The .position statement sets a default position in the output line associated with a column name for use with statements such as:

You can also use this statement to set an optional default width (the total number of characters in a column) when calculating positions in the .center and .right statements.

If you specify a variable for columnname, position, and/or width, Report-Writer evaluates the variable during the loading of the report specification, before retrieving any report data.

Normally, you do not need this statement because Report-Writer determines default positions and widths by analyzing the report formatting statements. If the determined default position for a column is not convenient, or you would like a different position associated with a columnname, you can override the default with the .position statement. Subsequently, you can use the .tab, .right, .left, or .center statements with a columnname to refer to this position.

If you do not specify a .position statement for a column, and columnname is not printed in the report, the default position is zero (0). If you specify a position, but no width is specified or evaluated for a column, Report-Writer determines the default width by looking at the default format for the column. You can optionally use the .width statement to specify the width of a column.