topic Re: difference of data element and domain in Application Development and Automation Discussions

difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:29:39 GMT

hi,

please tell me difference of data element and domain

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:31:04 GMT

Domains:

Domain is the central object for describing the technical characteristics of an attribute of an business objects. It describes the value range of the field.

Data Element:

It is used to describe the semantic definition of the table fields like description the field. Data element describes how a field can be displayed to end-user.

Domain is stored in DD01L table

Data elements is stored in DD04L table

REward points if useful.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:32:09 GMT

Data element contains description of the field

domain contains the technical information

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:51:43 GMT

A table is composed of fields. To create a field you need a data element. The data element contains the field labels and online documentation (also called F1 help) for the field. It is purely descriptive; it contains the semantic characteristics for the field, also known as the "business context." The labels you provide within a data element will be displayed on the screen beside an input field. The data element also contains documentation that is displayed when the user asks for help on that field by pressing the

F1 key.

A data element's definition requires a domain (see Figure 3.5). The domain contains the technical characteristics of a field, such as the field length and data type.

Domains and data elements are reusable. A domain can be used in more than one data element, and a data element can be used in more than one field and in more than one table.

For example, assume you need to design a customer information table called zcust that must contain work, fax, and home telephone numbers

create a field, you usually start by creating a domain for it. In this case, you might create a generic telephone number domain, name it zphone and give it a data type of CHAR and a length of 12. This would be a generic telephone number domain; most types of telephone numbers could be stored using this domain. As such, it can be used to define specific types of telephone numbers, such as fax or home telephone numbers.

After creating the domain to hold the purely technical description of a field, you then create a data element to hold the descriptive attributes of the field. In the data element you must enter the name of a domain to give it technical characteristics. Then, you enter the labels and documentation (F1 help) to describe the data you will store. In this example, you would probably create three data elements, one for each of the home, work, and fax telephone numbers. In each data element, you would enter field labels describing the type of telephone number you will store with it, and the F1 help for the end-user.

Having created the data elements, you can now create the table. You could create three phone number fields in the table (home, work, and fax) and assign the corresponding data element to each field. A data element is assigned to each field. This gives the field descriptive information from the data element and technical information from the domain that it references. When the field is used on a screen, it obtains a label and F1 help documentation from the data element, and its length and data type form the domain within the data element.

In another example, you might need to store a person's name in three different tables: customer, vendor, and employee tables. In the customer table you want to store a customer name, in the vendor table a vendor name, and in the employee table an employee name. Because it is a good idea to give the same data type and length to all person-name fields, you can create a single generic person-name domain, for example zpersname. Then you can create a data element for each business usage of a person's name: for the customer name, the vendor name, and the employee name. Within each data element you refer to your zpersname domain to give them all the same characteristics. You could then use these data elements to create fields within each table.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:04:12 GMT

Hi,

Domain provides technical attributes for field like data type, length, and possible value range.

Data element provides business context. i.e., it provides field labels for the field in the backend,

Data type :

A data element is an elementary type. It describes the type attributes (data type, field length and possibly the number of decimal places) and screen information (explanatory text or field help) about unstructured data objects (table fields and structure fields or variables).

Table fields and structure fields with the same contents should refer to the same data element. This ensures that the attributes of these fields are always consistent.

A data element can be referenced in ABAP programs with TYPE. This permits you to define variables that take on the type attributes of the data element in an ABAP program.

Domain :

A domain describes the technical attributes of a field, such as the data type or the number of positions in a field. The domain defines primarily a value range describing the valid data values for the fields referring to this domain.

Different technical fields of the same type can be combined in a domain. Fields referring to the same domain are changed at the same time when a domain is changed. This ensures the consistency of these fields.

Additional info about data element

1.Data type, number of places and possibly the decimal places were entered directly. In this case the field is not filled.

2.A data element is assigned to the field. The field then gets its data type, length and possibly decimal places from this data element. The semantic attributes of the element (field help, representation of the field in input templates with keyword text, column headers for list output of the table contents and editing of the output with parameter IDs) are also copied.

