Printing DMS Documents

              DATA: xbuffer TYPE xstring,
                          filelength TYPE i,
                          it_data TYPE TABLE OF tbl1024.

               CALL FUNCTION ‘SCMS_XSTRING_TO_BINARY‘
                      EXPORTING
                        buffer        = xbuffer
                      IMPORTING
                        output_length = filelength
                      TABLES
                        binary_tab    = it_data.

If the document is stored locally, you may perhaps use F/M SDOK_PHIO_LOAD_CONTENT. I have not worked on this scenario though. Once you have the document in the internal table, you can download to the local machine (Concatenate the file name, you desire, to the file_name field below to make it a complete filename with path):

DATA: filelength TYPE i,
      file_name TYPE string VALUE ‘C:\Temp’,
      file_len TYPE i.

CALL METHOD cl_gui_frontend_services=>gui_download
                 EXPORTING
                   bin_filesize     = filelength
                   filename         = file_name
                   filetype         = ‘BIN’
                 IMPORTING
                   filelength       = file_len
                 CHANGING
                   data_tab         = it_data
                 EXCEPTIONS
                   file_write_error = 1
                   OTHERS           = 2.

Follow this link to implement F4 help for Presentation Server File Path in SAP ABAP and refer to the source code there.

Just one remark about C:\temp, it would be better to use the SAP GUI temporary directory or the workdir (in 2 steps: cl_gui_frontend_services=>get_temp_directory + cl_gui_cfw=>flush for transferring the value to the variable ; note that this directory is emptied from time to time by the SAP GUI).

The bin_filesize parameter above is optional and seems to be innocuous but it’s not. I missed to pass the file length to this parameter (I got from F/M SCMS_XSTRING_TO_BINARY) and to my annoyance I was unable to open the downloaded file (with message: The file is damaged) whatever I did. Somebody with good experience with binary files came to my rescue and suggested to pass this parameter and it worked after that. Lesson of the story is file length (in bytes) is very important when dealing with binary files.

Upon successful download, you can send it to printer by calling the class’s EXECUTE method:

CALL METHOD cl_gui_frontend_services=>execute
                   EXPORTING
                     document               = file_name
                     operation              = ‘PRINT’
                   EXCEPTIONS
                     …..

After printing the document successfully, you may want to delete it which can be handled by FILE_DELETE method of the class:

CALL METHOD cl_gui_frontend_services=>file_delete
                         EXPORTING
                           filename           = file_name
                         CHANGING
                           rc                 = rc
                         EXCEPTIONS
                           file_delete_failed = 1
                           OTHERS            = 9.

IF rc = 32.
     MESSAGE i461(iw) WITH ‘File is open in another window. Please close doc ‘.
ENDIF.

So that’s how this class handles all aspects of front-end handling of file automating download, print and delete functions. You may print several documents of different formats keeping the above logic in a LOOP.

Thanks for stopping by. Wish you All the Best in whatever you are doing! Find more articles on SAP ERP.