Is text file format an option when creating custom extracts from ECC environments?

[Former Member]

Creating an extract in a csv format would incur additional costs for another team to reformat the csv file to a txt file before passing file to the target. To avoid this additional cost, would like to generate the file from ECC in txt format.

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

Um... Yes. Why would you think this is not an option? I'm confused... CSV is a text format, technically.

[Former Member]

We need to provide a fixed width file, with no delimiters and has a txt file extension. Is there a way to create this type of file format directly from ECC?

[DoanManhQuynh]

I think GUI_DOWNLOAD can download data in txt file, did you try it yet? file type should be ASC, i guess

https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp2/helpdata/de/c7/5ab8ec178c44a8aacd1dcac3460db8/frameset.htm

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

First off, please get the terminology straight: in general, there are text and binary file formats. The difference is explained here, for example. (This is not an SAP specific concept.) CSV format is just a type of a text file where data is separated by commas. The file extension (such as .csv or .txt) has actually no influence whatsoever on the file format. I can take a PDF file and change the extension to XLSX but this won't change the actual file content. The only difference is that operating system will think it's an Excel file and will, naturally, fail to open it in Excel. Because it's still a PDF file.

SAP can create text files. How exactly the data is written into a file (separated, fixed width, etc.) it depends solely on how you program it. We can also assign any extension to the file name. That doesn't mean anything, as I've just mentioned.

GUI_DOWNLOAF FM can create a text file on a presentation server.

OPEN DATASET and related commands are used to create a text file on an application server.

All this is covered by ABAP Help. Please ask whoever you're working with to simply consult with ABAP documentation.

[Former Member]

Thanks for the information, this was helpful.

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

If this question is answered then kindly close it.