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Date and Time CalculationsLocate this document in the navigation structure

Date and time fields have character types, not numeric ones. However, you can still use date and time fields in numeric operations. To allow you to do so, the system performs automatic type conversions . You may also find it useful to use offset and length specifications when using date and time fields in calculations.

Tip

Example of a date calculation:

DATA: ultimo TYPE d.

ultimo      = sy-datum. ultimo+6(2) = '01'.          " = first day of this monthultimo      = ultimo - 1.    " = last day of previous month

Here, the last day of the previous month is assigned to the date field ultimo.

  • ultimo is filled with the present date.
  • Using an offset specification, the day is changed to the first day of the current month.
  • 1 is subtracted from ultimo. In this way, the content of ultimo is changed to the last day of the previous month. Before performing the subtraction, the system converts ultimo to the number of days since 01.01.0001 and converts the result back to a date.
    Tip

    Example of a time calculation:

    DATA: diff       TYPE i,      seconds TYPE i,      hours   TYPE i.

    DATA: t1 TYPE t VALUE '200000',      t2 TYPE t VALUE '020000'.

    diff = t2 - t1.seconds = diff MOD 86400.hours = seconds / 3600.

    The number of hours between 02:00:00 and 20:00:00 is calculated.

  • First, the difference between the time fields is calculated. This is -64800, since t1 is converted internally to 72000 and t2 to 7200.
  • Then, with the operation MOD, this negative difference is converted to the total number of seconds. A positive difference would be unaffected by this calculation.
  • Third, the number of hours is calculated by dividing the number of seconds by 3600.

The last three lines can be replaced by the following line

HOURS = ( ( t2 - t1) MOD 86400) / 3600.

Inverted Dates 

These statements are obsolete and are only available to ensure compatibility with Releases prior to 4.6 and 6.10. The statements may appear in older programs but should no longer be used.

In some cases (for example, when sorting dates in descending order), it is useful to convert a date from format d to an inverted date by using the keyword CONVERT.

CONVERT DATE d1 INTO INVERTED-DATE d2.

Afterwards, you can convert the inverted data back into a normal date using the statement

CONVERT DATE d1 INTO INVERTED-DATE d2.

These statements convert the field d1 from the formats DATE or INVERTED-DATE to the formats INVERTED-DATE or DATE and assign it to the field d2.

For the conversion, ABAP forms the nine's complement.

Tip

DATA: odate TYPE d VALUE '19955011',      idate LIKE odate.

DATA  field(8) TYPE c.

field = odate.         WRITE / field.

CONVERT date odate INTO INVERTED-DATE idate.

field = idate.         WRITE / field.

CONVERT INVERTED-DATE idate INTO DATE odate.

field = odate.         WRITE / field.

The output looks like this:

19955011

80049488

19955011