcdata.itemgroupdefs; set srcdata.itemgroupdefs; call missing(SASDatasetName, Domain); run; data srcdata.itemgroupdefitemrefs; set srcdata.itemgroupdefitemrefs; call missing(KeySequence); run; data srcdata.itemdefs; set srcdata.itemdefs; call missing(SASFieldName); run; This code should run just before running the %crtdds_write macro. I hope this helps. We will consider your suggestions. Best, Lex Jansen Software Developer @ SAS ... View more

You would need a detailed description of the file format to make sense of the data. Maybe this helps: http://www.sonicspot.com/guide/wavefiles.html (I just Googled 'wav file format' to find this). ... View more

This XML file is not readable, because it is not well-formed. XML names may not contain punctuation characters or whitespace of any kind, whether a space, a carriage return, a line feed, a nonbreaking space, etc. ... View more

Thanks, I might follow-up with Tech Support. ... View more

Cynthia, Sorry for the confusion, but the warning is in the XML Map, not when using the Map in SAS. It is the XML Mapper application that shows the error. Thanks, Lex ... View more

Thanks, Cynthia! It works, but it does get a little hard to maintain code that has to be compatible with older versions. Since the hyperlinks in my PROC REPORTS use absolute column references (like _c3_), I now have to update them (in this example to _c4_), since I added a fake variable. Any ideas to prevent this, except adding a lot of code like this: %IF &sysvar=9.2 %THEN ... Regards, Lex Jansen Message was edited by: LexJ ... View more

When I run this code in 9.1.3 I get the following bookmarks: Lucy +---Love Lucy Ethel +---Ethel Rocks Great! But in 9.2 I get bonus bookmarks: Lucy +---Love Lucy +---Table1 Ethel +---Ethel Rocks +---Table1 Is there any option that will get rid of the Table1 bookmarks? Or do I have to start using ODS Document to fix this compatibility issue ? Thanks, Lex Jansen ... View more