SUPP-- dataset declares no IDVAR, so its parent records are unidentified

Rule

NS-005

Category

Structural

Basis

Confirmed Traceable to the published specification text cited below.

Detectability

Define-XML heuristic The Define-XML indicates this, but does not prove it. Treat the finding as a prompt to check, not as a verdict.

Finding type

Question

Applies to

SDTMIG 3.2, 3.3, 3.4

What changes in v4.0

Section 8.2 requires that "IDVAR must be --SEQ from the parent domain except for NSDM", where IDVAR and IDVARVLN are null, and replaces the character IDVARVAL with the numeric IDVARVLN. This SUPP-- dataset declares no IDVAR column at all, so the Define-XML does not say how its records resolve to parent records. That is not necessarily wrong under SUPP--, where a qualifier about the subject rather than about a particular record is represented with IDVAR null. It does mean the conversion has no declared parent key to carry across, and that the decision has to be made from the data or from the mapping specification rather than read off the metadata.

What to do about it

Establish, per QNAM, whether the qualifier is about the subject or about a particular parent record. Subject-level content is the case the IG routes elsewhere — Section 8.2 lists subject-level objective data as something that should not become an NSV at all, and points at SC — so this is a content question before it is a keying one. Where the qualifier does belong to a parent record, resolve it to that record's --SEQ, which is what the NS-- structure requires. Neither answer can be derived from this Define-XML, so budget the review rather than the transpose.

What the scan can and cannot see

That no IDVAR column is declared is conclusive. What it means is not: SUPP-- permits subject-level qualifiers with IDVAR null, so an absent column may be entirely correct today. Which of the two this is depends on what the rows contain, and no Define-XML shows that.