The art of report making must incorporate both powerful visual design methods and scripting, moreover this scripting must be complete, covering all aspects of the report template and therefore serving as a source code. Most third party report tools satisfy this condition only partially, while ELS-Script^® report tool is designed ground up to fully satisfy this condition. To illustrate the importance of scripting we will outline next the major tasks that must be undertaken for the preparation of a standard report.
After acquiring the user requirements:

1. Analysis of the data and report content must be performed
2. The actual report page must be designed, which incorporates constant text labels, graphic elements, variable sections, page setup, etc.
3. Query commands must be built, to define the field elements that will be included in the variable sections
4. Fields and formulas must be included
5. Grouping, aggregations and sorting must be defined
6. Query parameter form and report generator integration issues must be addressed in the host applications

Of these, only the second task is where most of the visual design methods can be applied, while all the other tasks require coding or scripting to a certain extend. In fact, even in the second task there are operations that may be simplified if scripting is incorporated side by side with visual design methods. For example, positioning borders, lines, text and graphic objects, via free-style pointer device maneuvers is much more difficult and inaccurate, than simply entering precise coordinate values relative to the page margins. In contrast, the other tasks such as query building, formula or expression building, as well as defining nested or hierarchical groups, are in essence so natural when accomplished via scripting.
The SCRIPT language supports all aspects of report development tasks, for example there are special syntax elements that handle page setup and other report setting parameters. It has full conditional controls and iteration elements to define grouping and complex data representation. Finally, it has special syntax elements that can define any query parameter form, so that the complicated task of integration of the report generator engine with the host application can be achieved by adding just a few lines of code.
In ELS-Script^® report tool, the contents of a report file are defined and stored via the SCRIPT language. This assures full support for maintenance, as well as reusability of report files as templates. The language features cover Standard Report Templates, which combined with preprocessor directives increases the reusability index to maximum efficiency.
The SCRIPT language flavor is a mixture of SQL procedural language combined with the syntax and the flavor of the Visual Basic function attributes. The reason behind the SQL procedural nature of the SCRIPT language is two fold. First, it provides a unified simple language for both data retrieval as well as data presentation. For example, to build queries one needs some familiarity with the SQL statement language, moreover to write stored-procedures additional knowledge of SQL procedural language is required. And therefore, instead of escalating the learning curve for users, by introducing new language syntax, we have used a syntax which is very similar to SQL procedural language.
The second reason is that often the advance reports are developed by SQL programmers or database administrators, and therefore, defining the SCRIPT language in their native language will definitely increase the popularity and utilization of the ELS-Script^® software system.
For more thorough study of the SCRIPT language, please download the ELS-Script^® User's Guide.