OUTPUT TO REPORT

The OUTPUT TO REPORT instruction provides a data row to the report execution.

Syntax

OUTPUT TO REPORT report-name ( parameters )
  1. report-name is the name of the report to which the parameters are sent.
  2. parameters is the data that needs to be sent to the report.

Usage

The OUTPUT TO REPORT instruction feeds the report routine with a single set of data values (called an input record), which corresponds usually to one printed line in the report output.

An input record is the ordered set of values returned by the expressions that you list between the parentheses following the report name in the OUTPUT TO REPORT statement. The specified values are passed to the report routine, as part of the input record. The input record typically corresponds to a retrieved row from the database.

The set of values is usually grouped in a RECORD variable and best practice is to define a user defined type (TYPE) in order to ease the variable definitions required in the code implementing the report driver and the report routine definition, for example:
SCHEMA stores 
TYPE t_cust RECORD LIKE customer.*
...
DEFINE r_cust t_cust 
...
  OUTPUT TO REPORT cust_report(r_cust.*)
...
REPORT cust_report(r)
  DEFINE r t_cust 
  ...
The OUTPUT TO REPORT statement is included within a WHILE, FOR, or FOREACH loop, so that the program passes data to the report one input record at a time. The example uses a FOREACH loop to fetch data from the database and pass it as input record to a report:
SCHEMA stores 
DEFINE o LIKE orders.*
...
DECLARE order_c CURSOR FOR
  SELECT orders.*
    FROM orders ORDER BY ord_cust 
  START REPORT order_list 
  FOREACH order_c INTO o.*
    OUTPUT TO REPORT order_list(o.*)
  END FOREACH
  FINISH REPORT order_list 
...

Special consideration is needed when using OUTPUT TO REPORT with row ordering. For example if the report groups rows with BEFORE GROUP OF or AFTER GROUP OF sections, the rows must be ordered by the column specified in these sections, preferably by the report driver to avoid two-pass reports.

If OUTPUT TO REPORT is not executed, none of the control blocks of the report routine are executed, even if the program also includes the START REPORT and FINISH REPORT statements.

The members of the input record that you specify in the expression list of the OUTPUT TO REPORT statement must correspond to elements of the formal argument list in the report definition; in their number and their position. They must be also of compatible data types. At compile time, the number of parameters passed with the OUTPUT TO REPORT instruction is not checked against the DEFINE section in REPORT of the report routine. This is known behavior in the language.

Arguments of the TEXT and BYTE data types are passed by reference rather than by value; arguments of other data types are passed by value. A report can use the WORDWRAP operator with the PRINT statement to display TEXT values. A report cannot display BYTE values; the character string <byte value> in output from the report indicates a BYTE value.