STARTHEADING

Starts the definition of the page heading in place of the default heading, which is displayed at the top of each page in the report or immediately following a HEADING command.

Syntax

{ STARTHEADING }

Notes

This command starts the definition of the page heading in place of the default heading, which is displayed at the top of each page in the report or immediately following a HEADING command. The ENDHEADING command signifies the end of the heading; all commands encountered between the STARTHEADING and ENDHEADING are part of the heading definition. Unless SUPHEADING is used outside the STARTHEADING / ENDHEADING group, the commands within the STARTHEADING/ENDHEADING group are re-executed at the start of each new page.

By default, new pages are started whenever a page member changes, the makeup of column headings change, the page length is exceeded and SUPFEED has not been used, the NEWPAGE command is issued, the HEADING command is issued, or the PAGEONDIMENSION command causes a page break. A custom heading will include the default page header and column headers unless they are suppressed with SUPPAGEHEADING and/or SUPCOLHEADING in the custom heading definition.

Note that headings (whether the default page and column headings or a custom heading created with ENDHEADING) do not get output right at the start of a new page. They are delayed until the next non-suppressed output data row is encountered, and even then the heading is output only after the data row's format { } commands have been processed. This avoids blank pages with nothing but headers on them but it can make it awkward to put out a TEXT (or other format which produces output) between the heading and the first output data row.

Tip:

To ensure that headings display correctly, structure the report script so that column member selections precede row member selections, and make sure that the script contains at least one column member.

Default Value

Replaces default heading.

Example

The following example shows how to define a heading for a report. All the commands within the STARTHEADING and ENDHEADING commands are executed at the top of each page. The TEXT commands display information about the person who prepared the report, the date the report was generated, and other title information.

<PAGE (Market, Accounts, Scenario)
Chicago Sales Actual

      <COLUMN (Year)
      <CHILDREN Year

<ROW (Product)

{ STARTHEADING TEXT 2 "Prepared by:" 14 "*USERNAME"
  C "The Electronics Club" 60 "*PAGESTRING"
  TEXT C "Quarterly Sales by City" 60 "*DATE"
  SUPPAGEHEADING
  TEXT 2 "*PAGEHDR" SKIP ENDHEADING}
<IDESCENDANTS Product
     !
         

This example produces the following report:

Prepared by: Bob      The Electronics Club         Page: 1
                     Quarterly Sales by City      05/13/03

                Chicago Sales Actual

                 Qtr1    Qtr2    Qtr3    Qtr4 
              ======= ======= ======= ======= 

Stereo          2,591   2,476   2,567   3,035
Compact_Disc    3,150   3,021   3,032   3,974
  Audio         5,741   5,497   5,599   7,009
Television      4,410   4,001   4,934   6,261
VCR             3,879   3,579   4,276   4,877
Camera          2,506   2,522   2,602   3,227
  Visual       10,795  10,102  11,812  14,365
    Product    16,536  15,599  17,411  21,374

See Also