Editing COBOL Std 9 Output Formatting Rules (section)

== 9. Output Formatting Rules ==

=== 9.1 Print File Definition ===

* Every print file must have an explicit LINAGE clause specifying lines-per-page, footing area, and bottom margin.
* Record length must be stated explicitly in the FD; for report files, 132 characters is the baseline.
* FILE STATUS must be checked after every OPEN, WRITE, and CLOSE.

=== 9.2 Page Layout ===

{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%"
! Element !! Rule
|-
| Page heading || Written on the first line after a new-page trigger. Carries report title.
|-
| Column header || Written immediately after the page heading. Column names must match the data.
|-
| Data lines || Zero-suppress numeric fields (<code>PIC Z(9)</code> or <code>Z(3)9</code>). Pad with at least 2 spaces between columns.
|-
| End-of-page trigger || Fire EOP processing at <code>linage-counter = (lines-per-page − footing-area − 1)</code>.
|-
| Page footing || Right-aligned page number in format <code>page: ZZZZ9</code>. Increment page counter after writing.
|}

=== 9.3 New-Page Flag Pattern ===

Control page breaks with a numeric flag (<code>SW-NEW-PAGE</code>) rather than compiler-specific ADVANCE:

<syntaxhighlight lang="cobol">
       03 SW-NEW-PAGE          PIC 9 VALUE 1.
          88 NEW-PAGE-NEEDED   VALUE 1.
          88 NO-NEW-PAGE       VALUE 0.
</syntaxhighlight>

Set <code>SW-NEW-PAGE = 1</code> at initialisation and after writing each page footing; clear to 0 after writing the heading.

=== 9.4 Partial-Line Flush on Close ===

When the UI "stop" method is invoked, pad remaining print columns with zeros (or spaces for string data) and keep calling the write paragraph until the new-page flag fires. This guarantees the last partial data line is always written before CLOSE.

=== 9.5 Console Logging ===

* Route all structured log messages through the UI program's log-message method (<code>DISPLAY process-message UPON scherm</code>).
* DISPLAY directly upon scherm is permitted only for emergency abort messages and low-level SQL diagnostic dumps.
* Structured messages must carry: program-name, paragraph-name, and a human-readable message of up to 92 characters.

----

----
''[[Cobol programming standards|← Back to index]]''