Table Mappings

[Former Member]

Hi all,

Was looking into the ABAP technical tables and

have a few questions regarding these tables.

[1]

what is the difference between Data Dictionary and ABAP dictionary.Are they same?

I know what an ABAP dictionary is.What is a data dictionary then?

[2]

How are the SD tables related.For example:-

If I look into a diagram of "SalesDocumentHeader"(See attcahed figure)- I see the VBAK table as base table and VBAP,VEPVG,VBEP as derived tables(With the arrows,Do they also have a meaning.Some arrows are there in both directions).

what does this Base - derived relationship mean.

Should I have to look this in an object oriented way as in programming,so that if I access a derived table,I could access the fields in the Base table.

Would appreciate if someone could answer the above questions.

Thanks

P

[Former Member]

ABAP Dictionary and Data Dictionary are actually the same Only there is a difference in the name. Data Dictionary is the Logical View of the database.

ABAP Dictionary= data dictionary = SAP dictionary

Regards,

Edited by: nihad omerbegovic on Dec 8, 2009 3:18 PM

[former_member194416]

For second question.

No it doesn't mean object oriented derivation. It only means tables has similar keys. And in runtime generally you need to build your own logic to access logically connected tables (creating tables using joins).

Only case similar this derivation is logical databases. If you are fetching data using logical database you can access many tables at once (but it is actually a system program selecting data for you it is actually not a derivation).

[Former Member]

Thanks guys....1 question though.

VBAK table.Is it a logical table belonging to a logical database.

[Former Member]

Hi,

goto se36, press F4 on LDB and insert VBAK in tablename.

regards, Dieter

[Former Member]

I did that it shows me that it is a transparent table.So its a representation of a table in the database and not a logical table

[Former Member]

Hi ,

Tables can be only of 3 type : transparent,clusture or pooled tables.There is no other type of table like logical table.Logical database are not any tables or database.They are the programs to fetch data.