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Author's profile photo Carlos Machado

Data Dictionary supports field´s name up to 30 bytes length

In SAP_BASIS 7.40 Data Dictionary is now supporting table´s field name up to 30 bytes length. In the past this value was only 16 bytes.

This modifications is being delivered in note 1680583 ( Field names for tables and views with more than 16 char ).

From development perspective this is really nice to have this flexibility to create objects where you can include more details about business meaning as part of field name. For sure this is helpful for new projects once the restriction now is up to 30 bytes per field.

So far this is possible to be used in SAP_BASIS 7.02, 7.31 and 7.40

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      Author's profile photo Paul Hardy
      Paul Hardy

      This may seem trivial, but it is more useful than one might think. The longer the allowed names in SAP, the more like English the program reads, the so called "literate programming" paradigm.

      The next step is method names and variables that can be longer than 30 characters, as is the case in languages like Java.

      Author's profile photo Paul Hardy
      Paul Hardy

      Oh well, I just implemented this OSS note into my 7.02 SAP system.

      I was sort of hoping the field in SE11 where you create a custom table would have got longer, but no, it is still 16 characters.

      The note changes a check function module so that if you created a table that was longer than 16 characters long you would not get an error. If you could create a table which was longer than 16 characters. But you can't.

      So the question I would ask is - what in the world is the point of this OSS note?

      Or does the note behave differently in your system? You must have implemented the note before posting a blog about it.

      Author's profile photo Carlos Machado
      Carlos Machado
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Paul

      Thank you for your inputs.

      In fact I tested this note in my 7.02 system (SP 07 ) and it worked as expected.

      After implement this note you need to restart SE11 transaction using /nSE11 to force system to reload all static attributes.

      Author's profile photo Yuvaraj Shanmugam
      Yuvaraj Shanmugam

      Well, I always thought that Data Elements served the purpose of providing the Business Semantics to a table field and Domains convey the Technical Attributes.

      I also think that this change has been brought up to be in sync with the table and column name limits of underlying database. (Oracle and DB2 has column name limit of 30 Bytes).

      Author's profile photo Jens Knappik
      Jens Knappik

      Hi Carlos,

      thanks for sharing this usefully hint.

      if you will tell me next that the 30 byte restriction of other repository object  will be fixed and that objekts in packages receive a package bound namespace you make my day !!! 🙂

      regards,

      Jens

      Author's profile photo Carlos Machado
      Carlos Machado
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Jens

        That is true. I am ansious to see such possibility to other repository objects

      Regards

      Author's profile photo Abijith Chandra P
      Abijith Chandra P

      Hi,

      This was a useful info. Thanks for sharing this.