Issue with CHAIN (FIELD) statements, apparently

Question

Hi,
I have the following code for a screen:
PROCESS BEFORE OUTPUT.
  MODULE pfstatus.
PROCESS AFTER INPUT.
  MODULE d9000exit AT EXIT-COMMAND.
  CHAIN.
    FIELD:  sl_matnr MODULE check_sl_matnr,
            sl_kdgrp MODULE check_sl_kdgrp,
*            sl_atwrt MODULE check_sl_atwrt,
            sl_valdt,
            sl_lifnr MODULE check_sl_lifnr,
            sl_prcno MODULE check_sl_prcno.
  ENDCHAIN.
  MODULE navigation_9000.
PROCESS ON VALUE-REQUEST.
  FIELD  sl_prcno MODULE f4_sl_prcno.
The user complains that the search help for sl_prcno doesn't work - which is true - but only when I don't heat ENTER after entering/choosing data in the screen for the rest of the fields (since this search help depends on the value inputed by the user for SL_MATNR, for instance). Indeed, if I provide a value for the material number field, which is stored as SL_MATNR, the variable keeps empty unless I hit ENTER before entering the search help.
My question is: is the problem related to the way this has been coded - CHAIN/FIELD statements ? From what I read from the help, the FIELD statement is responsible for when the data inputed in the screen is passed to the global variable designed to that field - which seems to be exactly the problem (the global variable doesn't get the value unless the user hits ENTER before clicking on the search help).  Does this make sense/was this expected to work this way ? Or is there something I can do to fix this ?
Thanks in advance,
Avraham
Edited by: Avraham Kahana on Oct 19, 2009 5:20 PM

Answer 1

I had to implement a help system for a field which depends on the data on the other field, it doesn't have chains, and it has the same behaviour. It does not process the help unless the data in the first field has been validated by sap (and translated to upper case in the process).
What I've noticed is that if you hit the button for the select-options fields instead of the f4 matchcode, SAP already validates prior entered data, so the help works as intended without pressing enter.