SAP UNICODE DESCRIBE documentation, setup help and example usage

ARTICLE

Additions for Determining Length and Distance
The DESCRIBE FIELD f OUTPUT-LENGTH len statement returns the output length of a field. The length is always returned in characters. If f is a structure containing non-character-type components, the system returns the output length 0.

The DESCRIBE FIELD and DESCRIBE DISTANCE statements determine the field length or the distance between two fields. You must specify the IN BYTE MODE or IN CHARACTER MODE addition for the following variants under Unicode:

DESCRIBE FIELD f LENGTH len IN BYTE MODE.
Ascertains the length of the field f in bytes and passes it to the field len . This variant returns the length of the reference, and not the length of the contents, for all internally referenced data types (strings as well as field and object references). Thus you can only use the IN BYTE MODE variant for these fields.

DESCRIBE FIELD f LENGTH len IN CHARACTER MODE.
Ascertains the length of the field f in characters and passes it to the field len , provided the argument is purely character-type. f must not have the type STRING . The relevant check is performed statically and dynamically and triggers a syntax or runtime error, depending on the type.

DESCRIBE DISTANCE BETWEEN a AND b INTO x IN BYTE MODE.
Returns the distance between the fields a and b in bytes and stores it in the field x .

DESCRIBE DISTANCE BETWEEN a AND b INTO x IN CHARACTER MODE.

Returns the distance between the fields a and b in characters, such that the result always refers to the start of the field. The system only checks at runtime to see whether or not the distance between the arguments ca be divided by the platform-specific length in characters, and whether or not both fields a and b have the right alignment. If either of these conditions is not fulfilled, the system returns a runtime error.