ABAP Keyword Documentation → ABAP - Reference → Processing Internal Data → Character String and Byte String Processing → Statements for Character String and Byte String Processing
OVERLAY
Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54
Syntax
OVERLAY text1 WITH text2 [ONLY mask].
Effect
Characters in the variable text1 are replaced by the characters in the operand text2 that are in the same position there. text2 is a
character-like expression position.
If the ONLY addition is not specified, all blank characters in text1
are replaced. If the addition ONLY is specified, all characters are replaced that occur in the operand mask. This is case-sensitive. mask is also a
character-like expression position.
If the lengths of text1 and text2 are different, text1 is processed using the shorter length only.
The text1, text2, and mask
operands have to be character-type. In operands of fixed length, closing blank characters are taken into consideration. If mask is a blank string, no replacements take place.
System Fields
| sy-subrc | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | At least one character in text1 is replaced. |
| 4 | No characters in text1 are replaced. |
Example
After the text field has been assigned to the time field, it contains the invalid tome "12 00" according to the
conversion rules. As a result of the overlay with
the initial_time constants, the two blank characters are replaced by "00" and the result is the valid time "120000".
CONSTANTS initial_time TYPE t VALUE IS INITIAL.
DATA: time TYPE t,
text TYPE c LENGTH 4.
text = '12'.
time = text.
OVERLAY time WITH initial_time.