Database Reference
In-Depth Information
might be common across various reports. SAP provides a special category of program, called
a logical database, which reads data from several databases and makes one data set available
that can then be used by several reports at once. Each report then has to read only a single
data set, analyze, and display it per specifications. This increases programming productivity,
maintainability of the programs, and so on.
◾
Selection Screens
: Selection screens are presented before the execution of a report. Selection
screens work as filters to limit the number of records included for analysis within a report.
A selection screen is an automatically generated screen for every report. Selection screens can
collect either a range of values or parameters for a field in a table.
◾
Interactive Reporting
: Interactive processing involves providing inputs or additional process-
ing on report lists displayed on-screen. Additional processing, transactions, or reports can
be triggered during the display of the report with the function keys. The latter case refers to
the drill-down reporting that was mentioned in Chapter 4.
11.1.3.6 Dialog Programming
Dialog programming deals with the development of interactive applications in SAP. Dialog pro-
gramming is based on the concept of a
dynamic program (dynpro)
, which is a combination of input
screen and corresponding processing code. A dialog program consists of more than one dynpro.
A dialog program includes the following elements:
◾
One or more presentation interfaces
◾
One or more dynpro screens
◾
Flow logic
11.1.3.7 ABAP Query
End users can define simple reports through ABAP query. Through a user-friendly interface, a user
can specify the subject area of interest, the tables concerned, the desired fields, and also the list
layout. The system automatically generates a selection screen, not unlike that produced in report
programming, and asks for required inputs immediately.
Thereafter, the report is produced automatically. The output can also be routed optionally
either to file storage or to a Microsoft Excel file or another file type.
11.1.3.8 SAPscripts
SAPscript is SAP's word processing program. A typical output produced by ABAP programs is
devoid of any special fonts, size variations, etc. SAPscripts enable SAP to produce profession-
ally printed reports. It can also cater to the requirements for producing multilingual reports.
SAPscripts define the layout set as well as other components like paragraphs and text elements.
Using the SAPscript function modules, layout sets can be called from ABAP programs; in reverse,
ABAP subroutines can also be called from the layout sets.
11.1.3.9 Batch Data Communication and Interfaces
Before going live, a large amount of data needs to be uploaded into the system before it can be
released into production. R/3 release 4.0 introduced a utility to accomplish this, called Legacy
