ABAP Keyword Documentation → ABAP - Reference → Processing Internal Data → Character String and Byte String Processing → Expressions and Functions for String Processing → Regular Expressions
Testing Regular Expressions
You can use predefined functions or system classes to test regular functions.
Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54
Using Predefined Functions
You can use the predicate function matches
as follows to test whether a regular expression passed to regex matches the character string passed to val:
... matches( val = ... regex = ... ) ...
The function matches can be used like a logical expression, for example behind
IF (see example
for contains). The function is case-sensitive. If you do not want your
test to be case-sensitive, the content must be converted accordingly before or during the function call. You can also use system classes.
Using System Classes
The system classes for regular expressions are CL_ABAP_REGEX and CL_ABAP_MATCHER.
- The class CL_ABAP_REGEX generates an object-oriented representation from a regular expression in a character-like field.
- The class CL_ABAP_MATCHER applies a regular expression generated using CL_ABAP_REGEX to either a character string or an internal table.
CL_ABAP_MATCHER is enough for simple tests of regular expressions:
match TYPE c LENGTH 1.
matcher = cl_abap_matcher=>create( pattern = ...
ignore_case = ...
text = ... ).
match = matcher->match( ).
The data object match contains the value "X" if the regular expression passed in pattern matches the character string passed in text.
The following program works in the same way, but creates an object of the class CL_ABAP_REGEX explicitly. This form has better performance than the short form above if the same regular expression is used multiple times for different texts.
matcher TYPE REF TO cl_abap_matcher,
match TYPE c LENGTH 1.
CREATE OBJECT regex EXPORTING pattern = ...
ignore_case = ... .
matcher = regex->create_matcher( text = ... ).
match = matcher->match( ).