What is the result of an ABAP statement when addressing an internal table and no entry matches the specified key?

In ABAP, when addressing an internal table and no entry matches the specified key, the standard behavior is defined by the coding logic and the system's exception handling. In this scenario, the correct outcome involves the internal table being accessed without finding a matching entry.

When an attempt to retrieve data from the internal table fails to find a match, the system sets the value of sy-subrc to 4, indicating that the operation was unsuccessful. Consequently, the variable that was supposed to be filled (in this case, gs_flight) retains its previous contents instead of being initialized or changed. This behavior reinforces the importance of checking the sy-subrc after data retrieval operations to determine if they were successful or not.

Furthermore, if the system encounters an exceptional condition during the operation, it would indeed raise an exception, but in the scenario where a key match fails, the process is primarily oriented towards maintaining existing data and updating the return code. Thus, the option indicating that gs_flight retains its previous contents and sy-subrc is set to 4 accurately reflects the logical flow of ABAP in handling key-based retrievals from internal tables.

This conceptual framework is critical, as it emphasizes the error handling