COBOL Std 9 Output Formatting Rules

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

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 (PIC Z(9) or Z(3)9). Pad with at least 2 spaces between columns.
End-of-page trigger	Fire EOP processing at linage-counter = (lines-per-page − footing-area − 1).
Page footing	Right-aligned page number in format page: ZZZZ9. Increment page counter after writing.

9.3 New-Page Flag Pattern

Control page breaks with a numeric flag (SW-NEW-PAGE) 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 SW-NEW-PAGE = 1 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 (DISPLAY process-message UPON scherm).
• 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.

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