KETTLE Variables

The kettle.properties file contain all the global variables for KETTLE.

Workshop - Kettle Variables

One of the most powerful features in Pentaho Data Integration is the ability to use variables throughout your transformations and jobs. The kettle.properties file serves as your central configuration hub, storing global variables that can be referenced across all your PDI solutions—making your work portable, reusable, and easier to maintain.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn to leverage the kettle.properties file to create and manage global variables that standardize paths, connection strings, and other configuration values across your entire PDI environment. You'll understand both UNIX-style (${VARIABLE}) and Windows-style (%%VARIABLE%%) syntax, and discover how to identify variable-enabled fields in the Spoon interface.

What You'll Accomplish:

• Access and edit the kettle.properties configuration file

• Define global variables for use across transformations and jobs

• Learn the two variable syntax formats and when to use each

• Set platform-specific variables for cross-environment compatibility

• Use the variable selector tool to insert variables into step properties

By the end of this workshop, you'll be able to create maintainable, environment-agnostic transformations that adapt seamlessly as you move from development to testing to production. Rather than hardcoding paths and values, you'll build flexible solutions that change behaviour simply by modifying a single configuration file.

Prerequisites: Pentaho Data Integration installed and configured

Estimated Time: 10 minutes

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Global Variables - kettle.properties

Variables can be used throughout Pentaho Data Integration, including in transformation steps and job entries. You define variables by setting them with the Set Variable step in a transformation or by setting them in the kettle.properties file in the directory.

The way to use them is either by grabbing them using the Get Variable step or by specifying meta-data strings like:

${VARIABLE} or:

%%VARIABLE%%

Both formats can be used and even mixed, the first is a UNIX derivative, the second is derived from Microsoft Windows. Dialogs that support variable usage throughout Pentaho Data Integration are visually indicated using a blue dollar sign.

You can use + space hot key to select a variable to be inserted into the property value. Mouse over the variable icon to display the shortcut help.

KETTLE Variables

1KB

kettle.properties

Open

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1. Start Pentaho Data Integration.

Windows - PowerShell:

Set-Location C:\Pentaho\design-tools\data-integration
.\spoon.bat

Linux:

cd
cd ~/Pentaho/design-tools/data-integration
./spoon.sh

1. Select Edit -> Edit the kettle.properties file

2. Highlight the first row and right mouse click, and select the following option.

Global variables

1. Add the following variable values.

Variable Name	OS	Value
DIR_SAMPLES	Windows	C:\Temp
DIR_SAMPLES	Linux	/home/pentaho/Temp

1. Save.

The kettle.properties can also be edited manually.

The file location: C:\ Users\ {user}\.kettle

The PowerShell script uses nano which was installed using scoop

1. In a Terminal.

Edit kettle.properties - PowerShell

cd \
cd Workshop--Data-Integration\Scripts
.\edit-kettle.properties.ps1

Linux:

cd
cd /home/pentaho/.kettle
nano kettle.properties

kettle.properties - Linux

The global variable is accessed, in transformations, by selecting Ctrl + Spacebar, wherever you see a blue diamond.

Global variable in Transformation

https://docs.pentaho.com/pdia-data-integration/data-integration-perspective-in-the-pdi-client/advanced-topics-pdi-perspective/pdi-run-modifiers/variables/kettle-variablesdocs.pentaho.com

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