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 Direct Assignment of a Search Help to a Screen FieldLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

You can directly assign a search help to a screen field. In this case, the search help is available only for the desired screen. If the same field is used on several screens, you must attach the search help to the referenced table field or structure field. (For more information, see Attaching to Table Fields.)

You can attach a search help directly to a screen in the following ways:

  • Using the Screen Painter
    1. Open the Object Navigator, navigate to the required screen and then open it.

      The Screen Painter for this screen appears in display mode.

    2. Choose  with the quick info text Display <-> Change.
    3. Go to the Element List tab page and then select the References tab page.
    4. In the Search Help column you can define the search help for the required screen field.
  • The name of the search help can be defined for selection screens in ABAP reports in the PARAMETERS or SELECT-OPTIONS statement directly following the supplement AS SEARCH PATTERN.

In both cases, this assigns the first parameter of the search help to the screen field. The result is that only a value from the hit list can be returned to the screen template.

Caution

We do not recommend you attach search helps directly to screen fields.

You can assign search helps either statically or dynamically.

  • Static assignment:

    Enter the name of the search help.

  • Dynamic assignment:

    Enter a colon (:) followed by the name of a (program) field. The content of the field is interpreted at runtime as the name of a search help.

If you specify a search help with several parameters, the first parameter of the search help is linked to the screen field. It is not (currently) possible to link further search help parameters to other screen fields. Instead, you can use the function in the ABAP Dictionary that allows you to link a search help to a field of a structure.

Reaction to the =- short notation

If you have specified a search help, entering =- at the beginning of a field has a special meaning. The screen reacts to any function code by calling the F4 help for the field.

You can cause the same reaction without a search help by just entering the equals (=) sign.