As a programmer formatting a date in ABAP can be very useful to be able to use it in different programmes, tables, function module calls and classes. It is always a lot of work to research possibilities to convert from one date type to another if there are existing many different types. For this reason I decided to write the following collection of techniques to handle data types:
1. The 1st example shows how to convert an internal date (i.e. sy-datum) to an external variable i.e. a char:
- INPUT: 21.06.2018 ( as a date datatype)
- OUTPUT: ‘21.06.2018’ (as character)
DATA date_ext TYPE char10.
CALL FUNCTION 'CONVERT_DATE_TO_EXTERNAL'
EXPORTING
date_internal = sy-datum
IMPORTING
date_external = date_ext
EXCEPTIONS
date_internal_is_invalid = 1
OTHERS = 2.
IF sy-subrc <> 0.
* Implement suitable error handling here
ENDIF.
2. A more short possibility as 1.:
date_ext = |{ sy-datum DATE = ENVIRONMENT }|.
3. The 2nd example shows how to convert an external date format (like a character) to an internal date format:
- INPUT: ‘21.06.2018’ (as character)
- OUTPUT: 21062018 (as a date datatype)
DATA date_int TYPE d.
CALL FUNCTION 'DATE_CONV_EXT_TO_INT'
EXPORTING
i_date_ext = '21.06.2018'
IMPORTING
e_date_int = date_int
EXCEPTIONS
error = 1
OTHERS = 2.
IF sy-subrc <> 0.
* Implement suitable error handling here
ENDIF.
4. The 3rd example shows how you can convert a SAP date datatype to a character on your own without the help of an function module:
- INPUT: 21.06.2018 (as sy-datum, internal as: 20180621)
- OUTPUT: ‘21062018’ (as character)
DATA: date(10),
new_date TYPE char10,
day(2),
month(2),
year(4).
WRITE sy-datum TO date.
day(2) = date(2).
month(2) = date+3(2).
year(4) = date+6(4).
new_date = |{ day }| && |{ month }| && |{ year }|.
I hope I could help you and converting between different types will perhaps take a little bit less time in the future.
