Processing Character Strings

ABAP contains a series of statements for processing character fields of the types c, d, n t and string. If you use flat structures or byte strings at operand positions of these statements before Release 6.10, then they are treated as character strings, that means, an implicit casting is carried out.

Since as of Release 6.10 an explicit byte string processing is possible, the statements: FIND , REPLACE , SHIFT , CONCATENATE and SPLIT , which support byte- and character string processing, have the optional addition

... IN {BYTE|CHARACTER} MODE ...

This addition specifies which processing type is carried out. If the addition is not specified, string processing is performed.

The statements: TRANSLATE , CONVERT TEXT , OVERLAY and CONDENSE are only capable of character string processing.

You should no longer use these obsolete statements .