SAP REPLACE FUNCTIONS documentation, setup help and usage info

ARTICLE

replace - Replace Function

Syntax Forms
1. ... replace( val = text [
off = off ] [
len = len ]
with = new ) ...
2. ... replace( val = text {
sub = substring }|{
regex = regex }
with = new [ case = case
] [ occ = occ ] ) ...

Effect
This function replaces a subfield of
text with the character string specified in new and returns the changed text.
The substring is determined as follows:

The variant with the arguments off

and len replaces the subfield defined by the offset off and the length len . At least one of these additions must be defined.

The variant with the arguments sub or regex scans the text for the occurrence specified in occ

for a match with the substring specified in substring or with a regular expression specified in regex and replaces the found location. If occ contains the value 0, all found locations are replaced. If substring is empty, an exception from the class
CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL is raised. The search is case-sensitive by default, but you can override this with the parameter case . If no substring is found, the unchanged content of text is returned.
new is a character-like expression position . If they have a fixed length, trailing blanks are ignored.
The return code has the type string accordingly.

Notes

Borderline cases for the variants with the arguments off and

len :

If only off is specified or if the value 0 is specified for

len , then replace functions like
insert .

If only len is specified or if off has the value 0, then the first segment of the length len is replaced.

If the value of off is equal to the length of text , then the value of len must be equal to 0 or len is not specified. The character string new is then attached to the end of text .

If a regular expression is used with

regex then special replacement models
that allow references to particular found locations can be specified in new .

Example
The result of the following replacement is "<(><<)>title>Th<(>
<<)>b>i<(><<)>/b>s <(><<)>b>i<(><<)>/b>s the <(><<)>i>T<(><<)>b>i<(>
/b tle /i /title " . In an HTML line, a particular letter is placed in format tags if it is not itself in a tag.
DATA: html TYPE string,
repl TYPE string.

html = `<(><<)>title>This is the <(><<)>i>Title<(><<)>/i><(>
<<)>/title>`.

repl = `i`.

html = replace( val = html
regex = repl <(> <)><(> <)> `(?![^<(><<)>>]*>)`
with = `<(><<)>b>$0<(><<)>/b>`
occ = 0 ).

Runtime Exceptions

Catchable Exceptions
CX_SY_RANGE_OUT_OF_BOUNDS

Reason for error: Illegal offset or length specification in the off

and len .

Runtime error: STRING_OFFSET_TOO_LARGE

CX_SY_REGEX_TOO_COMPLEX

Reason for error: More information: Exceptions in Regular Expressions .

Runtime error: REGEX_TOO_COMPLEX

CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL

Reason for error: Substring in sub or regular expression in

regex is empty.

Runtime error: STRG_ILLEGAL_PAR