SAP STRING TEMPLATES documentation, setup help and example usage

ARTICLE

string_exp - String Templates


Syntax
|[ literal_text ][
embedded_expressions ][
control_characters ]|

Effect
A string template is enclosed between two " | " characters and can only be specified in a string expression of a Unicode program
. A string template creates a character string that is used by the string expression instead of the string templates. The characters of this character string consist of any sequence of the following syntax elements of the string template:

Literal text literal_text

Embedded expressions

embedded_expressions
Bedingungen conditions

Control characters

control_characters
A string template that starts with " | " must be closed with " |
" within the same line of source code. The only exceptions to this rule are line breaks in embedded expressions . There are, however, no length restrictions on a string template. The literal operator
or the chaining operator can be used to join multiple string templates in a single string template. A string template can be defined across multiple lines of source code and be given comments .

Notes

Unlike other syntax representations in the ABAP key word documentation, the " | " characters are part of the syntax.

To represent the delimiter " | " as a string template with in literal text , it must be prefixed with the escape character \ .

Die Verkn�pfung mehrerer Teile eines Zeichenketten-Templates zu einem
Zeichenketten-Template mit dem
Literaloperator ist nicht
gleichbedeutend zu deren Verkettung mit dem Verkettungsoperator
, da nur vollst�ndige Zeichenketten-Templates verkettet werden
k�nnen. (nur wenn die IF-ELSE-ENDIF gekommen w�ren!)

The delimiter characters " | " can be formatted in the new ABAP Editor by choosing Fonts and Colors - Token operator to highlight them in the source code.

Using the character string function escape

, all special characters for character string templates can be put in front of their escape character.

String templates can be specified in all programs where Unicode checks are activated. In non-Unicode programs , character string programs are not possible because they cannot be distinguished from possible identifiers (which begin and end with the delimiters "

| "). In non-Unicode programs, a part of a statement that begins or ends with " | " is interpreted as an identifier and creates a syntax error if the identifier does not exist. The delimiters " { " and " } " for embedded expressions can cause similar problems. The option of deactivating Unicode checks is obsolete anyway.

When string templates are joined, the literal operator behaves differently than with literals. This operator is executed at runtime (like the chaining operator ) and not during compilation as a one-off process. This means the restriction of 255 characters for literals no longer applies. The two joins

|...| |...|
|...| |...|
are identical for string templates. For purely literal content, they are the same as
`...` `...`
However they are different to
`...` `...`
'...' '...'
'...' '...'
In the first two cases, a length restriction of 255 characters applies. In the third case, trailing blanks are ignored.

Example
The following piece of source code shows three similar string templates that all display the character string "Hello World!" . The first string template contains the entire character string as literal text. The next two string expressions distribute the literal text across multiple parts of the string template. The literal operator <(> <)>
is used to join them as the first string template.
DATA(result1) = |Hello World!|.

DATA(result2) = |Hello| <(> <)> | | <(> <)> |World| <(> <)> |!|.

DATA(result3) = |Hello| <(> <)> "sub template 1
| | <(> <)>
|World| <(> <)> "sub template 3
* sub template 4:
|!|.

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