Creating Reports With WebFOCUS Language

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Copyright © 2016 Information Builders

This documentation describes how to use WebFOCUS to create and style tabular reports, generate a wide variety of graphs, prepare data for those reports and graphs, and enable links to provide additional information. It is intended for application developers and other information technology professionals who use WebFOCUS to create and deploy reporting applications on the Internet or corporate intranets.

How This Manual Is Organized

This manual includes the following chapters:

Chapter/Appendix

Contents

1

Creating Reports Overview

Describes the tools available for creating and formatting reports.

2

Displaying Report Data

Describes ways to retrieve field values from a data source and display them.

3

Sorting Tabular Reports

Describes how to display report information grouped in a particular order by sorting.

4

Selecting Records for Your Report

Describes how to use and specify selection criteria to display only the field values that meet your needs.

5

Creating Temporary Fields

Describes how to use the DEFINE and COMPUTE commands to create temporary fields.

6

Including Totals and Subtotals

Describes how to use subtotals and grand totals to summarize numeric information and aid in interpreting detailed information in a report.

7

Using Expressions

Describes how to combine operators, field names, and constants in an expression to derive new values.

8

Saving and Reusing Your Report Output

Describes how to save report data to files for reuse in different respects.

9

Choosing a Display Format

Describes the display formats available for viewing reports on the screen, including PDF, EXL2K, and XLSX.

10

Linking a Report to Other Resources

Describes how to use StyleSheets to link reports to other reports, URLs, Maintain procedures, and JavaScript functions.

11

Navigating Within an HTML Report

Describes navigation in an HTML report including dynamic table of contents (TOC), the WebFOCUS Viewer, and linking report pages.

12

Bursting Reports Into Multiple HTML Files

Describes how to provide more efficient retrieval of reports by bursting, or separating, a single report into multiple HTML files.

13

Handling Records With Missing Field Values

Describes how missing data affects report results and how to treat and represent it.

14

Joining Data Sources

Describes how to join two or more related data sources to create a larger integrated data structure from which you can report.

15

Merging Data Sources

Describes how to merge and concatenate two or more data sources into a new permanent data source.

16

Formatting Reports: An Overview

Provides a brief overview of the formatting options available in WebFOCUS.

17

Creating and Managing a WebFOCUS StyleSheet

Describes how to create a StyleSheet and reviews general StyleSheet syntax.

18

Controlling Report Formatting

Describes how you can control how reports are formatted including generating internal cascading style sheets, conditional formatting, setting measurement units, and controlling the display of empty reports.

19

Identifying a Report Component in a WebFOCUS StyleSheet

Describes how to identify a report component using StyleSheet declarations.

20

Using an External Cascading Style Sheet

Describes how you can increase your formatting options by using external cascading style sheets.

21

Laying Out the Report Page

Describes basic report page layout including page size, orientation, page numbers, margins, images, grids, borders, page-breaks, and mailing labels.

22

Using Headings, Footings, Titles, and Labels

Describes how to add and format headings, footings, titles, and labels to add context to your report.

23

Formatting Report Data

Describes formatting and positioning text in a report including font style, size, and color.

24

Creating a Graph

Describes the GRAPH facility, which you can use to display data in graph format instead of tabular format.

25

Creating Financial Reports With Financial Modeling Language (FML)

Describes the Financial Modeling Language (FML) used to create and present financially oriented data, using inter-row calculations.

26

Creating a Free-Form Report

Describes how to present data in an unrestricted (non-tabular) format.

27

Using SQL to Create Reports

Describes how to use SQL to retrieve and analyze FOCUS and DBMS data.

28

Improving Report Processing

Describes methods of increasing data retrieval and reporting efficiency.

A

Master Files and Diagrams

Contains Master Files and diagrams of sample data sources used in the documentation examples.

B

Error Messages

Describes how to obtain information about error messages.

C

Table Syntax Summary and Limits

Summarizes TABLE commands and options.

D

Referring to Fields in a Report Request

Describes methods for referring to fields in a request including by alias, using long and qualified field names, and referring to all fields in a segment.

Documentation Conventions

The following table describes the documentation conventions that are used in this manual.

Convention

Description

THIS TYPEFACE

or

this typeface

Denotes syntax that you must enter exactly as shown.

this typeface

Represents a placeholder (or variable), a cross-reference, or an important term.

underscore

Indicates a default setting.

Key + Key

Indicates keys that you must press simultaneously.

{ }

Indicates two or three choices. Type one of them, not the braces.

[ ]

Indicates a group of optional parameters. None is required, but you may select one of them. Type only the parameter in the brackets, not the brackets.

|

Separates mutually exclusive choices in syntax. Type one of them, not the symbol.

...

Indicates that you can enter a parameter multiple times. Type only the parameter, not the ellipsis (...).

.

.

.

Indicates that there are (or could be) intervening or additional commands.

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