Appendix D: Glossary
Absolute Positioning
This describes a LINE or COLUMN clause with an integer operand not preceded by +or PLUS. Absolute positioning places the line or field at a fixed vertical orhorizontal position relative to the edge of the page.
Axes of Summing
Four axes are possible: group of LINEs, LINE, group of COLUMNs, and COLUMN. When a field is the SUM of another REPORT SECTION field that repeats (has an OCCURS, or multiple LINES or COLUMNS), totalling may take place along any or all of these axes, depending on whether or not the SUM also repeats along the axes.
Body Group
A CONTROL HEADING, DETAIL, or CONTROL FOOTING report group. They are so named because they appear in the "body" of the page, that is, between any PAGE HEADING and PAGE FOOTING groups that may also be present.
CODE A value that is passed to the output routine but does not ultimately appear in the report. It was originally meant for separating several reports written to the same spool file, but may now also be used for any control information for a basic file that is to be processed by special software downstream, or one controlled by an Independent Report File Handler.
Conditional Field
A field that is qualified by a PRESENT/ABSENT WHEN/AFTER clause or an OCCURS ... DEPENDING with minimum zero, and may not therefore always appear in the report.
Control
A field (control field) represented by an identifier (control identifier), defined in a SECTION other than the REPORT SECTION, whose value is tested by report writer on each GENERATE to establish whether there has been a change in value since the previous GENERATE for the report.
Control Break
A change in the value of a control from one GENERATE to the next. Control breaks may occur at one of several levels, depending on how many controls are listed in the CONTROL clause, and their hierarchy, that is, the major-to-minor order in which they are listed, which is also the order of testing.
Control Characters
Characters which do not appear in the output as printed data but instead influence the way the data is presented. They are often referred to as escape sequences since Escape is frequently the first character.
Cross-footing
Summing from a REPORT SECTION field into another field in the same group.
Declarative SECTION
A SECTION, preceded by a USE [GLOBAL] BEFORE REPORTING statement, that will be executed implicitly just before a certain report group is produced.
Dummy Report Group
A report group that is used not for producing output, but for triggering particular features, such as a NEXT GROUP clause or a Declarative SECTION. It usually has no LINE clauses (and hence no COLUMN clauses either).
DUPLICATED file
A file that has a DUPLICATED clause. This defines a number of separate copies of all the report's control registers and enables several different physical reports to be produced from one Report Description.
Entry
An element of the DATA DIVISION of a source program beginning with a level-number (or a level-indicator like RD, FD, etc.), followed by optional clauses, and ending in a period.
File Handler
Short for Independent Report File Handler (see below).
FINAL control
An object of the CONTROL and TYPE clauses and the RESET phrase that describes the top-level control, which may be used to produce a CONTROL FOOTING that encompasses the whole report, such as for grand totals. It may also produce a major report-encompassing CONTROL HEADING. The alternative (preferred) name is REPORT.
Form Feed
This is used in this publication to denote the physical action when a printer skips forward to the top of a new page. On a line printer this used to be referred to as a "skip to channel 1". A form feed is used in "batch" printing to execute a page advance but an Independent Report File Handler may use a different method.
Function
A built-in or user-written subroutine that is automatically invoked when the programmer uses a FUNCTION clause. Functions may produce any special format defined by the user or supplied as standard.
GLOBAL Report
A report defined with a GLOBAL phrase in the RD. Such a report is available, together with its special registers and sum-counters, to any program nested within the one in which the RD is defined.
GROUP INDICATE
An older term, used in current ANS standards, for the simplest type of PRESENT AFTER clause.
Independent Report File Handler
A supplied or user-written subroutine that intercepts all the output from the report before it is written and handles it in its own way. It is invoked automatically when the user codes a MODE sub-clause in the SELECT...ASSIGN.
Multiple CONTROL FOOTING
A group headed by the clause TYPE CF FOR control-1 control-2... or CF FOR ALL. The group is then used as a CONTROL FOOTING for each (or ALL) of the controls, thus avoiding the need to code a similar report group at several levels.
Multiple Form of Clauses
A LINE, COLUMN, SOURCE, or VALUE clause with several operands. This enables several different LINEs or COLUMN fields to be represented in a single entry. Such a single entry may also be referred to in a single SUM clause with a great saving in program code.
Multiple-choice Entry
A series of SOURCE, VALUE, or FUNCTION clauses, each followed by a [PRESENT] WHEN / AFTER clause, all written in the same elementary entry. The first choice that is "present" becomes the effective value. WHEN OTHER may be used for the "catchall".
