Defining the development terms SELECT SINGLE and SELECT UP TO 1 ROWS

Defining the development terms SELECT SINGLE and SELECT UP TO 1 ROWS

What is the difference between the terms SELECT SINGLE and SELECT UP TO 1 ROWS?

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Some people feel that SELECT SINGLE should only be used when the key fields are fully specified in the where clause. This is reflected in the SAP documentation, and in the extended syntax checker which will highlight this as a warning.

However, it does not take into account that there may be other field combinations which might also be a unique index, nor that you may simply be doing an existence check, or that you the fields you are interested may remain constant over the where clause specified.

I think SELECT SINGLE is more readable, and therefore better. Others think that it is ambiguous, so SELECT UP TO 1 ROWS is better.

This was first published in October 2005