In our day to day ABAP programming implementations, we may need to use exit, continue, stop and return statements, this article will help you to understand what are exit, stop, continue and return statements? And when do we use them.
EXIT
The behavior of EXIT keyword is depends on where you use it.- If you use EXIT keyword inside IF .. ENDIF., it will comes out of the program.
- If you use EXIT inside LOOP .. ENDLOOP., it will come out of loop.
- If you use EXIT inside FORM .. ENDFORM., it will comes out of form (subroutine).
REPORT ZSAPN_EXIT.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
PARAMETERS: P_MATNR TYPE MARA-MATNR.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT SINGLE * FROM MARA INTO WA_MARA WHERE MATNR = P_MATNR.
IF WA_MARA IS INITIAL.
EXIT. "exit program
ENDIF.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
STOP
STOP is a statement which is used to stop processing an event block, ex: If I have two events START-OF-SELECTION and END-OF-SELECTION in my program, If I use STOP keyword in START-OF-SELECTION, the keyword will exits start-of-selection and goes to END-OF-SELECTION.
See the difference between below two programs.
| Program1 | Program2 |
|---|---|
REPORT ZSAPN_STOP.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT * FROM MARA INTO TABLE IT_MARA UP TO 50 ROWS.
STOP.
LOOP AT IT_MARA INTO WA_MARA.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
ENDLOOP.
|
REPORT ZSAPN_STOP.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT * FROM MARA INTO TABLE IT_MARA UP TO 50 ROWS.
STOP.
END-OF-SELECTION.
LOOP AT IT_MARA INTO WA_MARA.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
ENDLOOP.
|
| Result: NO OUTPUT | RESULT: OUTPUT WILL BE DISPLAYED |
CONTINUE
CONTINUE is a statement, which is used to skip execution of a record inside loop.. endloop, do..endo, while..endwhile etc. This keyword will only be used in loops.
REPORT ZSAPN_CONTINUE.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT * FROM MARA INTO TABLE IT_MARA UP TO 50 ROWS.
LOOP AT IT_MARA INTO WA_MARA.
IF WA_MARA-MTART = 'HALB'. "Skip if material type is 'HALB'
CONTINUE. "Skip the record and go for next record
ENDIF.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
ENDLOOP.
In the above program, the output will not display materials of type "HALB" because loop skips the records with HALB material type.
RETURN
RETURN is a statement which is used to stop processing of current block immediately.
Execute and see the difference between the below two programs.
| Program1 | Program2 |
|---|---|
REPORT ZSAPN_RETURN.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT * FROM MARA INTO TABLE IT_MARA UP TO 50 ROWS.
RETURN.
END-OF-SELECTION.
LOOP AT IT_MARA INTO WA_MARA.
IF WA_MARA-MTART = 'HALB'.
ENDIF.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
ENDLOOP.
|
REPORT ZSAPN_RETURN.
DATA: IT_MARA TYPE TABLE OF MARA,
WA_MARA TYPE MARA.
START-OF-SELECTION.
SELECT * FROM MARA INTO TABLE IT_MARA UP TO 50 ROWS.
END-OF-SELECTION.
LOOP AT IT_MARA INTO WA_MARA.
IF WA_MARA-MTART = 'HALB'.
RETURN.
ENDIF.
WRITE:/ WA_MARA-MATNR, WA_MARA-MTART, WA_MARA-MATKL.
ENDLOOP.
|
| Result: NO OUTPUT | RESULT: SOME RECORDS as program execution stops after "HALB" material type. |
A small caveat: according to SAP, the keyword EXIT is obsolete inside loops (as of v6.10), While we developers will certainly see EXIT inside loops in older code, it is not best practice to use EXIT inside loops for new development work and should therefore be called out in code reviews.