The data display formats for each of the columns in your report specification determine the way data appears in the report. You can display the data in a particular column in various ways. For example, for a column containing dates, you can choose from date formats such as January 15th, 1944 or 1/15/44.

RBF assigns a default display format for each data type. You can use the Edit operation, as described in Changing Display Formats, to change these default display formats. However, RBF does not allow you to use a display format that is incompatible with the data type. For example, you cannot use the character display format with a numeric data type.