Report Writer › Report Exit Procedure › Function

Function

The purpose of the report exit procedure is to let the user do specialized processing, based on installation requirements, while a report is being generated. For example, data can be conditionally suppressed from being processed or printed.

The report exit procedure must know the format of the data, that is, the name of the variables that contain the data and the format of that data. The name of the report exit procedure is defined in the report definition and is executed by the generator.

Functions performed by report exit procedures are as follows:

• Initialization processing, for example, open files or define vartables.
• Item processing, where an item is a report header or trailer, page header or trailer, control break header or trailer or record (that is, data format or sequence of data formats). For example, retrieve additional data from another source, and set it in variables that are defined in the report or are to be used in later processing.
• Termination processing, for example, close files or delete vartables.