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What does the acronym "PF" stand for in statement "SET PF-STATUS"?

Posted on Oct 07, 2010 at 02:48 PM 493 Views

Hi ABAP Experts,

I've been wondering this for quite a while.

Thanks in advance.

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    author's profile photo Ivan Femia
    Ivan Femia
    Posted on Oct 07, 2010 at 03:35 PM
    3

    HI,

    I think "Program Function".

    GET PF-STATUS use PROGRAM attribute, so I think this is the meaning.

    Regards,

    Ivan

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  • author's profile photo Former Member
    Former Member
    Posted on Oct 07, 2010 at 04:10 PM
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    goes back to the very early PC's... shortened to F1-F12 on the keyboard. It's for "program function"...originally much of what happened on PCs were driven by pressing F1-F12 or CTL f1-f12 or ALT F1-F12, etc.

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  • author's profile photo Clemens Li
    Clemens Li
    Posted on Oct 07, 2010 at 05:28 PM
    1

    Hi Wang Bo,

    the best source to answer such questions is [wikipedia|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270]

    The first 3270s had no function keys. Later 3270s had twelve, and later twenty-four, special programmed function keys, or PF keys, and three PA (or "program attention") keys placed in one or two rows at the top of the keyboard. When one of these keys is pressed, it will cause its control unit (historically, usually, an IBM 3274 or 3174, but nowadays the onboard mainframe equivalent) to generate an I/O interrupt and present a special code identifying which key was pressed. Application program functions such as termination, page-up, page-down, or help can be invoked by a single key press, thereby reducing the load on very busy processors.

    Regards,

    Clemens

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    • Former Member
      Oct 07, 2010 at 05:42 PM

      Hi Clemens,

      Thanks for the information.

      Your reply provides a good proof for the argument that "PF" stands for "Program Function" 😊 It also reminds me that ABAP is an old, old language dating back to the old, good (or bad?) IBM mainframe days.

      Regards,

      Bo

  • author's profile photo Sandeep Kumar
    Sandeep Kumar
    Posted on Oct 07, 2010 at 03:21 PM
    0

    Hi,

    Good observation 😊

    PF is "personal Function "

    Cheers

    Sandeep

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    • Former Member
      Oct 07, 2010 at 04:21 PM

      Hi Sandeep, Thomas, Ivan, BreakPoint, Rob and other ABAP experts,

      Thanks a lot for your quick response! I've awarded points accordingly.

      I tried to search SDN again using keywords "PF Personal Function" and found some posts similiar to mine:

      pf-status

      full form of pf status

      It seems that only the ABAP team at SAP AG can give a final answer. For the moment, I think that "PF" most likely stands for "Program Function", not "Personal Function" because the statement SET PF-STATUS deals with the user interface of a program, or "Programmfunktionen" because ABAP keywords are English (though the term "Programmfunktionen" is a lot like "Program Function").

      Regards,

      Bo

      Edited by: Bo Wang on Oct 7, 2010 6:23 PM

      Edited by: Bo Wang on Oct 7, 2010 6:31 PM

      Edited by: Bo Wang on Oct 7, 2010 6:40 PM

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