IBM Global Services

2005 IBM Corporation Review of Concepts: Work Areas &

Internal Tables | 4.06
March-2005
Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables

IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 2 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
Objectives
The participants will be able to:
Recall the concept of work area.
Recall the concept of Internal tables.
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2005 IBM Corporation 3 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
LFA1 WORK AREA
BSIK WORK AREA
The ABAP TABLES statement
creates a work area for each of the
tables mentioned.
Review of Concepts : Table Work Areas
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 4 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
DATA
SOURCE
LFA1 WORK AREA
The ABAP SELECT statement takes data
from the specified table (data source)
and places it, one record at a time, into
the work area.
RECORD # 1
SELECT *
SY-SUBRC
CHECK
Review of Concepts : Retrieving Data from Database Into
Table Work Area
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 5 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
DATA
SOURCE
LFA1 WORK AREA
RECORD # 1
RECORD # 2
No Longer Available
SELECT *
SY-SUBRC
CHECK
Review of Concepts : Replacement of Table Work Area
Contents
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 6 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
DATA
SOURCE
LFA1 WORK AREA
RECORD # 6
INTERNAL TABLE
RECORD # 1
RECORD # 2
RECORD # 3
RECORD # 4
RECORD # 5
When an ABAP programmer
creates an internal table the
data is not lost. It remains
available to the
programmer.
APPEND ITAB
Review of Concepts : Using Internal Tables to Capture
Incoming Data
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 7 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
INTERNAL TABLE
RECORD # 1
RECORD # 2
RECORD # 3
LFA1 WORK AREA
RECORD # 3
CLEAR LFA1.
LFA1 WORK AREA
REFRESH ITAB.
BEFORE AFTER
INTERNAL TABLE
Review of Concepts : Keywords in Emptying Work Areas
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 8 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
Demonstration
Using Workareas and Internal tables.
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2005 IBM Corporation 9 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
Practice
Using Workareas and Internal tables.
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2005 IBM Corporation 10 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
Summary
TABLES statement in ABAP creates a workarea for the database table specified.
Workareas can hold only one record during the program execution whereas, an
Internal table can hold multiple records at a time.
For the above reason, when we have to retrieve multiple entries from the
database, we should be using internal tables instead of an workarea. Because
use of workarea will mean we have get the data from database multiple times.
CLEAR statement deletes the content of workarea. It can be used to initialize the
header line of an internal table as well.
REFRESH statement wipes off the contents of the internal table.
IBM Global Services
2005 IBM Corporation 11 March-2005 Review of Concepts: Work Areas & Internal Tables | 4.06
Questions
What is the difference between a workarea and an internal table ?
Which of these (workarea vs. Internal table) is better to use in our program when
we need to retrieve multiple records ?
What are the statements to initialize workareas and internal tables ?