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Ranges tables — TYPE RANGE OF, and what SELECT-OPTIONS really gives you

Level: 201 · working knowledge

One line: A ranges table is an internal table with four columns — sign, option, low, high — where each row is one condition, and IN evaluates the whole table in Open SQL and in ABAP alike; SELECT-OPTIONS builds one from a screen, TYPE RANGE OF declares one by hand, and an empty one means no restriction.

The shape

TYPES ty_carrier_range TYPE RANGE OF scarr-carrid.

DATA(lt_carriers) = VALUE ty_carrier_range(
  ( sign = 'I' option = 'EQ' low = 'LH' )
  ( sign = 'I' option = 'BT' low = 'DL' high = 'DZ' )
  ( sign = 'E' option = 'CP' low = 'X*' ) ).

SELECT … WHERE carrid IN @lt_carriers …
IF lv_carrier IN lt_carriers.

sign is I (include) or E (exclude); option is a comparison — EQ, NE, BT, NB, GT, GE, LT, LE, CP (pattern with * and +), NP. The includes are OR-ed together, then the excludes are removed. That is the whole semantics, and it is more expressive than most hand-written WHERE clauses.

RANGES is the obsolete declaration statement; TYPE RANGE OF is the current one.

The two things to know

Empty means everything. WHERE carrid IN @lt_empty selects every row. On a selection screen that is the feature — a blank field means "all". In code that builds a ranges table from data, an unexpectedly empty table is a full-table read, exactly like the FOR ALL ENTRIES trap.

Size has a limit. A ranges table is turned into a WHERE clause, and a database has a maximum statement length. A ranges table with ten thousand EQ rows fails at runtime; the right tool for a large key list is FOR ALL ENTRIES or a join.

z_kw_ranges.prog.abap — pasted here by tools/check_examples.py. Syntax-checked, never run: abaplint parses and type-checks it against the release in abaplint.json, but no system has produced output for it, so this page shows none.

REPORT z_kw_ranges.

" A ranges table has four columns -- sign, option, low, high -- and one row
" per condition. SELECT-OPTIONS builds one for you; this builds one by hand.
TYPES ty_carrier_range TYPE RANGE OF scarr-carrid.

DATA(lt_carriers) = VALUE ty_carrier_range(
  ( sign = 'I' option = 'EQ' low = 'LH' )
  ( sign = 'I' option = 'EQ' low = 'AA' )
  ( sign = 'I' option = 'BT' low = 'DL' high = 'DZ' )
  ( sign = 'E' option = 'CP' low = 'X*' ) ).

" IN takes a ranges table in Open SQL ...
SELECT carrid, carrname
  FROM scarr
  WHERE carrid IN @lt_carriers
  INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_found).
WRITE: / 'carriers matched', lines( lt_found ).

" ... and in an ABAP condition, and in an internal table WHERE.
IF 'LH' IN lt_carriers.
  WRITE: / 'LH is inside the range'.
ENDIF.

" An EMPTY ranges table means NO restriction, not "nothing matches". On a
" selection screen that is the feature; everywhere else it is the trap.
DATA lt_none TYPE ty_carrier_range.
SELECT COUNT(*)
  FROM scarr
  WHERE carrid IN @lt_none
  INTO @DATA(lv_all).
WRITE: / 'empty range selects every carrier:', lv_all.

If you are coming from another language

  • SQL. A ranges table is a serialised WHERE clause — (x = 'LH' OR x BETWEEN 'DL' AND 'DZ') AND NOT x LIKE 'X%' — as data you can build, pass and inspect.
  • Python. A list of predicates combined with any()/all(), which ABAP evaluates for you with IN.

See also