ABAP Keyword Documentation → ABAP − Reference → ABAP Syntax
ABAP Statements
ABAP statements consist of the following tokens and end with a period (.).
Certain ABAP words, operands, and operators form
which can be specified at certain operand positions.
The tokens of a statement must be separated by at least one blank or a line break. Otherwise, blanks and line breaks between tokens are not significant. An ABAP statement is not restricted to a line in the source text.
No distinction is made between upper and lowercase letters. Apart from ABAP words, operands and operators, you can also use the following special characters:
- If a number of expressions of the same type with operators are joined as an expression, the priority of the individual operations can be defined using parentheses (
()).
- For the purpose of calling functions and methods, parentheses (
()) can sometimes be used.
- Lists of operands are expressed by parentheses (
()) and commas (,) in certain positions.
- When forming a chained statement, a colon
(
:) and commas (,) can be used.
A number of free-standing special characters, such as round brackets for setting the priority, need to be separated from other tokens by an empty character. Other special characters, as well as the period at the end, do not have to be separated by a blank.
Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54
Notes
- Obsolete syntax forms can still occur in all objects apart from classes. In such cases, the separators between the tokens can be omitted.
- The absolute maximum length of an ABAP statement is 128 x 1024 characters = 131072 characters. However, the actual maximum number of characters in a statement also depends on the number of tokens and the use of literals. A statement usually consists of almost 130000 characters. In chained statements, however, it is only a maximum of 28400 characters per statement.
Example
ABAP statement with the keyword DELETE, the addition WHERE,
the operators =, <, >,
AND, OR, the operands itab,
col1, op1, col2, op2, col3, op3, and parentheses.
DELETE itab WHERE ( col1 = op1 AND ( col2 > op2 OR col3 < op3 ) ).