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Access to Date Fields and Time Fields

Only a few operand positions are affected by the fact that date fields and time fields contain a local date in the format "yyyymmdd" or a local time in the format "hhmmss":

• When using date fields and time fields as source fields or target fields of a lossless assignment.

• In conversions of a local date and a local time to time stamps using

• CONVERT INTO UTCLONG and back using CONVERT UTCLONG.

• CONVERT INTO TIME STAMP and back using CONVERT TIME STAMP.

• In output formatting using string templates or the statement WRITE [TO]

• When mapping to asXML or JSON.

In all other operand positions, the handling of date fields and time fields is specified in the conversion rules and comparison rules for these data types.

• The conversion rules are designed so that data objects of the types d and t display character-like behavior in character-like operand positions and numeric behavior in numeric operand positions. In the latter case, the content of a date field is converted to the number of days since 01.01.0001 and the content of a time field is converted to the number of seconds since midnight.

• The comparison rules are designed so that a later date or later time is greater than an earlier date or earlier time.

Direct assignments or comparisons between the data types d and t are meaningless and therefore forbidden. The following sections show examples of how to access date fields and time fields effectively.

• Character-like access to date/time fields

• Numeric access to date/time fields

Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54

Notes

• The function modules of the function group SCAL provide some additional information about character-like dates, for example the day of the week or the calendar week for a given date.

• Special date functions and time functions can be used in the CDS DDL of the ABAP CDS to edit dates and times saved in database tables.

Example

Conversion of a time stamp to date and time fields and their type-friendly formatting as string templates.

GET TIME STAMP FIELD DATA(ts). 

CONVERT TIME STAMP ts TIME ZONE sy-zonlo 
        INTO DATE DATA(date) TIME DATA(time). 

cl_demo_output=>display( |{ date DATE = ISO 
                       }\n{ time TIME = ISO }| ).

Continue

Character-Like Access to Date Fields and Time Fields

Numeric Access to Date Fields and Time Fields

Evaluating Date Fields and Time Fields