Report Directives

Report directives are symbols that have special meanings during report printing. They are used mainly to assist you in neatly designing and then understanding your reports.

The first two report directives must be placed on the very first column on each report. If this is not done, they are treated as printable characters, not special codes. Report directives include:

!      Don't print this line

*      The entire line is a comment

//      everything to the right (including the double slash) is a comment.

Hidden lines are useful in allowing you to perform a series of intermediate calculations before printing a total. For example, if you wanted to calculate and show your net profit, yet not show how this result was arrived at, the ! command could be used to suppress the display of the intermediate results. Consider the example from the prior section, with modifications:

! @add([period_amt:@sales], [period_amt:@otherincome], &totalsales)

! @subtract([&totalsales], [period_amt:@expenses], &netprofit)

Your net profit is: [&netprofit]

The first two lines are processed by CAPITAL, but not printed. The third line is a comment or remark and is also ignored. Only 'your net profit is:' and an amount will appear on the report.

Comments are useful in allowing you to make notes as to why a report was constructed in a certain way, as well as making the report more readable. Comments, however, are optional. Consider the above example again, with further modifications:

* -----------------------------------------------------------------

* the following section adds total sales for the current period

* contained in the group @sales to total sales for the

* @otherincome group. The result is stored in &totalsales

* -----------------------------------------------------------------

! @add([period_amt:@sales], [period_amt:@otherincome], &totalsales)

* -----------------------------------------------------------------

* total sales for the period must now be subtracted from total

* overheads/expenses to arrive at the net profit. This is stored

* in &netprofit.

* -----------------------------------------------------------------

! @subtract([&totalsales], [period_amt:@expenses], &netprofit)

Your net profit is: [&netprofit] // the result is printed here

In particular, note the difference between * and //. If * is placed at the left-most column of the report the entire line is treated as a comment and it is completely ignored by CAPITAL. The second style of comment, // is used to place remarks on the same line as the instruction that is being executed. Everything to the right of the first slash (including the slash) is treated as a comment and not printed by CAPITAL.

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Related Topics:

The Report Writer/Editor