SAP SYSTEM TEXT - Guide

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GUIDELINE 7.53

Storing System Texts

ABAP_BACKGROUND
In ABAP programs, texts are used as parts of processed data but also as a means to communicate with the user. The latter are called system texts, which are delivered with an ABAP application. The ABAP Workbench manages system texts in such a way that they can be translated from the original language into other languages independently of the actual development object. The following are examples of translatable system texts:

Texts and documentation of data elements in the ABAP Dictionary

Short texts and documentation of the components of local classes

UI texts of dynpros, in Web Dynpro applications and in menu entries

Message texts

Text pools of ABAP programs that include the text elements of the program, for example, text symbols

Texts of the Online Text Repository (OTR)
In addition to translatable system texts, an ABAP program can also contain untranslatable texts. These are usually the character literals and the comments that are stored as a part of the source code.

ABAP_RULE
Send only translatable system texts to the user
Specify all texts that a program uses to communicate with the user as translatable system texts. When translatable system texts are created, there must be enough space for translations.

ABAP_DETAILS
This rule is not only critical when programs are used in an international environment; it applies when working in multilingual development groups too. The prohibition of the use of character literals in the ABAP source code for all texts that are relevant for user dialogs is derived from this rule. Character literals cannot be translated. Their content is independent of the respective logon language. Instead of character literals, text symbols should be used or character literals associated with text symbols. This is also checked in the extended program check.
When system texts are created, there must be enough space. It is not usually possible to change the text length during translation, so the translator relies on there being sufficient space for a reasonable translation defined at the development stage. This aspect is very important for longer texts, particularly if the original language is English, because facts can normally be expressed in fewer words in English than in other languages. The opposite can be true for short texts, for example, “Feld” (German) and “field” (English), or for compound words that are written as two or more words in English.

Exception
For purely technical texts (such as HTML tags or regular expressions) that are not to be translated, character literals or literal content of character string templates can be used. These should be marked as not relevant for translation for the extended program check using pragmas.

Good example
The following source code shows how to handle translation-relevant and non-translation-relevant text elements in source code: Technical texts that are not relevant for translation are specified as character literals. Other texts are associated with a text symbol. If the additions of the CONCATENATE statement do not play any role (for example, SEPARATED BY), it is preferable to use the chaining operator <(> <)><(> <)>, as shown here, since this makes the source code clearer. html_line = '<(><<)>title>' <(> <)><(> <)> 'Some Title'(ttl) <(> <)> <(> <)> '<(><<)>/title>'.
APPEND html_line TO html_body.
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