DEFINE — macros

Level: 201 · working knowledge

Status: stub — read for recognition; the worked example is not yet.

One line: DEFINE name. … END-OF-DEFINITION. declares a textual macro with up to nine positional placeholders &1…&9, expanded at compile time wherever name is used — it saves keystrokes, cannot be debugged (the debugger steps over the whole expansion), and SAP's guidelines say not to write new ones.

What it does

DEFINE write_pair.
  WRITE: / &1, &2.
END-OF-DEFINITION.

write_pair 'total' lv_total.
write_pair 'count' lv_count.

Expansion is text substitution. There is no type, no scope, no return, and no breakpoint inside a macro — a runtime error inside one is reported at the line of the use. Macros can call macros; they cannot be recursive.

Why it is still here

SAP's own type pools carried macros for years (ABAP itself has none, but many older ones do), and old reports use them for repeated WRITE and CLEAR sequences. Reading them is a skill; writing a new one is what a method, or a string template, does better.

What this page still needs

• [ ] a snippets/ program showing a macro, and the same thing as a method
• [ ] the ATC finding a new macro triggers, recorded
• [ ] where SAP's own code still relies on macros, so a reader recognises them

See also

• Obsolete declarations — the rest of the "read, do not write" shelf
• METHODS and parameters — the replacement
• Debugging — why a macro is invisible there
• Clean ABAP — the guideline