ALV Grid in the nutshell: Field catalog - edit_mask

If you are familiar with the WRITE statement, then probably you know the EDIT_MASK addition which allows us to do formatting of the output in two different ways, you can apply the same to the EDIT_MASK of field catalog as well.

1. Using Conversion-Exit, for example ‘==ALPHA’, where ‘==’ sings represents the information that we’re using conversion-exit, and the next 5 characters are reserved for the conversion-exit name.
    
2. Using manual mask, where you can use following possibilities:
    
   1. Each underscore character (‘_’) in the mask will be replaced by the characters of the source field
       
   2. ‘LL’ on the beginning of the mask means that the underscore characters of the mask (“_”) will be replaced starting from left side, for example mask ‘LL__:__’ for value 123 will be displayed as ‘12:3 ’.
       
   3.  It’s also default setting for the mask so no need to use it in fact.
       
   4. ‘RR’ on the beginning of the mask means that the underscore characters of the mask will be replaced starting from the right side, for example mask ‘RR__:__’ for value 123 will be displayed as ‘ 1:23’.
       
   5. ‘V’ in case of quantity or amount fields is a place where the sign of the number should be displayed, for example mask ‘V__,__’ for number -1234 will be shown as ‘-12,34’.
       
   6. Any other characters will remain unchanged, means you can also build some extraordinary outputs, for example mask ‘Flight Number is: ____’ for the SFLIGHT-CONNID field will bring following result: ‘Flight Number is: 0017’.

Figure 53 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 hardcoded edit_mask

Figure 54 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 selection screen

Figure 55 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 Results with edit_mask 'LL__:__:__'

Figure 56 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 Results with edit_mask 'RR__:__:__'

Figure 57 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 Results with edit_mask '==ALPHA'

Figure 58 ZDEMO_AIN_CL24 Results with edit_mask 'Flight Number is: ____'