Further Reading — Chapter 16: Report Writer

IBM Documentation

  • Enterprise COBOL for z/OS: Language Reference — Report Writer chapter covering all report group types, clauses, and special registers.

  • Enterprise COBOL for z/OS: Programming Guide — Sections on report writer programming, including USE BEFORE REPORTING declaratives and multiple-report programs.

Books

  • Stern, N., Stern, R., & Ley, J. COBOL for the 21st Century. Chapters on Report Writer with step-by-step construction of control break reports.

  • Ashley, R. & Fernandez, J. Job Control Language: A Step-by-Step Guide. Covers JCL DD statements for report files, including ASA carriage control and print formatting.

  • Brown, G. Advanced COBOL for Structured and Object-Oriented Programming. Includes detailed comparison of Report Writer vs. manual report generation with production-quality examples.

Online Resources

  • GnuCOBOL Report Writer Documentation — Notes on Report Writer support in GnuCOBOL, including known limitations and compatibility with IBM Enterprise COBOL.

  • IBM Z Xplore (https://www.ibm.com/z/xplore) — Hands-on exercises including report generation on real z/OS systems.

  • COBOL Report Writer Tutorial — Various community tutorials comparing Report Writer approaches across different COBOL compilers.

  • Chapter 15: Sort and Merge — Sort operations often precede report generation; OUTPUT PROCEDUREs can contain Report Writer logic.
  • Chapter 17: String Handling — STRING and reference modification for building formatted output lines in manual report programs.
  • Chapter 38: Batch Processing Patterns — Reports as part of complete batch processing architectures.
  • Appendix C: JCL Quick Reference — DD statements for report files, SYSOUT classes, and print formatting options.