SELECT

Syntax

SELECT result
       FROM source
       INTO|APPENDING target
       [[FOR ALL ENTRIES IN itab] WHERE sql_cond]
       [GROUP BY group] [HAVING group_cond]
       [ORDER BY sort_key].
  ...
[ENDSELECT].

Effect

SELECT is an Open-SQL-statement for reading data from one or several database tables into data objects.

The select statement reads a result set (whose structure is determined in result) from the database tables specified in source, and assigns the data from the result set to the data objects specified in target. You can restrict the result set using the WHERE addition. The addition GROUP BY compresses several database rows into a single row of the result set. The addition HAVING restricts the compressed rows. The addition ORDER BY sorts the result set.

The data objects specified in target must match the result set result. This means that the result set is either assigned to the data objects in one step, or by row, or by packets of rows. In the second and third case, the SELECT statement opens a loop, which which must be closed using ENDSELECT. For every loop pass, the SELECT-statement assigns a row or a packet of rows to the data objects specified in target. If the last row was assigned or if the result set is empty, then SELECT branches to ENDSELECT . A database cursor is opened implicitly to process a SELECT-loop, and is closed again when the loop is ended. You can end the loop using the statements from section leave loops.

Up to the INTO resp. APPENDING addition, the entries in the SELECTstatement define which data should be read by the database in which form. This requirement is translated in the database interface for the database system´s programming interface and is then passed to the database system. The data are read in packets by the database and are transported to the current application server by the database server. On the application server, the data are transferred to the ABAP program´s data objects in accordance with the data specified in the INTO and APPENDING additions.

System Fields

The SELECT statement sets the values of the system fields sy-subrc and sy-dbcnt.

sy-subrc	Relevance
0	The SELECT statement sets sy-subrc to 0 for every pass by value to an ABAP data object. The ENDSELECT statement sets sy-subrc to 0 if at least one row was transferred in the SELECT loop.
4	The SELECT statement sets sy-subrc to 4 if the result set is empty, that is, if no data was found in the database.
8	The SELECT statement sets sy-subrc to 8 if the FOR UPDATE addition is used in result, without the primary key being specified fully after WHERE.

After every value that is transferred to an ABAP data object, the SELECT statement sets sy-dbcnt to the number of rows that were transferred. If the result set is empty, sy-dbcnt is set to 0.

Notes

Outside classes, you do not need to specify the target area with INTO or APPENDING if a single database table or a single view is specified statically after FROM, and a table work area dbtab was declared with the TABLES statement for the corresponding database table or view. In this case, the system supplements the SELECT-statement implicitly with the addition INTO dbtab.
Although the WHERE-condition is optional, you should always specify it for performance reasons, and the result set should not be restricted on the application server.
SELECT-loops can be nested. For performance reasons, you should check whether a join or a sub-query would be more effective.
Within a SELECT-loop you cannot execute any statements that lead to a database commit, or database rollback and consequently cause the corresponding database cursor to close.