Refresh (in SAP)

What Does Refresh (in SAP) Mean?

As one of the most useful ABAP programming keywords, Refresh is used to clear the data contents from variables used in ABAP programs and SAP screens. Prior to SAP’s Enterprise Central Component (ECC) version, statements containing Refresh were used to clear data from SAP interface screens and program variables related to data selections. In SAP’s ECC version, the statements containing Refresh are considered obsolete, with the exception of initializing Control from the SAP screen. Customer developed programs are only supposed to use the keyword with respect to refreshing Control from a SAP screen.

Techopedia Explains Refresh (in SAP)

Starting with SAP’s ECC version, the keyword Refresh may be used only for the initialization of control attributes according to the description in the screen. The syntax for the same is as follows:

REFRESH CONTROL controlvariable FROM SCREEN screennumber

The above syntax is used for statements, which are mainly used in screen related interfaces – mostly in module pool programming. The execution of the Refresh statement usually takes five microseconds during runtime.

The earlier use of Refresh for refreshing and initializing other contents have been replaced by the following from the ECC version:

• REFRESH SCREEN – SET USER command to be used
• REFRESH – from SELECT OPTINS – Function module RS_REFRESH_FROM_SELECTOPTIONS to be used
• REFRESH – FROM Database TABLE. SELECT statement to be used for same
• REFRESH itab(internal table) – Keywords Free/Clear to be used