ABAP/4 Tools Newsletter

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ABAP/4 Tools Newsletter #1, August 19, 2002
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FEATURED ABAP/4: The example ABAP below demonstrates how to manually parse individual fields from an ASCII delimited text file. A record is simulated using the DATA statements, and the fields are extracted and written to the display.

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REPORT YDLMTEXT .
* Demonstration of the use of field symbols to parse a delimited ascii *
* text file. The max length of the input record must be known so that  *
* a buffer can be setup large enough to handle the record (line).      *

 DATA: C25(25) TYPE C,           " Work Field (will hold field value)
       COUNTER TYPE I VALUE 1.   " Number of fields in input string

* Buffer. This represents one 'line' as read from a text file          *
DATA: BEGIN OF BUFF,
  B1(69) TYPE C VALUE
'"Well","she","was","just","seventeen","you","know","what","I","mean",',
  B2(64) TYPE C VALUE
'"and","the","way","she","looked","was","way","beyond","compare",',
  B3(60) TYPE C VALUE
'"So","how","could","I","dance","with","another","whooooooo",',
  B4(41) TYPE C VALUE
'"when","I","saw","her","standing","there"'.
DATA END OF BUFF.

START-OF-SELECTION.

 WHILE COUNTER LT 34.        " Execute for each field to parse
     PERFORM NEXT_FIELD USING BUFF C25.  " #1
     WRITE:/1 C25.
     COUNTER = COUNTER + 1 .
     ENDWHILE.

** Routine to get the next field and adjust the input line           **
FORM NEXT_FIELD CHANGING TL BF.

DATA: CMA TYPE I,    " Location of Comma
      BDX TYPE I,    " Workin Index
      LBT(1) TYPE C. " Leftmost byte

FIELD-SYMBOLS:  <FLD>, <FL2>.

    CLEAR BF.
    CHECK NOT TL IS INITIAL.
    LBT = TL.
    IF LBT EQ '"'.               " COMMA WITHIN DBL QUOTES
       ASSIGN TL+1 TO <FLD>.
       TL = <FLD>.               " ELIMINATE FIRST DQ
       WHILE <FL2> NE '"' AND ( NOT TL IS INITIAL ) .
         ASSIGN TL+0(1) TO <FLD>.
         ASSIGN TL+0(1) TO <FL2>.
         IF <FLD> NE ',' AND <FLD> NE '"'.
            CONCATENATE BF <FLD> INTO BF.
            ENDIF.
         ASSIGN TL+1 TO <FLD>.
         TL = <FLD>.
         ENDWHILE.
       ASSIGN TL+2(232) TO <FLD>. " MUST ALWAYS BE RECLEN - 2 .
       TL = <FLD>.
       EXIT.
       ENDIF.
** No double-quotes, just parse through comma ***
    IF TL CA ','.
       CMA = SY-FDPOS + 1.
       IF CMA GT 1.
          BDX = CMA - 1 .
          ASSIGN TL+0(BDX) TO <FLD>.
          BF = <FLD> .
         ELSE.
          CLEAR BF.
          ENDIF.
       BDX = CMA.
       ASSIGN TL+CMA TO <FLD>.
       TL = <FLD>.
     ELSE.
       BF = TL .
       CLEAR TL.
       ENDIF.

ENDFORM.
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That's all for August. As always, we ask users to submit favorite ABAP routines to http://www.abaptools.com 

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