27/8/2014 Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No mo...

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ABAP Development

Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more

FM needed)
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Posted by Mansoor Ahmed in ABAP Development on Feb 25, 2014 2:05:49 PM

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Hello everyone!

This one is for all of those and me too. Most of the posts I have seen on SDN where people asking for alternative
READ_TEXT alternative fuvtion module for read_text | SCN or mass usage of READ_TEXT. Some good or better
developers - I must say - are worried about performance issues. Few newbies are still looking for the usage of
READ_TEXT. Lol. FM - READ_TEXT issue with data declaration | SCN

I was also looking for some alternate solution but all in vain. I found one good wiki about the usage of the FM:
Function Example READ_TEXT ABAP wrapper function - Enterprise Information Management - SCN Wiki. This post onepost
is
great but obviously I have two main concerns. 1. Performance, 2. Mass usage of reading long text of any object. There
is another way to achieve mass read of long text by looping the READ_TEXT (lol, that's funny), I don't need this either
because I need performance. I don't want Basis guys cursing me!

So, what I came with was to avoid READ_TEXT, now the question is HOW? You might think of a big NO! Not possible!
But remember

Lots of time people say no when they don't know.

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Let me assure you one thing I have done this and it is ready working like a charm.

All you need to do is just fetch the data, first from STXH then from the line item table STXL. Only question left is how to
decompress the long text? Well, that's pretty easy and not a big deal all you need is the use of IMPORT statement.

Now let's see what we have to and how to do it? Below is the code that's is working 4 to 5 times faster than
READ_TEXT performance and is as simple as anything!

01. *&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
02. *& Report ZMA_READ_TEXT
03. *&
04. *&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
05. *&
06. *&
07. *&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
08. REPORT ZMA_READ_TEXT.
09. TYPES: BEGIN OF TY_STXL,
10. TDNAME TYPE STXL-TDNAME,
11. CLUSTR TYPE STXL-CLUSTR,
12. CLUSTD TYPE STXL-CLUSTD,
13. END OF TY_STXL.
14. DATA: T_STXL TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TY_STXL.
15. FIELD-SYMBOLS: <STXL> TYPE TY_STXL.
16. * compressed text data without text name
17. TYPES: BEGIN OF TY_STXL_RAW,
18. CLUSTR TYPE STXL-CLUSTR,
19. CLUSTD TYPE STXL-CLUSTD,
20. END OF TY_STXL_RAW.
21. DATA: T_STXL_RAW TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TY_STXL_RAW.
22. DATA: W_STXL_RAW TYPE TY_STXL_RAW.
23. * decompressed text
24. DATA: T_TLINE TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TLINE.
25. FIELD-SYMBOLS: <TLINE> TYPE TLINE.
26. DATA: T_STXH TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF STXH,
27. W_STXH TYPE STXH.
28. SELECT TDNAME TDOBJECT TDID
29. FROM STXH
30. INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF TABLE T_STXH.
31. *AND THEN
32. * select compressed text lines in blocks of 3000 (adjustable)
33. SELECT TDNAME CLUSTR CLUSTD
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34. INTO TABLE T_STXL
35. FROM STXL
36. PACKAGE SIZE 3000
37. FOR ALL ENTRIES IN T_STXH "WITH APPLICATION DATA AND TDNAME
38. WHERE RELID = 'TX' "standard text
39. AND TDOBJECT = T_STXH-TDOBJECT
40. AND TDNAME = T_STXH-TDNAME
41. AND TDID = T_STXH-TDID
42. AND TDSPRAS = SY-LANGU.
43. LOOP AT T_STXL ASSIGNING <STXL>.
44. * decompress text
45. CLEAR: T_STXL_RAW[], T_TLINE[].
46. W_STXL_RAW-CLUSTR = <STXL>-CLUSTR.
47. W_STXL_RAW-CLUSTD = <STXL>-CLUSTD.
48. APPEND W_STXL_RAW TO T_STXL_RAW.
49. IMPORT TLINE = T_TLINE FROM INTERNAL TABLE T_STXL_RAW.
50. * access text lines for further processing
51. LOOP AT T_TLINE ASSIGNING <TLINE>.
52. WRITE: / <TLINE>-TDLINE.
53. ENDLOOP.
54. ENDLOOP.
55. FREE T_STXL.
56. ENDSELECT.
Here is the output: I have not restricted it to any object (obviously you can do it for your need) and boy it pulls more then
1300 records within a nano second!
Boom!!

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There is another Function Module to fetch multiple texts: RETRIEVAL_MULTIPLE_TEXTS but I haven't used it.

Now the last thing, I want to thank Mr. Julian Phillips and Mr. Thomas Zloch. Thankful to Julian because he
posted and Thomas gave the solution. Same solution I implemented with some additions. Here is the post I referred
to: Mass reading standard texts (STXH, STXL)

I hope you will reuse this code to fetch multiple long text and your comments, suggestions and complaints are
welcome!

