Support of BLOB datatype in Data Services

[SandeshK]

Hello All,

We use SAP HANA as the staging database and also our SAP CRM schema sits on the same HANA database. Till date I have been reading SAP CRM specific tables by connecting to the SAP datastore and reading the tables through RFC. But now I would like to read the same table directly from SAP CRM schema of HANA.

In this standard CRM table, we have a field which holds the value of a GUID. It's datatype is RAW in SAP. However when I use this table as source in Data Services, GUID field datatype is shown as BLOB and I would like to store this data as varchar into a template table.

Job fails because I cannot convert BLOB to VARCHAR. Infact I cannot use BLOB field as a parameter in any function of Data Services.

Please let me know if there is any 100% working solution to store BLOB datatypes as varchar?

Thanks,

San

[former_member198401]

Excerpt from DS Reference Guide:

4.1.7 Limitations for long and blob

In general, you cannot use long or blob columns in comparisons, calculations, or data type conversions, but SAP had suggested a workaround

Work around by SAP Support:  Create an ABAP Data flow and change the datatype of GUID field to Varchar() value. DataServices will still show the cutted GUID in the preview window of the ABAP-dataflow.

Can you try this and let me know if it works

Regards

Arun Sasi

Message was edited by: Arun Sasi

[SandeshK]

Thanks Arun for the information. This looks a good workaround. I am going to try this . I shall update about the outcome.

Thanks,

San

[former_member187605]

Unfortunately, you cannot create an ABAP data flow on a database-type datastore.

[former_member187605]

There are quite some limitations on working with blob data in DS. These are clearly documented in the SAP Data Services Reference Guide (cf. a.o. section 4.1.7.2.3 Limitations for blob).

If you really have a need to convert the blob to a different datatype, consider doing that in HANA (with a view).

[SandeshK]

Thanks Dirk. I shall try that.