Effect of Object Order on Generating a Report

Effect of object order on generating a report.

The order the various objects are layed out on a page relates to the order in which they will be processed by REPORTER when it generates a report. So if you have a program/script that creates a variable in it's output, that program/script will need to be on the same page or an earlier page than the object that first uses the generated variable. If it is on the same page it also needs to be earlier in the order of objects on the page than any objects that uses that variable.

The following series of example shows what will and won't work. In all the examples Object 1 (red) and Object 2 (cyan) both use a variable ( VAR1 ) generated by Script 1 (green) as an input.

In this case Object 1 is on an earlier page than Script 1 so the variable VAR1 hasn't been created yet. In this situation REPORTER will give a warning and uses a blank for the variable VAR1 in Object 1. Object 2 however comes after Script 1 so the variable VAR1 has been created and Object 2 can be generated normally

In this case Object 1 is on the same page as Script 1, but comes before it in the order of items on the page so there variable VAR1 hasn't been created yet. In this situation REPORTER will give a warning and uses a blank for the variable VAR1 in Object 1. Object 2 however comes after Script 1in the order of items on the page, so the variable VAR1 has been created, and Object 2 can be generated normally.