Inline Declaration With Packed Arithmetic Loses Decimals

WarningAnti-Patterns & Bad Practices#EC NO_INLINE_PACKEDRemote Enabled✏️ Edit Rule on GitHub

Overview

Inline declaration with packed arithmetic loses decimals.

ATC Finding Message: DATA(...) with packed arithmetic defaults to P(8,0) and loses decimals

Rationale

When an arithmetic expression involving packed numbers (TYPE p) is assigned to an inline declaration DATA(...), ABAP derives the target variable type as P LENGTH 8 DECIMALS 0. As a consequence, all decimal places are silently truncated, resulting in loss of precision in financial and mathematical computations. Use an explicit DATA declaration with DECIMALS or CONV #( ... ).

Non-Compliant

DATA lv_price TYPE p DECIMALS 2 VALUE '12.50'.
DATA(lv_total) = lv_price * 10 / 3.

Compliant

DATA lv_price TYPE p DECIMALS 2 VALUE '12.50'.
DATA lv_total TYPE p DECIMALS 2.
lv_total = lv_price * 10 / 3.

Suppression

To suppress findings for this rule, append the pseudo-comment to the statement:

" Standard pseudo-comment:
... "#EC NO_INLINE_PACKED

" SAP CI_ prefix format:
... "#EC CI_NO_INLINE_PACKED

Related Rules

• Prefer Calculation Assignment Operators (+=, -=, *=, /=) — #EC PREF_CALC_OP
• Prefer Inline Declarations over Separate DATA and Assignment — #EC PREF_INLINE

Technical Details

• Native ATC Class: /SKYL/CL_NO_INLINE_PACKED
• ABAP Implementation: /skyl/cl_no_inline_packed.clas.abap
• Rule Metadata: rules-data.mjs (Line 6039)

Community & Feedback

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