A report generator is a computer program whose purpose is to take data from a source such as a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

stream or a

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...

, and use it to produce a document in a format which satisfies a particular human readership. Report generation functionality is almost always present in

database systems In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

, where the source of the data is the database itself. It can also be argued that report generation is part of the purpose of a spreadsheet. Standalone report generators may work with multiple data sources and export reports to different document formats.

Information systems theory An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

specifies that information delivered to a target human reader must be timely, accurate and relevant. Report generation software targets the final requirement by making sure that the information delivered is presented in the way most readily understood by the target reader.

History

An early report writer was part of the

Nomad software NOMAD is a relational database and fourth-generation language (4GL), originally developed in the 1970s by time-sharing vendor National CSS. While it is still in use today, its widest use was in the 1970s and 1980s. NOMAD supports both the relati ...

which was developed in the 1970s and had its widest use was in the 1970s and 1980s.

History

See also