ABAP DEFINE Statement syntax, information and example SAP source code

DEFINE

Short Reference

ABAP Syntax DEFINE macro.
... 1 ... 9 ...
END-OF-DEFINITION.

What does it do? The statement DEFINE defines a macro macro . The following naming conventions macro apply and
ABAP words cannot be used. Macros can be defined in all program types , particularly in type groups .
Any number of ABAP statements can come between the statements
DEFINE and END-OF-DEFINITION , except for DEFINE ,
END-OF-DEFINITION , and program-initiating statements. These statements form a source code section that can
included under the name macro . The definition of a macro is not bound to the limits of processing blocks.
The validity of a macros is determined buy its position in the compilation unit . It can be inserted at any point after END-OF-DEFINITION in the same compilation unit. If another macro is defined with the same name, it overwrites the previous macro from its new position.
Within a macro, you can use up to nine placeholders <(> <)>1 ... 9 instead of ABAP words and operands. These placeholders must be replaced by fixed words when the macro is inserted.
ABAP_PGL Only use macros in exceptional cases.

Latest notes: Breakpoints cannot be inserted into macros and the statements of a macro cannot be performed as individual steps in ABAP Debugger.
Apart from in the code text of a program and in type groups , macros can also be stored as cross-program macros in the table
TRMAC . However no new macros should be defined in the TRMAC
table. An example of a macro stored in the TRMAC table is
break , which sets a breakpoint depending on the current user name in the sy-uname system field.

Example
See Inserting Macros and
Macros .

Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved