regarding unicode problem

[Former Member]

Hi friends,

Declarations:

FIELD-SYMBOLS: <f>.

data: len TYPE i,

typ(1),

dec TYPE i.

Statement:

DESCRIBE FIELD <f> LENGTH len TYPE typ DECIMALS dec.

Error:

In Unicode, DESCRIBE LENGTH can only be used with the IN BYTE MODE or in character mode addition.

Thanks,

Vamsykrishna.

[Former Member]

Hi,

eg:
DATA: text  TYPE c LENGTH 1, 
      blen  TYPE i, 
      clen  TYPE i, 
      bytes TYPE i. 

DESCRIBE FIELD text: LENGTH blen IN BYTE MODE, 
                     LENGTH clen IN CHARACTER MODE. 

bytes = blen / clen. 

If you want the length in bytes give the addition IN BYTE MODE and if you want the characters, give IN CHARACTER MODE.

Regards,

Subramanian

[uwe_schieferstein]

Hello Vamsy

Simply speaking Unicode means: 1 Character <> 1 Byte

Unicode characters are either 2 or 4 Bytes large. A SAP Unicode system is a 2-Byte system yet internally characters may be represented by up to 4 Bytes ([ABAP and Unicode: Character Codes|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/62/3f2cb0b35311d5993800508b6b8b11/content.htm]).

Conclusion: You need to specify which type of length (IN BYTE MODE or IN TEXT MODE) you want to have because the result is different:

DESCRIBE FIELD <f> LENGTH len TYPE typ DECIMALS dec   IN TEXT MODE / IN BYTE MODE.

Regards

Uwe.