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# 13.5. Miscellaneous Variables

## Purpose

These variables are generally useful.

## Interface

Name | Type | Purpose
Characters: |  |
c | string | copyright character
tm | string | trademark character
rtm | string | registered trademark character
nbsp | string | non-breaking space
Environment: |  |
SDF_VERSION | string | product version string (e.g. 2.000 beta1)
SDF_HOME | string | library/configuration directory
Expression formats: |  |
FORMAT_UPPER | string | convert a string to uppercase
FORMAT_LOWER | string | convert a string to lowercase
FORMAT_FULL | string | format to a complete date-time format
FORMAT_TIME | string | format to a time only
FORMAT_DATE | string | format to a date only
FORMAT_CONCISE | string | format to a concise date only
FORMAT_YEAR | string | format to a 4-digit year

## Description

The character variables are the preferred way of including the respective symbols. A format-specific configuration file can override the default definitions of these symbols.

The environment variables can be used to find out which version of SDF is executing and where it is installed.

The expression format variables define bits of Perl code to format variables or expressions. They can be defined in a configuration file - your system adminstrator may wish to configure date formatting to suit local conventions.