Documentation Tools

Use

The IDoc interface is an open interface, which means that the structure and use of the IDoc types is transparent. To allow for this, the IDoc Interface provides tools which display the documentation in various formats. You can choose between thetechnical view (such as field lengths or release information) and theapplication view (such as the meaning of the actual application data in the segment).

Another advantage of the documentation tools is that they can also format information for automatic processing. In this way, an EDI subsystem, for example, can be supplied with information about a new IDoc type so that the IDoc type can be processed correctly in future.

Features

The following table provides an overview of what can be documented with each tool and in which format. The tools are underSAP Menu  Tools  IDoc Interface/ALE  Administration  Services  Documentation.

Theparser format is a simple SAP list of fields to be documented which can be read by a parser in an external system. Associated units (segments, record types, and so on) are encapsulated by BEGIN…END commands. The list can be sent to a PC (formats: rich text, ASCII, spreadsheet) transferred or printed.

TheHTML format is used for output to the screen.

The formatDTD is theDocument Type Definition for theOutput of IDocs in XML files. It contains the XML elements which can or must appear in the IDocs of the type used.

All formats can be found underSAP Menu  Tools  ALE and EDI  Development  Generate ALE Interface  IDoc Types (WE30).