A generic reference cannot be dereferenced (->) in the current statement.

[Former Member]

Hello,

I am currently on SAP_BASIS 7.50 and I have this issue.

When I do a table expression in a ASSIGN statement and try to de-reference data in the same statement I get this error:

A generic reference cannot be de-referenced (->) in the current statement.

This is a rough construct of what I am trying to do:

TYPES: BEGIN OF t_test,
       key Type string,
       r_data TYPE REF TO data,
       END OF t_test.

DATA: lt_test TYPE TABLE OF t_test.

FIELD-SYMBOLS: <l_test> TYPE any.


ASSIGN lt_test[ key = '123123' ]-r_data->* TO <l_test>.

(It does also not work if the table is filled)

Did anyone run into the same error?

I also saw a Comment in this post from Horst Keller.

amadeusgrabmayer had a different issue while trying the same thing.

It also says in my F1-Help that it should work. Am I doing something wrong syntax-wise?

I am looking forward to your answers.

Kind regards,

Kai

[Former Member]

Hello,

I am currently on SAP_BASIS 7.50 and I have this issue.

When I do a table expression in a ASSIGN statement and try to de-reference data in the same statement I get this error:

A generic reference cannot be de-referenced (->) in the current statement.

This is a rough construct of what I am trying to do:

TYPES: BEGIN OF t_test,
       key Type string,
       r_data TYPE REF TO data,
       END OF t_test.

DATA: lt_test TYPE TABLE OF t_test.

FIELD-SYMBOLS: <l_test> TYPE any.


ASSIGN lt_test[ key = '123123' ]-r_data->* TO <l_test>.

(It does also not work if the table is filled)

Did anyone run into the same error?

I also saw a Comment in this post from Horst Keller.

amadeusgrabmayer had a different issue while trying the same thing.

It also says in my F1-Help that it should work. Am I doing something wrong syntax-wise?

I am looking forward to your answers.

Kind regards,

Kai

[Former Member]

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately this:

DATA: LT_TEST type TABLE OF T_TEST WITH DEFAULT KEY.

or this won't work too:

DATA: LT_TEST TYPE HASHED TABLE OF T_TEST WITH UNIQUE KEY key.

I get the same error.

[matt]

I see you commented on my answer, which I later removed as I felt it wasn't relevant.

[UweFetzer_se38]

Looks like a kernel bug for me because this two step approach works:

DATA(ls_test) = lt_test[ key = '123123' ].
ASSIGN ls_test-r_data->* TO <l_test>.

[Former Member]

Can you tell me what version you tired it on? I only tried it for version 7.50.

Yes the two step approach works for me too, but still one step would be cooler, right? 🙂

Also it would be very worrying if the two step approch wouldn't work.

[UweFetzer_se38]

7.52.

In my opinion the one step and two step approaches should (must?) behave the same.

[Former Member]

Here is the entry in the F1-Help

[matt]

kai_busse that link seems broken.

[Former Member]

My bad. This is the link.

[Former Member]

Here is another link for the 7.50 release. In point 4 there is also stated, that it probably should work.

[Sandra_Rossi]

It's not a bug, it's a feature! (maybe that will be supported in future releases)

The message says the issue is about generic references.

If you don't type it generically, it will work. Example:

TYPES: BEGIN OF t_test,
       key Type string,
       r_data TYPE REF TO scarr, " <--- a NON-generic reference
       END OF t_test.
DATA: lt_test TYPE TABLE OF t_test.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <l_test> TYPE any.

ASSIGN lt_test[ key = '123123' ]-r_data->* TO <l_test>.

If you want to use a generic reference, do it in two steps.

PS: that limit doesn't surprise me, ABAP has always been like that (especially for ->*). You can see that if you read the ABAP release notes in the ABAP documentation.

[Former Member]

Oh, good to know that it works with a non generic reference, but I am wondering why it's working in two steps with a generic reference but not in one. Isn't that the same thing but the read table line is stored in a variable temporarily, instead of being passed directly to the Assign-Statement? (Maybe I can just not grasp the feature completely)

types: begin of T_TEST,
         KEY  type STRING,
         DATA type ref to data,
       end of T_TEST.

data: LT_TEST type TABLE OF T_TEST WITH DEFAULT KEY.

field-symbols: <L_TEST> type ANY.

data(ref) = LT_TEST[ KEY = '123123' ].

assign ref-DATA->* to <L_TEST>.

But thanks for clarifying 🙂

[Sandra_Rossi]

I just say that it makes no sense to have it in one line, I just say that ABAP has always been released with limited syntax for internal reasons. I can't explain why SAP delivers partial features. For instance:

• Object component selector after table expressions
• Restrictions removed
• ...