Setting DataStage Job Parameters through ETL configuration files

Setting the DataStage Parameters through easily accessible/manageable text files has been nontrivial task as a result the purpose of this post is to provide a simple guidance to set the Datastage project variables in an easy and simple way

Setting the user define variable and environment variable Text file has many advantages

1. During the deployment process,Manually copy/past the user defined variables between the infosphere Datastage administrator accross different servers is a time consuming task
2. using  an accessible/manageable text files rather than infosphere Datastage administrator could be an excellent work around (infosphere Datastage administrator requires root user and on the other hand accessing the DSParms file requires only DS administrator)

• Datastage Environment and User Defined variables file info
• Scope: Project
• File name:  DSParams 
• Location (Unix server): #DataStageInstalledDirectory/InformationServer/Server/Projects/Project_Name

• DSParams file structure :the DSParms file is composed of many sections but we are concerned only with 2 sections

              1. [EnvVarDefns] Section: refers to the variables specification

                          Format is: <EnvVarName>\<Category>\<JobType>\<Type>[+]\<Default>\<SetAction>\<Scope>\<PromptText>\<HelpText>

                         e.g. Parameter_name\User Defined\-1\String\\0\Project\This is my Parm\

Item	Description
EnvVarName	is the name of the enviroment variable that will be set in OSH
Category	Is the category name where the environment variable will appear.  In format <cat1>/<subcat1>/<subcat2>/... etc
JobType	is the job type number (0 = Server, 3 = Parallel, -1 = all)
Type	is one of: Number, String, FilePath, DirPath, List, Boolean, UserDef                    If List, then format of Type is futher divided: ...<EnvVarName>\List/<Item1>/<ItemDisplay1>/<Item2>/<ItemDisplay2>\<Scope>...                      (ItemDisplay values must be left blank here, and added as localised strings in envvar.cls                    If Boolean, then the value the envvar is set to should be irrelevant                    If proceeded by a '+' character, then the value set here is appended to any existing value already set in the shell,                    separated by a ':' character
Default	The default value
SetAction	What action should be taken when setting the environment variable at job run time:                         0 = Always set if the environment variable has been overriden.                         1 = Only set the environment variable if its value is different to its default                         2 = Explicitly unset the environment variable if the value is set to the default, otherwise same as 1                         3 = Always set the environment variable                         4 = Osh Boolean. Set if true, no action if false
Scope	is one of: Project, Design, RunTime
PromptText	is the text displayed to prompt the user for the env var. If "" then <EnvVarName> will be used
HelpText	is a longer description of the env var.

              2. [EnvVarValues]  Section: refers to set the value of the variables
                                   e.g.  "Parmeter_name"\1\" Parmeter_value"