Regular Expressions in Routines

You can use regular expressions in routines.

A regular expression (abbreviation: RegExp or Regex) is a pattern of literal and special characters which describes a set of character strings. In ABAP, you can use regular expressions in the FIND and REPLACE statements, and in classes CL_ABAP_REGEX and CL_ABAP_MATCHER. For more information, see the ABAP key word documentation in the ABAP Editor. This documentation describes the syntax of regular expressions and you can test regular expressions in the ABAP Editor.

This section provides sample code to illustrate how you can use regular expressions in routines.

REPORT z_regex.

DATA: l_input TYPE string,

l_regex TYPE string,

l_new TYPE string.

* Example 1: Insert thousand separator

l_input = '12345678'.

l_regex = '([0-9])(?=([0-9]{3})+(?![0-9]))'.

l_new = '$1,'.

WRITE: / 'Before:', l_input. "12345678

REPLACE

ALL OCCURRENCES OF

REGEX l_regex

IN l_input WITH l_new.

WRITE: / 'After:', l_input. "12,345,678

* Example 2: Convert date in US format to German format

l_input = '6/30/2005'.

 l_regex = '([01]?[0-9])/([0-3]?[0-9])/'.

 l_new = '$2.$1.'.

WRITE: / 'Before:', l_input. "6/30/2005

REPLACE

ALL OCCURRENCES OF

REGEX l_regex

IN l_input WITH l_new.

WRITE: / 'After:', l_input. "30.6.2005

* Example 3: Convert external date in US format to internal date

DATA: matcher TYPE REF TO cl_abap_matcher,

submatch1 TYPE string,

submatch2 TYPE string,

match TYPE c.

l_input = '6/30/2005'.

l_regex = '([01]?)([0-9])/([0-3]?)([0-9])/([0-9]{4})'.

matcher = cl_abap_matcher=>create( pattern = l_regex

text = l_input ).

match = matcher->match( ).

TRY.

CALL METHOD matcher->get_submatch

EXPORTING

index = 1

RECEIVING

submatch = submatch1.

CATCH cx_sy_matcher.

ENDTRY.

TRY.

CALL METHOD matcher->get_submatch

EXPORTING

index = 3

RECEIVING

submatch = submatch2.

CATCH cx_sy_matcher.

ENDTRY.

IF submatch1 IS INITIAL.

IF submatch2 IS INITIAL.

l_new = '$5\0$2\0$4'.

ELSE.

l_new = '$5\0$2$3$4'.

ENDIF.

ELSE.

IF submatch2 IS INITIAL.

l_new = '$5$1$2\0$4'.

ELSE.

l_new = '$5$1$2$3$4'.

ENDIF.

ENDIF.

WRITE: / 'Before:', l_input. "6/30/2005

REPLACE

ALL OCCURRENCES OF

REGEX l_regex

IN l_input WITH l_new.

WRITE: / 'After:', l_input. "20050630