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author's profile photo Former Member
Former Member

Why Internal tables rather than DB Tables

Posted on Apr 29, 2004 at 03:55 AM 12 Views

hi,

Why did the concept of working on internal Tables came into picture rather than directly with Database Tables themselves.

Is it a performance issue or any more reasons for their implementations.

Regards,

Siva_Maranani.

ABAP Development SAP Enterprise Portal
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2 Answers

  • author's profile photo Former Member
    Former Member
    Posted on Apr 29, 2004 at 04:39 AM

    Hi,

    This may not be a complete answer to your question, this is what i think for the concept of internal tables:

    1.You can;t go and access the database table for each & every record(since in most of the cases the production server will be in all together in different geographical location), its a big performance issue.

    2.We can not perform complex manipulation on database, as we use to perform it over our internal table.

    3.we can associate Internally table to cache memory, and a database table to secondary storage device. so it is suggested to access data from the faster one only.

    Hope the above might have cleared your doubt partially.

    Regards,

    Bharath.

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    • Former Member
      Apr 29, 2004 at 07:35 AM

      Actually, in nearly all implementations you should find that the application server on which the ABAP program is running is connected by a high-speed link with the database server sitting in the same room. That aside, point 1 about performance is certainly valid.

      Think of internal tables as ABAP's (nearish) equivalent of arrays or collections that you might find in other languages.

      Internal tables are therefore for processing like rows of data in memory, whereas database tables are for persisting data.

      Scott

  • author's profile photo Former Member
    Former Member
    Posted on Jun 24, 2004 at 10:17 AM

    Hi,

    data structures are liable to change. Using the data dictionary, a developer can change the internal structure of a line in an internal table without affecting the

    persistence of data in DB tables. This allows for more

    flexibility and creativity.

    It is a good example of separating the interface from the

    implementation.

    Regards,

    Marc

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