Summary -

In this topic, we described about the below sections -

ABAP programming allows to concatenate consecutive statements with same keyword in the first part into a chain statement.

If any two or more statements started with same keywords coded consecutively together or one after the other, ABAP has a feasibility to combine them in a single statement. To combine two or more consecutive statements, colon (:) should be used after the keyword.

To concatenate sequence of statements, write the identical keyword only once and place a colon(:) immediately after keyword. After colon(:), write the remaining parts of the statements one after the other with a comma (,) separated. After all written, place a period (.) at the end of the statement.

Syntax -

ABAP_keyword : statements-comma-seperated.

For example, the declaration statement sequence shown below -

DATA v_a TYPE I.
DATA v_b TYPE P.

Chained statement -

DATA: v_a TYPE I, v_b TYPE P.

In the chain statement, after the colon the remaining parts of the statements are comma separated. We can write the statement like below -

DATA: v_a TYPE I, 
v_b TYPE P.

In a chain statement, the first part (before the colon) is not limited to the keyword of the statements. The identical part of all the statements can code before the colon(:).


For example, the processing statement sequence shown below –

SUM = SUM + 1.
SUM = SUM + 2.
SUM = SUM + 3.

Chain statement for the above –

SUM = SUM + : 1, 2, 3.

In the above example, "SUM = SUM + " is the identical part of all the ABAP statements. So to make the chain statement for the above, write the common part first, next code colon(:) and then remaining part of statements comma separated.


Example -

Problem should be described here


Code - 

*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
*& Report  Z_COLON_NOTATION
*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
*& Written by TutorialsCampus
*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*

REPORT  Z_COLON_NOTATION.

* Displaying 'Hello ' on the output.
WRITE 'Hello '.

* Displaying 'World..!' on the same row of the output.
WRITE 'World..!'.

* Skipping next two lines on the output.
SKIP 2.

* Chained statement
WRITE : 'Hello ', 'World..!'.

Output -

Chained statement example output

Explaining Example -

In the above example, each and every statement is preceeded with a comment to explain about the statement. Go through them to get clear understanding of example code.

WRITE 'Hello '.
WRITE 'World..!'. - write output on the line 3 and 4. SKIP 2 - Inserts 2 empty line and places the cursor on 6th line. WRITE : 'Hello ', 'World..!' - Writes the output on the line 6. First two WRITE statements equal to third WRITE statement.