Note: Sourcecode attached!

ZMA_READ_TEXT.zip(795 bytes)

4115 View s
Topics: abap, database Tags: sap, beginner, sap_developer_netw ork, code_exchange, code, reusability, abap_unit

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Average User Rating

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30 Comments

Praveen Nenaw a Feb 25, 2014 2:56 PM

Hi Mansoor ,

Nice shot !!!!

Will use it for sure the next time . As of now bookmarked .
Thanks for Sharing .

Praveen .

Like (1)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 25, 2014 2:57 PM (in response to Praveen Nenaw a)

Thanks for the appreciation. Do let me know when you use it. You can also add some filters
to the WHERE clause to restrict your query.
Like (0)

YUNUS KALDIRIM Feb 26, 2014 9:31 AM

Hi Mansoor,
Nice investigation. Thanks for your kind share about read_text.
Like (1)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 28, 2014 12:26 PM (in response to YUNUS KALDIRIM)

Thank you YUNUS KALDIRIM keep sharing!

Like (0)

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Bikas Tarw ay Feb 26, 2014 10:18 AM

Hi Mansoor,

Thanks for your blog.

I never knew read_text also gives any performance issue

Thanks
Bikas
Like (0)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 26, 2014 4:34 PM (in response to Bikas Tarw ay)

Thanks for the comment. Yes, it does give performance issues when you need to pull
millions of texts at once. Obviosuly, you won't loop READ_TEXT. Hope this makes sense!

Like (0)

Justin Molenaur Feb 26, 2014 3:50 PM

Mansoor, very nice explanation. I had read the post you mention Mass reading standard texts
(STXH, STXL) and had success implementing this as well. Now I have another question that some
more skilled ABAP'ers may be able to help with.

With regard to the IMPORT statement, does this work directly on the fields provided to it and convert
this into the text

OR

Does this actually retrieve something else from the database based on the binary types that are
provided, like a mapping technique?

For example, if I have the values in CLUSTR and CLUSTD in any given ABAP system, can I get the
values or do I need to execute this in the source where the STXH/STXL table exists?

My requirement is related to SLT replication, whereas I am trying to convert the values that are
extracted from ECC into SLT with the IMPORT statement. My assumption is that the IMPORT is able
to convert the CLUSTR and CLUSTD values outside of the source system, but now I am not sure.
Maybe the IMPORT statement is just converting the binary location in CLUSTR/CLUSTD and
retrieving from some other location in the system?

Hope this makes sense.

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Regards,
Justin
Like (0)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 26, 2014 4:42 PM (in response to Justin Molenaur)

Hi Justin. Thanks for the comments.

As far as I know, if import is specified in parameter_list from a data cluster, the data is
automatically converted to the current byte sequence (Endian) and character
representation. You can make use of conversion_options to make adaptations to the
current platform.

Hope this helps!

Like (0)

Justin Molenaur Feb 26, 2014 5:07 PM (in response to Mansoor Ahmed)

Not sure I understood you correctly there, you went over my head a bit with the first
comment.

If I have one single row of STXL, and extract that to another netweaver system, can
I perform the IMPORT there or is there some link that needs to be maintained?

Regards,
Justin
Like (0)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 27, 2014 8:15 AM (in response to Justin Molenaur)

You can have an addition of Conversion type with import statement. That
should work.
Like (0)

Adrián Mejido Feb 26, 2014 4:54 PM

Hi Mansoor,

Good document and very useful document!!

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Only one question, don't you think that use INNER-JOIN instead of FAE in the select would be better
for performance?

Cheers,

Adrián

Like (0)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 26, 2014 5:16 PM (in response to Adrián Mejido)

Hi Adrian,

There has been a never ending debate to use or not to use FAE. But you can use it and
track it via Performance Analysis tool and check which one gives you better performance.
Thanks.
Like (1)

Gareth Ryan Feb 26, 2014 6:49 PM (in response to Mansoor Ahmed)

And I'm pretty sure in almost all cases, you'll find a join is better than FAE. Have
you tried to make your code even b etter by changing it to use a join?
Like (1)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 28, 2014 12:25 PM (in response to Gareth Ryan)

Yeah absolutely! That's it! I was just telling Adrián Mejido to check it
and come back to me

Like (1)

Thomas Zloch Mar 7, 2014 1:13 PM (in response to Gareth Ryan)

Most of the code was taken from my original post, so please allow me to
explain.

In my approach the list of single values for the TDNAME selection does
not come from an STXH selection, but rather from a selection of
application data like BKPF/BSEG, to name an example. Long texts for FI
document items have TDNAME values concatenated from BUKRS,
BELNR, GJAHR and BUZEI. You need to build these TDNAMEs in an

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intermediate step before accessing STXL, that's why a direct join is not
possible, and FAE is the next best option.