Domain - Specifies the technical attributes of a data

element - its data type, length, possible values, and

appearance on the screen.Each data element has an

underlying domain. A single domain can be the basis for

several data elements. Domains are objects in the ABAP

Dictionary.

Data Element - Describes the business function

of a table field. Its technical attributes are based on a

domain, and its business function is described by its field

labels and documentation.

Domain: describes the data type .

Data element: Nothing but the semantic representation of

fields (ex: Label names)

regards,

vasavi.

kindly reward if helpful.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:05:34 GMT

hi,

we can defferenciate them like this simply,

domain: where can maintain technical properties for the field

i.e. char type and lenth of the field..

ex: take kunnr field which char type is c and lenth is 10, these char type c and lenth 10 we r maintaining in domain.

data element: where we can maintain business meaning for the field

i.e. name which can understand

ex: kunnr is nothing but customer no that we can define in dataelement..

reward points if useful,

seshu.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:06:15 GMT

hi,

A data element describes either an elementary type or a reference type.An elementary type is defined by the built-in data type, length and possibly the number of decimal places. These type attributes can either be defined directly in the data element or copied from a domain.

A reference type defines the types of reference variables in ABAP programs.

You can use a data element to define the type of a table field, structure component or the row type of a table type. A data element can also be referenced in ABAP programs with TYPE. As a result, variables that take on the attributes of a data element can be defined in an ABAP program

Domain:

A domain defines a value range. A domain is assigned to a data element. All table fields or structure components that use this data element then have the value range defined by the domain. The relationship between the field or component and the domain is thus defined by the data element of the field or component.

Fields or components that refer to the same domain (with the assigned data elements) are also changed when the domain is changed. This ensures that the value ranges of these fields or components are consistent. Fields or components that are technically the same can thus be combined with a reference to the same domain.

rewrd if its useful

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:13:56 GMT

Hi Suja,

Domain: - A domain describes the technical settings of a table field.

- A domain defines a value range, which sets the permissible data values for the fields, which refers to this domain.

- A single domain can be used as basis for any number of fields that are identical in structure.

Data element:

- A data element describes the role played by a domain in a technical context.

- A data element contains semantic information.

Reward If Useful.

Regards,

Chitra Parameswaran

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:54:17 GMT

hi,

elementary data type- all basic data types provided by sap

reference data type- any user defined data type that is in turn

defined in a program using TYPE

e.g.-d1 .

data d1 type <basic sap data type>.

have i got the above definitions correct? if not give me the

proper explanation.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:30:32 GMT

yes, that declaration is correct.

reference type is type and like.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:49:37 GMT

Data elements (elementary types)

Elementary types have no structure. They describe the data type attributes (such as given Dictionary data type, number of places) and information that is relevant for the screen (such as title) of unstructured data objects (variables/fields).

Structures (structured types) Structured types describe the structure and functions of any structured data objects, that is of data structures with components of any type.

A component can be a field with an elementary type or can itself be a structure. A table can also be used as a component in a structure.

A database table always has a structure and is therefore implicitly a structured type. However, the fields of a database table can only have an elementary type.

Table types Table types describe the structure and functions of internal tables in the ABAP program. Their rows can have any row type. Table types with elementary row type therefore can be defined just the same as multi-dimensional table types (table types with a table type as row type) or table types using structures with table-like components.

The basic objects for defining data in the ABAP Dictionary are tables, data elements and domains. The domain is used for the technical definition of a table field (for example field type and length) and the data element is used for the semantic definition (for example short description).

A domain describes the value range of a field. It is defined by its data type and length. The value range can be limited by specifying fixed values.

A data element describes the meaning of a domain in a certain business context. It contains primarily the field help (F1 documentation) and the field labels in the screen.

A field is not an independent object. It is table-dependent and can only be maintained within a table.

You can enter the data type and number of places directly for a field. No data element is required in this case. Instead the data type and number of places is defined by specifying a direct type.

The data type attributes of a data element can also be defined by specifying a built-in type, where the data type and number of places is entered directly.

Two Level Domain Example

A domain defines a field technically and therefore it may

be used at different business levels.

A data element describes the meaning of a domain in a certain business context.

A domain, however, is used for the technical definition of a table field (for example field type and length).

