更新内部表中的列的最短表示法是什么？

Question

I have an ABAP internal table. Structured, with several columns (eg 25). Names and types are irrelevant. The table can get pretty large (eg 5,000 records).

| A   | B   | ... |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 7   | X   | ... |
| 2   | CCC | ... |
| 42  | DD  | ... |

Now I'd like to set one of the columns (eg B) to a specific constant value (eg 'Z').

What is the shortest, fastest, and most memory-efficient way to do this?

My best guess is a LOOP REFERENCE INTO . This is pretty efficient as it changes the table in-place, without wasting new memory. But it takes up three statements, which makes me wonder whether it's possible to get shorter:

LOOP AT lt_table REFERENCE INTO DATA(ls_row).
  ls_row->b = 'Z'.
ENDLOOP.

Then there is the VALUE operator which reduces this to one statement but is not very efficient because it creates new memory areas. It also gets longish for a large number of columns, because they have to be listed one by one:

lt_table = VALUE #( FOR ls_row in lt_table ( a = ls_row-a
                                             b = 'Z' ) ).

Are there better ways?

Answer 1

The following code sets PRICE = 0 of all lines at a time. Theoritically, it should be the fastest way to update all the lines of one column, because it's one statement. Note that it's impossible to omit the WHERE, so I use a simple trick to update all lines.

DATA flights TYPE TABLE OF sflight.
DATA flight TYPE sflight.

SELECT * FROM sflight INTO TABLE flights.
flight-price = 0.
MODIFY flights FROM flight TRANSPORTING price WHERE price <> flight-price.

Reference: MODIFY itab - itab_lines

Answer 2

If you have a workarea declared...

workarea-field = 'Z'.
modify table from workarea transporting field where anything.

Edition: After been able to check that syntax in my current system, I could prove (to myself) that the WHERE clause must be added or a DUMP is raised. Thanks Sandra Rossi.