Verify SSN in the string

Question

Hi ,
I have a requirement while reading the input file.
Input file is mixed up with several header records and data records
Every data record has SSN starting at fixed position.
So we need to identify the SSN in the data record and store that entire record and skip other records.
SSN format is xxx-xx-xxxx . All are numbers .
I think there might be easier to way to compare and identify this format.
Could anyone suggest the best way to do these.(May be comparing patterns,some string operation etc).Also i need to check all the 'X' are numbers.
Thanks for the help.
Regards

Answer 1

Try this code by cut & paste into a test program and try
report zars
  no standard page heading line-size 255.
parameters : ssn(15) type c.
data matcher type ref to cl_abap_matcher.
matcher = cl_abap_matcher=>create(
             pattern = `^d{3}-d{2}-d{4}$`
             ignore_case = 'X'
             text = ssn ).
if matcher->match( ) is initial.
  message 'Invalid ssn Format' type 'I'.
else.
  message 'Valid ssn format' type 'I'.
endif.
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