More about Files and Reports

You may describe as many reports as you like per program. Each report has its own RD entry, followed by one or more Report Group Descriptions. Separate reports may either be assigned to separate files or to the same file, in which case you could write:

This last approach is useful where you need to produce a report that has distinct sections, perhaps with different page headings. So a single physical report (as the end-user sees it) may consist of several different logical reports (as the programmer sees them), all written to the same file.

You can also direct your report output to a special Independent Report File Handler, designed to process the output from reports in a particular way. To use the special file handler, write the extra clause: MODE IS mnemonic-name in the SELECT clause. It does not affect the FD or any other statements in your program.