The specific commands used for printing or writing data are given in the Commands and logic sections. Much of how that data will look, such as in a report, is defined in the data division.

The following code is taken from a full program given in the Sample code section should illustrate how a printed report is defined in the data division. If writing to a file it would be virtually identical (see Sample code section for an example of this).

If you wished to print a report in the form of a table then you would first have to assign an identifier name to the printer in the environment division using the select clause.

000110 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. 000120 INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. 000130 FILE-CONTROL. 000140 : 000210 SELECT PRINT-FILE ASSIGN TO PRINTER. 000220 000230 000240 DATA DIVISION. 000250 FILE SECTION. : 000580 FD PRINT-FILE. 000590 01 REPORT-OUT PIC X(80). : 000630 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 000640 : 001040 01 PRINT-HEADERS. 001050 03 P-TITLE. 001060 05 P-TITLE-TXT PIC X(49) VALUE 001070 ' Batch Control Program - Error Report. Page:'. 001080 05 P-PAGE-NO PIC Z9 VALUE ZERO. 001090 03 COL-HEAD-1 PIC X(31) 001100 VALUE ' PART CUST/ DATE QUANT'. 001110 03 COL-HEAD-2 PIC X(24) 001120 VALUE ' NO SUP NO SUP/REC'. 001130 001140 01 PRINT-LINE. 001150 03 P-PART-NO PIC X(8). 001160 03 PIC X VALUE SPACE. 001170 03 P-CUS-SUP-NO PIC X(6). 001180 03 PIC XX VALUE SPACES. 001190 03 P-DATE-S-D. 001200 05 P-DATE-1 PIC XX. 001210 05 PIC X VALUE '/'. 001220 05 P-DATE-2 PIC XX. 001230 05 PIC X VALUE '/'. 001240 05 P-DATE-3 PIC XX. 001250 03 PIC X VALUE SPACE. 001260 03 P-QUANT PIC Z(4)9. 001270 001280 01 P-FOOTER. 001290 03 TOT-REC-TXT PIC X(21) 001300 VALUE 'Total record number: '. 001310 03 P-REC-COUNT PIC ZZ9 VALUE ZERO. 001320 001330 01 P-BATCH-REC. 001340 03 BAT-TITLE PIC X(38) 001350 VALUE ' HASH TOTALS IN BATCH CONTROL RECORD'. 001360 03 BATCH-SOURCE PIC X(29) VALUE SPACES. 001370 03 P-BAT-CUS-SUPP. 001380 05 BAT-CUS-SUP PIC X(25) 001390 VALUE ' CUSTOMER/SUPPLIER NOS: '. 001400 05 BAT-C-S-N-TOT PIC Z(7)9. 001410 03 P-BAT-DATE. 001420 05 BAT-DATE PIC X(9) 001430 VALUE ' DATES: '. 001440 05 BAT-D-S-D-TOT PIC Z(7)9. 001450 03 P-BAT-QUANT. 001460 05 BAT-QUANT PIC X(14) 001470 VALUE ' QUANTITIES: '. 001480 05 BAT-Q-TOT PIC Z(7)9. 001490 03 P-BAT-PART. 001500 05 BAT-PART PIC X(12) 001510 VALUE ' PART NOS: '. 001520 05 BAT-P-N-TOT PIC Z(7)9. :

• The printout would have the following format: [click here]
• The printer was assigned to PRINT-FILE (the FD level) with the level 01 called REPORT-OUT
• There are four groups used to define each main part of the printout: PRINT-HEADERS (for the title and column heads), PRINT-LINE (for the actual data from the records), P-FOOTER (for the totals at the end of the table), and P-BATCH which appears after the main table and lists various totals
• To define text, fillers are used with a VALUE of what the text is to be, e.g.
  

  001090       03 COL-HEAD-1 PIC X(31) 
  001100           VALUE ' PART    CUST/   DATE     QUANT'.
  

  
  This is the first line of the column header. COL-HEAD-2 giving the next line.
• Spaces between the titles done by defining a PIC X size that is larger then the text since the extra spaces will be space-filled
• Spaces between data are acheived by the use of fillers with a VALUE SPACES for the desired PIC X size.
• Data and strings to be printed are first moved to the appropriate item of the print group and then the entire group is written to REPORT-OUT, which is defined as PIC X(80). For example:
  

  003220       MOVE PAGE-NO TO P-PAGE-NO  
  003230       WRITE REPORT-OUT FROM P-TITLE AFTER PAGE
  

  
  Here the page number is moved to the P-TITLE sub-group member (of PRINT-HEADERS) P-PAGE-NO. The following line effectively means:
  MOVE P-TITLE TO REPORT-OUT
  WRITE REPORT-OUT AFTER PAGE
  (AFTER PAGE instructs the printer to start a new page)
• It is in the data groups involved in printing (or writing to a file) that data editing (such as zero-supression) is performed
• By simply changing the ASSIGN PRINT-FILE TO 'PRINTER' to ASSIGN PRINT-FILE TO 'report.txt' would be all that was required to produce the same report in a file called 'report.txt' and add ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL. Although, the AFTER PAGE and AFTER ... LINES would have no effect