Thomas
Like (4)

abilash n Feb 27, 2014 8:44 AM

Very nice research Mansoor Ahmed... Keep it up.....

Like (1)

Mansoor Ahmed Feb 28, 2014 12:24 PM (in response to abilash n)

Thank you abilash n

Like (0)

Sandra Rossi May 19, 2014 1:08 PM

Hello,

I think the code is not entirely correct. It may dump in case a standard text is very long. As you can
see, T_STXL_RAW is always one line before IMPORT ... FROM INTERNAL TABLE, but theorically
there should be more lines if the original text is very long. I found the standard text
ADRS_HEADER_LOGO_PRES provided by SAP, which is very long, and it should demonstrate the
bug.

The correction is not obvious as the loading is done by PACKAGE; consequently the last line of the
package may not be the last line of a text. So we need to wait for the next package to complete the
text and be able to use IMPORT. That requires both a sorted read (ORDER BY) and a buffer table.

The following code should always work. Please feel free to ask me any question if it's unclear.

REPORT.
TYPES: BEGIN OF ty_stxl,
relid TYPE stxl-relid,
tdobject TYPE stxl-tdobject,
tdname TYPE stxl-tdname,
tdid TYPE stxl-tdid,
tdspras TYPE stxl-tdspras,
srtf2 TYPE stxl-srtf2,
clustr TYPE stxl-clustr,
clustd TYPE stxl-clustd,
END OF ty_stxl.
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DATA: t_stxl TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl,
t_stxl_buffer TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <stxl> TYPE ty_stxl.
* compressed text data without text name
TYPES: BEGIN OF ty_stxl_raw,
clustr TYPE stxl-clustr,
clustd TYPE stxl-clustd,
END OF ty_stxl_raw.
DATA: t_stxl_raw TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl_raw.
DATA: w_stxl_raw TYPE ty_stxl_raw.
* decompressed text
DATA: t_tline TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF tline.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <tline> TYPE tline.
DATA: t_stxh TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF stxh,
w_stxh TYPE stxh.
TABLES stxh.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_object FOR stxh-tdobject.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_name FOR stxh-tdname.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_id FOR stxh-tdid.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_langu FOR stxh-tdspras.

SELECT tdname tdobject tdid tdspras

FROM stxh
INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF TABLE t_stxh
WHERE tdobject IN s_object
AND tdname IN s_name
AND tdid IN s_id
AND tdspras IN s_langu.

DATA s_stxl TYPE ty_stxl.

DATA l_first_tabix TYPE sy-tabix.
DATA l_last_tabix TYPE sy-tabix.
DATA subrc TYPE sy-subrc.
DATA process TYPE abap_bool.
CONSTANTS package_size TYPE i VALUE 3000.

* select compressed text lines in blocks of 3000 (adjustable)

DATA cursor TYPE cursor.
OPEN CURSOR cursor FOR
SELECT relid tdobject tdname tdid tdspras srtf2 clustr clustd
FROM stxl
FOR ALL ENTRIES IN t_stxh "WITH APPLICATION DATA AND TDNAME
WHERE relid = 'TX' "standard text
AND tdobject = t_stxh-tdobject
AND tdname = t_stxh-tdname
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AND tdid = t_stxh-tdid
AND tdspras = t_stxh-tdspras
ORDER BY PRIMARY KEY. "<=== new

DO.
FETCH NEXT CURSOR cursor
APPENDING TABLE t_stxl
PACKAGE SIZE package_size.
subrc = sy-subrc.

IF subrc = 4.
IF lines( t_stxl ) > 0.
process = abap_true.
ELSE.
process = abap_false.
ENDIF.

ELSEIF subrc = 0.
IF lines( t_stxl ) < package_size.
process = abap_true.
ELSE.

" put lines of last key aside, as there may be other lines for the same key
DESCRIBE TABLE t_stxl LINES l_last_tabix.
READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX l_last_tabix INTO s_stxl.
READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX 1 ASSIGNING <stxl>.

IF <stxl>-relid = s_stxl-relid
AND <stxl>-tdobject = s_stxl-tdobject
AND <stxl>-tdname = s_stxl-tdname
AND <stxl>-tdid = s_stxl-tdid
AND <stxl>-tdspras = s_stxl-tdspras.

" The whole package has same key -> load next lines

process = abap_false.

ELSE.

process = abap_true.

l_first_tabix = l_last_tabix.
l_first_tabix = l_last_tabix.
DO.
SUBTRACT 1 FROM l_first_tabix.
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READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX l_first_tabix ASSIGNING <stxl>.
IF sy-subrc <> 0.
EXIT.
ENDIF.
IF NOT ( <stxl>-relid = s_stxl-relid
AND <stxl>-tdobject = s_stxl-tdobject
AND <stxl>-tdname = s_stxl-tdname
AND <stxl>-tdid = s_stxl-tdid
AND <stxl>-tdspras = s_stxl-tdspras ).
EXIT.
ENDIF.
ENDDO.

