REPLACE

Basic form

REPLACE f WITH g INTO h.

Addition

... LENGTH len (length specification for field f )

Effect

Replaces the first occurrence of the contents of field f in field h with the contents of field g . All fields are handled in their defined length; this means that closing blanks are not ignored.

The return code value indicates whether the string f was found in h and replaced by g :

SY-SUBRC = 0 String replaced.
SY_SUBRC = 4 String not replaced.

Example

DATA FIELD(10).
MOVE 'ABCB' TO FIELD.
REPLACE 'B' WITH 'string' INTO FIELD.

returns:

FIELD = 'AstringCB', SY-SUBRC = 0

Note

The fields f and g in the REPLACE statement should not overlap. Otherwise, the result is undefined.

Addition

... LENGTH len ... (length specification for field f )

Effect

Searches for the string f in the field h not in its (full) field length, but in the length len .

Example

DATA: PATTERN(5) VALUE 'ABC',
      LEN TYPE I,
      REPL_STRING(5) VALUE '12345',
      FIELD(12) VALUE 'abcdeABCDE'.

REPLACE PATTERN WITH REPL_STRING
                INTO FIELD.

does not change FIELD , since 'ABC ' does not occur in abcdeABCDE ' .

LEN = STRLEN( PATTERN ).
REPLACE PATTERN LENGTH LEN
                WITH REPL_STRING
                INTO FIELD.

changes FIELD to 'abcde12345DE' .
Related SEARCH , TRANSLATE , OVERLAY

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