Business Systems Programming - Essay Example

Business Systems Programming Control breaks in COBOL programming are used to produce reports. For instance, in case the value of the control variable is changing the sum could be calculated then produced in a report. This paper seeks to discuss three concepts that need to be understood so as to work with control break programs and to cite an example of a business operation that employs control break processing. The concepts needed to understand how a control break program works are data sorting, data formatting and the manner of operation of control fields.

Through the use of monospaced fonts like Courier New and Lucida Console, we can establish the characters that can fit on a single line and the total lines that will fit to an individual page. So this means it is possible to plan for the format of the data to be presented provided the number of characters that can fit on a single line is known. Knowledge of the number of lines that can fit on a single page enables the control program to use logics to carry out page breaks then print headings if a page is filled up with data.

Control break processing involves a control field changing from a single record to the next (Nancy Stern, Robert A. Stern, James P. Ley) and the events that occur when such changes take place are: An appropriate control total line will be printed, the appropriate control field will be initialized and the appropriate control total will be initialized. To be able to process a data set or file using the control break technique, the source file or data set ought to be sort based on the key field on which you intend to break.

An example of a business area where control break processing is helpful is when companies wish to generate departmental reports like the one shown here below:Dept Salesperson No Amt of Sales01 001 $4001 002 $30Total for department $70Dept Salesperson No Amt of Sales02 001 $1502 002 $36 Total for department $51Works CitedNancy Stern, Robert A. Stern, James P. Ley. COBOL in the 21st Century.

John Wiley & Sons, 2006.