Get Example source ABAP code based on a different SAP table
ID SEARCH • SEARCH ABAP Statement • FOR SEARCH (obsolete)
SEARCH Short Reference
ABAP_SYNTAX_OBS SEARCH dobj FOR pattern $[IN ${CHARACTER$|BYTE$} MODE$] $[STARTING AT p1$] $[ENDING AT p2$] $[ABBREVIATED$] $[AND MARK$].
ABAP Addition 1 ... IN ${CHARACTER$|BYTE$} MODE 2 ... $[STARTING AT p1$] $[ENDING AT p2$] 3 ... ABBREVIATED 4 ... AND MARK
What does it do? This statement searches the data object dobj according to the search pattern specified in pattern. The additions enable subareas to be searched, abbreviated patterns to be searched for, and occurrences to be marked. The search ends at the first hit and sy-fdpos is set to the offset of the found pattern or to the word in the search range. If the pattern is not found, sy-fdpos is set to the value 0. Search Pattern in pattern The pattern in pattern can have the following forms, whereby the case is ignored in character string processing:
pat The system searches for the character string or byte string pat. In character string processing, blanks at the end of the string are ignored and wildcard characters (*) are handled separately if they are found as the first or last characters (see following sections).
.pat. Only valid for character string processing. If a pattern pat is enclosed by periods (.), the exact string pat is searched for. Here, trailing blanks are respected and wildcard characters (*) are not handled as such.
*pat Only valid for string processing. If a pattern contains the wildcard character (*) as the first character, a word is searched for (see below) that ends with the string pat.
pat* Only valid for character string processing. If a string contains the wildcard character (*) as the last character, a word (see below) is searched for that begins with the string pat.
*pat* Only valid for character string processing. If a string contains the wildcard character (*) as both the first and last character, the search is not for a word (see below) that contains pat, but a word that ends with pat*. A word in a character-like data object dobj is defined by the fact that it is enclosed by non-alphanumeric separators or that it is located at the start or end of a line. In character string processing with data objects dobj of fixed length, the trailing blanks are respected, whereas with pattern they are not. If pattern is an empty string or is of type c , n, d, or t and only contains blanks, the search is never successful. System Fields sy-subrcMeaning 0The search pattern was found in dobj. 4The search pattern was not found in dobj.
Latest notes:
It is preferable to use the statement FIND or appropriate string functions instead of SEARCH, wherever possible. The functions of SEARCH , except for marking the found pattern using the addition AND MARK, are covered by regular expressions . If required, the marking performed after a pattern is found can be replaced by the statement REPLACE or the built-in function replace. Here, the replacement patterns for regular expressions are particularly useful.
Unlike FIND, SEARCH is not case-sensitive and is much slower when searching large texts.
Some differences between SEARCH and FIND are listed under Migrating SEARCH to FIND .
A variant of this statement SEARCH itab that is used for searching internal tables has also been replaced by a variant of the statement FIND. ABAP_HINT_END • IN BYTE MODE SEARCH (obsolete) • IN CHARACTER MODE SEARCH (obsolete)
ABAP Addition
What does it do? The optional addition IN ${CHARACTER$|BYTE$} MODE determines whether character string or byte string processing is performed. If the addition is not specified, character string processing is performed. Depending on the processing type, dobj and pattern must be either character-like or byte-like. • STARTING AT SEARCH (obsolete) • ENDING AT SEARCH (obsolete)
ABAP Addition
What does it do? The additions STARTING AT and ENDING AT can be used to restrict the search to a subarea of the data object dobj. p1 and p2 expect data objects of the data type i. The value in p1 specifies the first, the value in p2 specifies the last of the positions to be searched. If STARTING AT p1 is not specified, the data object dobj is searched from the first position to position p2. If ENDING AT p2 is not specified, dobj is searched from position p1 to the end. If the addition STARTING AT is specified, sy-fdpos is set to the offset of the occurrence minus the offset of p1, provided that the search was successful. In the following cases, the search is not carried out, and sy-subrc is set to 4:
The value of p1 or p2 is less than 1.
The value of p1 is greater than the length of dobj.
The value of p2 is less than or equal to p1.
Latest notes: The term position is not equivalent to the term offset. A byte or a character on position 1 has an offset of 0. ABAP_HINT_END • ABBREVIATED SEARCH (obsolete)
ABAP Addition
What does it do? The addition ABBREVIATED can be used to specify an abbreviated pattern in pattern. This addition is only possible in string processing. A word is searched for in dobj that begins with the same character as the pattern in pattern and contains the remaining characters of pattern in the same order, but at otherwise completely arbitrary positions of the word.
Example ABAP Coding
Search for an abbreviated pattern with SEARCH. The FIND statement has the same result and in addition returns the match length. ABEXA 00565 ABAP_EXAMPLE_END • AND MARK SEARCH (obsolete)
ABAP Addition
What does it do? The addition AND MARK is used to transform a string or word found in dobj or a found word to uppercase letters. This addition is only possible in character string processing and, if used, only modifiable data objects can be specified for dobj.
Example ABAP Coding
The first two SEARCH statements have the same effect. They find the first blank in text and set sy-fdpos to the value 4. The third SEARCH statement finds the word Beethoven in the search range beginning from position 6 of text, sets sy-fdpos to the value 5. In other words, the offset of the occurrence in the search range and changes the content of text to Roll over BEETHOVEN. ABEXA 00566 ABAP_EXAMPLE_END
