Technical Settings of ABAP Dictionary Table

Technical settings holds the very important information for a table and it is a mandatory thing to do while creating a table.

 

The most important parameters are:

—   Data class: The data class defines the type of data this table can store. Each data class corresponds to a physical area in which all the tables assigned to this data class are stored.

Example : APPL0 (master data): Data which is seldom changed. An example of master data is the data contained in an address file, such as the name, address and telephone number.

                 

—   Size category: The size category tell you the how much space need for this table in the database. You can choose a size category from 0 to 4 for your table. Each category is assigned a certain fixed memory size in the database, which depends on the database system used. When a table is created, initial space (an Initial Extent) is reserved in the database. If more space is required at a later time due to data entries, additional memory will be added depending on the selected size category.

 

—  Buffering permission: Buffering means, when the table is loaded in SAP, whether the data should store in ABAP memory for this session or not.  If say no, then everytime it fetches the data from database, which might impact performance in some cases. If buffering allowed, then all the data will be stored in the buffer for the first run and the accessed from there in consecutive run.

 

 

 

—  Buffering type:  If buffering allowed then only this is applicable.

 

Full buffering : All the records of the table are loaded into the buffer when one record of the table is accessed.

Generic buffering : When a record of the table is accessed, all the records having this record in the generic key fields (part of the table key that is left-justified, identified by specifying a number of key fields) are loaded into the buffer. We have to maintain the no of keys field in this case.

Single-record buffering: Only the records of a table that are really accessed are loaded into the buffer.

 

—   Logging: If this parameter is checked, then all the table changes will be logged in history table.