Using report specifications

A report specification is an XML document that defines the structure and layout of a report. A report specification is stored as a string in the specification property of a report object. You can create and format reports programatically by creating an IBM Cognos Software Development Kit application that edits report specifications.

In order to effectively author a report using a report specification, you must first understand the concepts and functionality of Reporting. For more information about report authoring, see the IBM Cognos Reporting User Guide.

All of the sample XML in this section was created using Reporting. If there is functionality that you would like to implement through a report specification, we recommend that you first create your report in Reporting and view the report specification generated by IBM Cognos software. For more information, see Use Reporting to View Report Specification XML.

To understand the basic elements in a report specification, see Basic Structure of a Report Specification. To see a list report sample and for information about the XML that defines list reports, see List Reports. To see a crosstab report sample, see Sample of a Crosstab Report.

In addition, a variety of report samples are included with IBM Cognos software. To see how elements or features are used, you can examine the report specifications for these samples. For more information, see the Reporting User Guide.

The following sections contain additional information about the report specification XML that defines reports.

• Report Formatting
• Report Variables
• Optimize Query Performance
• Summarize Data
• Ways of Filtering Data