Non-REPORT SECTION SUM
A SUM clause referring to an identifier that is not defined in the REPORT SECTION. Adding takes place according to SOURCE SUM correlation or on execution of each GENERATE.
Page Advance
This is an automatic operation that takes place when a body group that is about to be printed cannot fit entirely on the current page. It outputs a PAGE FOOTING group (if defined), increments PAGE-COUNTER, advances to the top of a new page, and outputs a PAGE HEADING group (if defined).
Page Buffer
An area defined when a file is defined with a MODE clause and a WITH PAGE BUFFER clause. The Page Buffer enables report data to be displayed on the page in random order, using the SET PAGE STATUS, SET LINE, and SET COLUMN statements.
Page-fit Test
A test performed automatically to ensure that the whole of a body group can be fitted on the current page. If not, a page advance is executed and the whole of the body group appears on the next page.
Precompiler
The translation phase of the COBOL-IT Report Writer software that converts report writer clauses and statements into procedural ("vanilla") COBOL before they are compiled.
Relative Positioning
This applies to a LINE or COLUMN clause with a + or PLUS before the integer. (LINE and COLUMN with no operand imply + 1 and are therefore also relative.) Relative positioning places the line or field at a distance relative to the preceding line or field.
Report
A report is any human-readable set of data lines produced by any program.
Report Description
The RD entry for a report, plus all the Report Group Descriptions that follow the RD.
Report Description Entry
The full name for the RD entry (not including the report groups that follow it).
Report File
A file defined by means of an FD entry that has a REPORT clause. Any of a wide range of physical realizations of report output that may be produced using report writer.
Report Group
A contiguous set of lines produced in one operation. Also used, informally, to mean a Report Group Description.
Report Group Description
The set of entries, beginning with an 01-level entry, that describe a report group.
REPORT SECTION SUM
A SUM clause referring to a data-name that is defined in the REPORT SECTION. The adding takes place by rolling forward or cross-footing.
Rolling Forward Summing from a REPORT SECTION field into REPORT SECTION field in a different group, such as from a lower-level CF group into a higher-level CF. (Distinguished from Cross-Footing.)
SOURCE SUM Correlation
An option, for compatibility with ANS-68 report writer, whereby for every non-REPORT SECTION SUM operand a check is made to see in which DETAIL groups, if any, the same item is a SOURCE. Adding then takes place only for those operands whose referencing DETAIL group was GENERATEd. (In the ANS-74 and ANS-85 standards, by contrast, a GENERATE causes all non-REPORT SECTION SUM operands to be accumulated into the totals that reference them.)
Special Register
A location such as PAGE-COUNTER, LINE-COUNTER, and CODE-VALUE that is defined automatically by report writer, rather than by the programmer, and may be accessed, usually under special conditions, to control the production of the report.
STYLE
A special property given to a file, report, line or elementary field that causes it to make use of a special effect available from the output device, such as UNDERLINE, COURIER, or LANDSCAPE. STYLEs may be implemented in a number of different ways, all of them completely transparent to the programmer.
Subtotalling
An ANS report writer term for SUMming of a non-REPORT SECTION item.
Sum Counter
The ANS report writer term for total field, not used in this publication since "COUNT" now has a special significance as a clause.
Summary Reporting
The action that takes place when a GENERATE report-name statement is executed. CONTROL HEADING or CONTROL FOOTING groups are the only body groups that can be presented.
Total Field
An internal register set up implicitly for each entry that has a SUM or COUNT clause. The total field is incremented by the value indicated in the SUM operand until it is output, whereupon it is stored in the report line and reset to zero. Its PICTURE is similar to the explicit PICTURE of the same entry, but without any editing characters.
TYPE
This term has two meanings in report writer. The TYPE clause at the 01-level states how the report group is used in the report, for example TYPE PAGE HEADING. In the SELECT...ASSIGN clause, the TYPE clause indicates the physical device to which the output is to be sent.
Unprintable Item
An elementary item that has no COLUMN clause. It does not appear in the report line but may be totalled like any other item.
Variable-length Field
A report item that has either a "<" PICTURE symbol or a multiple-choice VALUE with no PICTURE and different-length "literals".
Variable-position Field
A report item whose horizontal position may be different from one appearance to the next because it contains a relative COLUMN clause and follows either a conditional or variable-length field, or another variable-position field.