Using CDISC Library in SAS



Author: Sofia Vale - Statistical Programmer

Traditionally, CDISC standards metadata has been available to all in several formats (HTML, PDF, XLS, among others). However, the use of this information in automated processes could be extremely complex, as files across different standards presented different structures and each had to be downloaded and stored in order to be used. Recently, CDISC introduced a new way of accessing this metadata: the CDISC Library.CDISC Library allows you to access and explore all CDISC standards metadata, no matter their version, as well as the relationships between standards. To do so, you must first request an account, which will grant you access to the CDISC Library API. You can explore it in your browser. More importantly, you can access the API in an array of software, which allows you to use the metadata in any automated process you like. To access the CDISC Library API in SAS, you can use the following code:

%macro cdisc_library (url=, outlib=);
  filename cdisclib temp;
     
     proc http url = "&url"
            auth_basic
            webusername = "<username>"
            webpassword = "<password>"
            out = cdisclib;
         headers "Accept" = "application/json";
  run;
     
  libname &outlib json fileref = cdisclib;
%mend cdisc_library;

For example
%cdisc_library(url=https://library.cdisc.org/api/mdr/products
              ,outlib=cdisclib);

With this macro call, SAS can access any URL to the CDISC Library API (macro parameter “url=”), using your username and password, and copy it to the specified library (macro parameter “outlib=”). The example given accesses the entire CDISC Library product list, where you can find links to any part of any standards you wish to access, be it an SDTM model or a specific Controlled Terminology version. These links can in turn be fed into the macro to obtain more detailed metadata, either in a manual or automated fashion.

Do you want to know more about the CDISC library or need help to implement is? Please contact us at +31 (0)73 523 6000 or mail to: melanie.schopp@ocs-consulting.com