Less-known ADT features - expand components in the Internal Table debugger

[former_member566586]

Today I randomly discovered a useful feature in ADT and wanted to share it. It should help you with debugging large internal tables.

Let's say you have a class or two.

CLASS zfh_class DEFINITION

  PUBLIC FINAL.



  PUBLIC SECTION.

    DATA: order type i,

          value type string,

          inner type ref to zfh_inner_class.



    METHODS constructor

      IMPORTING

        order TYPE i

        value type string.



ENDCLASS.







CLASS zfh_class IMPLEMENTATION.



  METHOD constructor.

    me->order = order.

    me->value = value.

    me->inner = NEW zfh_inner_class( order = order + 10 value = value && `DEF` ).

  ENDMETHOD.



ENDCLASS.



CLASS zfh_inner_class DEFINITION

  PUBLIC FINAL.



  PUBLIC SECTION.

    DATA: order type i,

          value type string.



    METHODS constructor

      IMPORTING

        order TYPE i

        value type string.



ENDCLASS.







CLASS zfh_inner_class IMPLEMENTATION.



  METHOD constructor.

    me->order = order.

    me->value = value.

  ENDMETHOD.



ENDCLASS.

So far, so good.

Now let's make it a table of classes.

TYPES: tt_classes TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF REF TO zfh_class.

DATA: classes TYPE tt_classes.

DO 10 TIMES.

  APPEND NEW #( order = sy-tabix value = `ABC` ) TO classes.

ENDDO.

Still good.

Now let's try to inspect them in the debugger. This is what the table debugger shows by default:



The variables view has no text filter and will force you to expand everything manually:

It's in here somewhere...

The right approach is in the table debugger, which can show you the class properties using the Expand component option. It even works for nested classes!



 

I hope you've learned something new. Or possibly you're not one of today's lucky 10 000. Maybe next time!