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abapsap-r3

Differentiate an append structure and a normal structure programmatically

I'm running SAP R/3.

The table E071 stores objects from transport requests. There is a 4 character field in it called OBJECT that stores the object type. Like PROG for program, TABD for table, etc.

I have an internal table with objects selected from E071.

The objects with type TABL can both be a normal structure and an append structure.

In SE11, when you view a structure object, if it's a normal structure, it shows a text that says Structure by the object name. And if it's an append structure, it shows Append Structure there.

So there is a way to differentiate them.

How should I go about differentiating them inside my program? Is there any technical detail that is different between these two?

Solution

  • ABAP DDIC structures are stored in the DD02L table, which stores also miscellaneous objects like tables and views, which have these important columns :

    • TABNAME : the object name
    • TABCLASS : the object class INTTAB for normal structure, APPEND for append structures, and other values for tables and views (including TRANSP for transparent tables)
    • SQLTAB : if the object is an append structure, it contains the object which it appends.