Therefore, although a take-off airport (data element S_FROMAIRP) would have a different business meaning from an airport where a plane lands (data element S_TOAIRP), they could still have the same domain(here S_AIRPID) because technically we could assign the same number of characters whether the airport is a take-off or a landing airport.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:39:51 GMT

Hi ,

Domains:Domain is the central object for describing the technical characteristics of an attribute of an business objects. It describes the value range of the field.

Data Element: It is used to describe the semantic definition of the table fields like description the field. Data element describes how a field can be displayed to end-user.

Reward points if it is usefull...

Girish

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:04:17 GMT

To create a field in a table you need a data element and domain to define its technical and non technical characterstics.

The data element contains the field labels and online documentation (also called F1 help) for the field.The labels you provide within a data element will be displayed on the screen beside an input field.

A data element's definition requires a domain .The domain contains the technical characteristics of a field, such as the field length and data type.Domains and data elements are reusable. A domain can be used in more than one data element, and a data element can be used in more than one field and in more than one table.

To create a field in a table you need a data element and domain to define its technical and non technical characterstics.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:26:21 GMT

hi,

go thru the links for interesting stuff...

domain

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_47x200/helpdata/en/fb/54833c4f3e092de10000000a114027/frameset.htm

data element

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_47x200/helpdata/en/90/8d72feb1af11d194f600a0c929b3c3/frameset.htm

regards,

teja.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:24:25 GMT

hi prs,

i think ur answer is different and seems to be relevant also.

what is reference from which u got this answer? it may be useful to me also.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:07:15 GMT

Hi suja,

Data Element : which describes the meaning of the field

Domain : Which determines the technical characteristic of the field

Regards,

Azhar

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:26:33 GMT

Hai,

Domain: Domain Describes the Technical Attributes of a field.

Where as Data elements describe the contextual meaning of a field.

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:21:20 GMT

Hi,

A field in SAP DDIC is defined using domain and data

elements.

Domain describes the data type and length of the field,

ie it gives the technical details of the field.

And, Data element describes what the data element means

in business context, ie the semantic information

regarding the field. (You get the same through the F1

documentation.)

DDIC is responsible for enforcing the data integrity,

and managing data without redundancy. Now data

redundancy is reduced by linking similar information to

the same data definition. For example, an employee

table will contain Name, so will be the case in a

Customer table. Now both of the information are of

similar technical qualities however they are of

different semantic details. In this case to avoid

redundancy we can use the same domain for name fields

in both the fields and use different data elements for

the semantic details.

Besides, this helps in easy access of development

objects. Having similar objects can help us find

different objects of similar kind.

Hope this was helpful.

Regards,

Rajesh. K. Soman

For further reading you can refer the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP#The_ABAP_dictionary

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:08:01 GMT

A data element describes either an elementary type or a reference type.

An elementary type is defined by the built-in data type, length and possibly the number of decimal places. These type attributes can either be defined directly in the data element or copied from a domain.

A reference type defines the types of reference variables in ABAP programs.

Information about the meaning of a table field or structure component and information about editing the corresponding screen field can be assigned to a data element. This information is automatically available to all screen fields that refer to the data element.

This information includes the display of the field in input templates using key word text, column headers for list output of the table contents (see Field Labels ), and output editing using parameter IDs.

This is also true for online field documentation. The text appearing in the field help (F1 help) in a field of an input template (see Documentation and Docu Status) comes from the corresponding data element.

The field CONNID (flight class) of table SBOOK refers to the data element S_CONN_ID. This data element gets its technical attributes (data type NUMC, field length 4) from domain S_CONN_ID. Data element S_CONN_ID describes the technical attributes and meaning (with an assigned long text and an explanatory short text) of field CONNID (and all other fields that refer to this data element).

A variable having the type of data element S_CONN_ID can be defined in an ABAP program with the statement DATA CONNID TYPE S_CONN_ID.

chk this link -

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/90/8d72feb1af11d194f600a0c929b3c3/content.htm

Re: difference of data element and domain

Former Member — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:53:22 GMT

domain contains technical specifications such as data types and data element contains symantecs such as field lables.