Product specifications

internally by the driver (other filtering with WHERE, GROUP BY, DISTINCT and sorting only with ORDER
BY aggregate functions).
When the application user queries an SAP Query, some operations are also passed to the ERP system.
These are SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY (only if the SAP query already contains the same sorting)
and AS.
Note:
For more information on the operations directly managed by the system, see your SAP ERP system
documentation.
6.2.3 Access to ABAP functions
Remember:
The SAP ERP driver allows you to create connections to released and unreleased ABAP functions.
ABAP function concepts
ABAP functions are made of a series of parameters that can be either input parameters used in function
calls, or output parameters, which are contained in call responses. In SAP terminology, input parameters
are called import, whereas output parameters are called export. Some parameters can be both input
and output. They are called changing parameters. Besides import, export and changing parameters,
there are also table parameters, which can be considered as a type of changing parameters.
An ABAP function parameter can have the following type:
• Field of primitive ABAP type
• Structure, which is a sequence of several fields
• Table, which can be made of fields, structures, or even tables
Object mapping
The data access driver exposes ABAP functions as tables to the information design tool. At driver level,
ABAP function groups are mapped to owners and ABAP functions are mapped to a qualifier called
ABAPFunction. This means each ABAP function is placed beneath a specific owner, which corresponds
to a function group in the SAP ERP system.
Import, changing, and table parameters used as input are mapped into input columns. Export, changing,
and table parameters used as output are mapped into tables. Input columns can be either mandatory
or optional. The Data Access layer considers these parameters as primary key attributes, which are
not nullable.
The driver maps ABAP function parameters as follows:
• A mandatory parameter is mapped to a mandatory input column. The user has to set a value to this
column.
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Data access driver reference