Conditions for Watchpoints

You can specify additional conditions for watchpoints. The Debugger will then only stop if the value of the watchpoint variable changes AND the condition is fulfilled.

A condition must have the following syntax:

<Function(Variable) or Variable or Literal> Operator <Function(Variable) or Variable or Literal>

The following functions are available when using watchpoint conditions:

• LINES( ITAB ) - Number of rows of an internal table ITAB
• KEY_STATUS( ITAB KEY_NAME ) - Status of a secondary key KEY_NAME of an internal table ITAB

• STRLEN( S ) - Current length of a string S

• INEXACT_DF( ) - Operation in which a rounding error occurred The function INEXACT_DF( ) returns the value 'X' or ' ', depending on whether the final result of an operation (for example, COMPUTE or MOVE) is inexact (has been rounded) or not.

• sy-index > 5
• sy-index = sy-tabix
• lines( itab ) > 0
• lines( itab ) <> sy-tabix
• lines( itab ) < lines( itab2 )
• strlen( s ) >= sy-index
• KEY_STATUS( <itab> <key_name> ) = 1
• INEXACT_DF = 'X'

The functions KEY_STATUS( <itab> <key_name> ) as well as LINES( <itab> ) are valid Debugger symbols. They can therefore also be used as watchpoint variables. So the Debugger would only stop for a watchpoint at LINES( <itab> ) if the number of rows had not changed but the content of the table <itab> had.

Using KEY_STATUS( <itab> <key_name> ), you can monitor and query the secondary key of an internal table. The return values of this function are 1 (secondary key is out-of-date) or 0 (secondary key is up-to-date).

The (secondary) key (or index) of a table is not necessarily updated immediately for performance reasons; it is updated at the next read or write access to the table. This makes it difficult to determine which operations on the table lead to a given index needing to be refreshed. This is the situation where "KEY_STATUS( <itab> <key_name> )" can be used.