topic Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

mike_m1 — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:39:03 GMT

Hi fellow ABAP developers!

I have just spotted a bit of ABAP in a bespoke report program that has me flumoxed.

This is it (with some anonymization);

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TYPES: tt_chg_ptrs_in TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF bdcp,

tt_ztable TYPE SORTED TABLE OF ztable WITH UNIQUE KEY matnr.

DATA: l_it_chg_ptrs_in TYPE tt_chg_ptrs_in,

l_it_ztable TYPE tt_ztable.

IF l_it_chg_ptrs_in(*) IS NOT INITIAL

OR l_it_ztable[] IS NOT INITIAL.

ENDIF.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The (*) appendage appears to behave in the same way as the [] variant when refering to the complete set of itab entries. I checked this out in debug just to be certain that the l_it_chg_ptrs_in(*) reference returned the same data as l_it_chg_ptrs_in[].

Is this a new (or old) lanuage element?

Who can shed some light on this for me?

Cheers all,

Mike

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

RaymondGiuseppi — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:51:38 GMT

Welcome to 7.40, this syntax is explained in table_exp - Table Expressions. (can be found from changes in Release 7.40 in ABAP - Release-Specific Changes.)

Regards,

Raymond

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

mike_m1 — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:25:33 GMT

Thanks for the speedy reply Raymond,

This client is currently on 620.

Sadly, I couldn't see a reference to the itab(*) syntax in the table_exp - Table Expressions keyword documentation. 😞

Could you be more specific please? Where in this document would I find the explanation you alluded to?

Regards,

Mike

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

RaymondGiuseppi — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:32:01 GMT

Sorry, I did not look carefully enough, mistake [] for ()...

For this syntax I'm perplex too, seems to be allowed for structure, variable and internal tables, but not exactly (no redefinition of type) as var+0(*) or var+offset( *) if only character fields.

Regards,

Raymond

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

mike_m1 — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:46:23 GMT

No worries Raymond.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who knows why this (*) syntax exists.

Mike

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

Former Member — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:56:06 GMT

Weird,

I just checked what this syntax does in de debugger, but it seems to be exactly the same as without (*)

I'm guessing this is used in other programming languages and the abap compiler just doesn't mind.

Kind regards, Rob Dielemans

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

mike_m1 — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:58:57 GMT

Cheers Rob.

I appreciate your time.

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

Former Member — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 15:14:11 GMT

Hey Mike,

Try the coffee corner to speculate on why would SAP allow this syntax?

There are a couple of others, you can use >< instead of <> for instance.

Cheers!

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

ThomasZloch — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 15:18:43 GMT

Maybe would know, let's see if he can be paged...

Thomas

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

retired_member — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 17:31:39 GMT

Well, well, a full text search for (*) in the ABAP documentation leads us to substring access.

If off is smaller than the length of dobj, an asterisk (*) can be 
specified for len. The upper limit of dobj then determines the upper limit of the memory area.

And guess what, you can also write struct+0(*) or itab+0(*).

With other words, an Offset-/Length addition +0(*), +0, or (*) that denotes the full field seems to be simply ignored by the compiler. And that's why you can add it even to fields where a substring access is normally forbidden - an itab+1(*) gives a syntax error..

Cheers!

Horst

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

retired_member — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 07:49:23 GMT


you can use >< instead of <> for instance

But only outside classes

http://help.sap.com/abapdocu_740/en/index.htm?file=abenobsolete_logexp_op.htm

Re: Interesting itab(*) syntax in a custom program

mike_m1 — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:53:38 GMT

Thank you Horst. My curiosity is satisfied (for the moment, at least).

Mike