BREAK Usage Codes

The BREAK usage codes provide six levels of breaks (or groupings) in a report.

Reports:

When usage is BREAK1, it is a control column for level-1 breaks. Any change in the value of the column causes a break: subtotals are displayed for columns whose usage is one of the aggregation usages, and the level-1 break text is displayed.

Rules for using BREAK:

• To show a break in your report for each change of value in a column, your query must use ORDER BY in SQL. The report then shows exactly as many breaks as there are different values in the column. Without ORDER BY, the report could show as many breaks as there are lines in the report.
• If the answer set for the query is large, QMF might perform multiple retrievals of data from the database. To ensure that the data is returned in the same order each time, be sure to include an ORDER BY in the query. Similarly, if BREAK is used on a defined column, ensure that multiple evaluations of the column will result in the same results each time.
• More than one column can have a usage of BREAK. The columns are then considered together for the purpose of determining breaks. For example, if a table contains columns for YEAR, MONTH, and DAY, giving each a usage code of BREAK1 causes a level-1 break at every change in date.
• A usage code of BREAK2 controls the column for level-2 breaks. The column is displayed just to the right of a control column for level-1 breaks (if the automatic column reordering option on FORM.OPTIONS is set to YES). There can be up to six levels of breaks. The sequence of break numbers might have gaps. (You can use BREAK2, BREAK3, and BREAK5 in a form without using BREAK1 or BREAK4.)

The BREAK, GROUP, and aggregation usage codes can change the order of the columns on the report (though not on the form). You can tell QMF to automatically reorder the columns in a report. If you do, control columns are moved to the left of the report, and columns using aggregations are moved to the right. For information, see  J Automatically reordering of report columns (page***).

By default, columns are not reordered.

You can use BREAKnX (n=1 to 6) to omit the control column from a report.

Charts:

The BREAK1 usage code can be used to modify the chart. The values in a column with a BREAK usage code are selected for the X-axis. The remaining numeric columns are plotted as Y-axis data, and remaining nonnumeric columns are ignored.

You can use BREAKnX (n=1 to 6) to omit the control column from a chart. You can also use it to get evenly spaced X-axis points for numeric data.

The QMF-provided chart formats are tailored to handle discrete versus continuous data.