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External and Internal Display of Characteristic ValuesLocate this document in the navigation structure

Concept

When creating simple calculations for characteristics, the way a field is displayed internally can be different to the visible external display.

Note the following cases:

  • The selected field is a date field. The internal display is as follows: YYYYMMDD for the full date, YYYYMM for just year/month.

    Example

    External display: 02.03.2006 - internal display: 20060302

    External display: 04/2010 - internal display: 201004

  • The selected field is a character string with numeric characters only (0123456789). The internal display is subject to an alpha conversion (fill with 0) up to a certain character length. If the field contains just characters or a mixture of characters and numeric characters, there is no difference between the internal display and the external one. More information: http://sathya-sapbw.blogspot.com/2007/10/faq-alpha-conversion.html

    Example

    External display: 17485 - internal display: 00017485 with a length of 8

    External display: 234 - internal display: 234 with a length of 3

Characteristics are always calculated based on how the field is displayed internally. The following examples show you how to proceed when calculating characteristics:

  • To extract a month from a date field, you need the following parameters: MIDSTR( date field, 5, 2).

  • To extract the two digits before the last one from a numeric field (123) with alpha conversion of length 8, you need the following parameters: MIDSTR( numeric_field, 6, 2).

  • Cutting the month from calendar day: Internal display of the calendar day: 20100416, desired result: 04. From the fifth place, you need to cut out with length 2. The following parameters are required for this: MIDSTR (5, 2).