ABAP Keyword Documentation → ABAP − Reference → Processing Internal Data → Character String and Byte String Processing → Expressions and Functions for String Processing → String Functions → Processing Functions for Character-Like Arguments

to_upper, to_lower, to_mixed, from_mixed - Case Functions

Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54

Syntax Forms

... to_upper( [val =] text ) ...
... to_lower( [val =] text ) ...
... to_mixed( [val =] text [sep = sep] [case = case] [min = min] ) ...
... from_mixed( [val =] text [sep = sep] [case = case] [min = min] ) ...

Effect

These functions return the character string from text after it has been converted in accordance with the following case rules:

The function to_upper transforms all letters in the character string to uppercase letters.

The function to_lower transforms all letters in the character string to lowercase letters.

The function to_mixed transforms all letters in the character string to lowercase letters from the second position. It then removes occurrences of the first character specified in sep from the character string (from left to right from the second position) and transforms the next letter to an uppercase letter. The default value for separator sep is an underscore (_). If case is not specified, the first character of the string remains unchanged. If case is specified and the first character of case is an uppercase letter, the first character in the string is also uppercase and then lowercase in all other occurrences. A positive number can be passed to min to specify a minimum number of characters that must appear before a separator (from the start of the string or since the last replacement) before the separator becomes effective. The default value for min is 1.

The function from_mixed inserts the first character specified in sep before each uppercase letter (from left to right and from the second position). The default value for separator sep is an underscore (_). If case is not specified or if the first character in case is an uppercase letter, the entire string is displayed as uppercase; otherwise it is displayed as lowercase. A positive number can be passed to min to specify a minimum number of characters that must appear before an uppercase letter (from the start of the string or since the last insert) so that a separator is inserted. The default value for min is 1.

sep is a character-like expression position. If they have a fixed length, trailing blanks are ignored. min is a numeric expression position of type i. case expects a character-like data object with a fixed length. val = can be omitted only if none of the optional arguments are specified. If sep is an empty string or if min is negative, an exception of class CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL is raised.

The return code has the type string accordingly.

Note

The functions to_mixed and from_mixed are used to transform standard ABAP naming conventions for names with underscores to standard Java naming conventions with uppercase and lowercase letters and (namely Mixed Case Style and Camel Case Style) and the other way around.

Example

Outputs the Latin alphabet in lowercase letters.

cl_demo_output=>display( to_lower( sy-abcde ) ).

Executable Example

String Functions, to_mixed and from_mixed

Exceptions

Handleable Exceptions

CX_SY_STRG_PAR_VAL

Cause: The separator in sep is empty or the minimum number in min is negative.
Runtime error: STRG_ILLEGAL_PAR