The quickest and easiest way to produce a new report and maintain an existing one is to work directly from a View. The Define Report command is simply a different way of accessing the View on which a report is based.
You can also use the Define Report command to:
| • | Display a blank View to allow you to create a new report if the View name used does not exist for the current table |
| • | Display a report View from the current table to allow you to modify an existing report |
Creating a report from a View and all report formatting options are described in Reports.
This command can be issued only in command mode. For more information, see Issuing Commands.
DEFINE REPORT View-name <FIELDS field-list>
or
DEFINE VIEW View-name <FIELDS field-list>
| • | view-name allows you to access an existing View or create a new View with the specified name. If you give the View a two-word name, be sure to include the underscore character between the two words |
| • | field-list allows you to specify the fields in a new View |
If you want to add columns to a new view, use Define View to create the new empty View, then use Define Column to add columns to the View from left to right. Define Column provides additional capabilities beyond specifying the field, as useful field modifiers can also be specified. For more information see Define Column.