What is START-OF-EDITING ABAP Report Event?

[Former Member]

Hi Gurus,

I have been noticing from quite some time in eclipse that whenever I start typing the event "START-OF-SELECTION", environment gives me a suggestion "START-OF-EDITING". I have been ignoring it for quite long but today I tried to search help for the event and I got nothing.

I even asked google about it and it gave some weird answers. So even Google was clueless. I tried to search in community if there has been any questions on the subject. No luck!!

So can any one tell me what is this event used for?

I have not seen it anywhere else.

Thanks!

Gaurav

[matt]

I've never seen it before (and it happens in the SAPGui editor as well), but this simple program gives a clue:

PROGRAM.
INITIALIZATION.
 WRITE: / 'initialise'.
START-OF-SELECTION.
 WRITE 'sos'.
END-OF-SELECTION.
 WRITE 'eos'.
 START-OF-EDITING.
 WRITE 'soe'

producing

initialise
sos
soe
eos

Which implies START-OF-EDITING triggers after START-OF-SELECTION, but before END-OF-SELECTION

[horst_keller]

One of these old statements that are part of the grammar, but are neither implemented nor documented.

A short test shows, that it is triggered between START-OF-SELECTION and LDB-processing (GET events).

So, everything that is implemented there can be implemented in START-OF-SELECTION too and START-OF-EDITING is useless. Maybe it was useful in R/2 or it was planned for something never accomplished.

I asked the ADT guys to remove it from code completion ...

[horst_keller]

Some fun with ABAP:

REPORT.
END-OF-SELECTION.
  WRITE / 'EOS1'.
START-OF-EDITING.
  WRITE / 'SOE1'.
END-OF-SELECTION.
  WRITE / 'EOS2'.
START-OF-SELECTION.
  WRITE / 'SOS1'.
START-OF-EDITING.
  WRITE / 'SOE2'.
START-OF-SELECTION.
  WRITE / 'SOS2'.

[horst_keller]

Lo and behold!

There's also an END-OF-EDITING!

Try it yourself ...

[matt]

You could use that to seriously confuse anyone maintaining your code...

[Former Member]

Thanks Horst/ Matthew. It clears the air.