ADD 1 TO l_first_tabix.
APPEND LINES OF t_stxl FROM l_first_tabix TO l_last_tabix TO t_stxl_buffer.
DELETE t_stxl FROM l_first_tabix TO l_last_tabix.

ENDIF.
ENDIF.
ELSE.
" can't happen
ASSERT 0 = 1.
ENDIF.

IF process = abap_true.
LOOP AT t_stxl ASSIGNING <stxl>.

AT NEW tdspras.
REFRESH t_stxl_raw.
ENDAT.

" decompress text

CLEAR w_stxl_raw.
w_stxl_raw-clustr = <stxl>-clustr.
w_stxl_raw-clustd = <stxl>-clustd.
APPEND w_stxl_raw TO t_stxl_raw.

AT END OF tdspras.
IMPORT tline = t_tline FROM INTERNAL TABLE t_stxl_raw.
DESCRIBE TABLE t_stxl_raw.
FORMAT COLOR 5.
WRITE: / 'AA', sy-tfill LEFT-JUSTIFIED, <stxl>-tdobject, <stxl>-tdname, <stxl>-tdid, <stxl>-tdspras.
FORMAT RESET.
LOOP AT t_tline ASSIGNING <tline>.
WRITE: / <tline>-tdline.
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ENDLOOP.
REFRESH t_stxl_raw.
ENDAT.

ENDLOOP.
ENDIF.

t_stxl = t_stxl_buffer.

IF subrc <> 0.
EXIT.
ENDIF.
ENDDO.

ASSERT 1 = 1. "(line for helping debug)

Like (5)

Thomas Zloch May 19, 2014 1:27 PM (in response to Sandra Rossi)

Nice catch, and thanks for enhancing the logic. It seems that the threshold of STXL-
CLUSTR is 7902 (bytes?), then a new line is started.
My use cases so far were far below this threshold, so it never occurred to me.

Cheers

Thomas

Like (0)

abilash n May 19, 2014 1:48 PM (in response to Sandra Rossi)

Thanks Sandra for amazing catch.

Like (0)

Thomas Zloch May 19, 2014 2:01 PM (in response to abilash n)

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Like (1)

abilash n May 19, 2014 4:38 PM (in response to Thomas Zloch)

Nice pic corresponding to my comment LOL.

Like (0)

Gurunath Kumar Dadamu May 19, 2014 5:12 PM

Hi Mansor,

Thanks for your effort. In Lot of cases many Abapers are using READ_TEXT fm. Now onwards we
will follow above code what you have mentioned.

Thanks,

Gurunath D

Like (0)

Thomas Zloch May 19, 2014 5:20 PM (in response to Gurunath Kumar Dadamu)

It's fine to use READ_TEXT. The approach described here is meant for performance-critical
mass processing.

Thomas
Like (1)

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Jelena Perfiljeva May 19, 2014 10:30 PM

You might also want to add IF t_stxh[] IS NOT INITIAL check before 'FOR ALL ENTRIES'. Or a
program could display some kind of 'No data found' message and just exit in such case, I guess...
Like (0)

Rüdiger Plantiko May 20, 2014 8:28 AM

Hi Mansoor,

the STXL storage mechanism that you proudly found out and exposed here (congratulations), is only
a small part of the function module READ_TEXT. There is

validation of TDID, TDOBJECT &c.

resolving of references: A text can be stored at another location than that your report is looking
for - indicated by the fields TDREFOBJ, TDREFNAME etc.
a buffering in a CATALOG memory segment,
a transactional memory connected to the CATALOG is provided: If the text has already been
deleted earlier in this session, NOT_FOUND will be issued, if it has been copied, newly
created, etc., it will be served from the memory instead of the DB
reading from archive is possible

Regards,
Rüdiger
Like (2)

Darshak Kathiriya Jun 12, 2014 4:52 PM

Hi Mansoor,

Good post, I have tried RETRIEVAL_MULTIPLE_TEXTS that you mentioned to read batch short text
and It is working fine !

Thanks,
Darshak
Like (0)

Xiaow en Liu Jun 12, 2014 6:36 PM

Wow! Very useful! Thanks for sharing!!!

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Like (0)

Riaz Momin Jul 24, 2014 10:25 AM

Had similar requirement and SCN directly came in to help.

Thanks a lot as your program gave me base to tweak it for my requirements.

Like (0)

SOMENDRA SHUKLA Jul 24, 2014 12:10 PM

Nice Alternative to Read_Text & Excellent use of field symbol and Import statement

Like (0)

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