Columns with Special Technical Meaning

Using Control Columns

With control columns you assign specific properties to one or more cells.

There are two types of control columns:

• Control columns that are fixed and assigned to a specific column.

• Control Columns That Contain Information for Any Number of Columns

Control Columns That are Assigned to a Specific Column

Specifications in the control column exclusively refer to the current column. The cells of this control column each can only contain one value that controls the content of the linked cell.

For this type of control columns, use the following methods:

Control Columns That Contain Information for Any Number of Columns

The cells of this control column contain whole tables:

• Each of these tables exclusively refers to cells in the same row of the ALV output.

• If this table contains multiple rows, each of these rows controls a specific column of the ALV output.

• Every row then contains the name of the column in the ALV output to which the settings refer (in the graphic below, rows 1 and 2).

• If no column name is specified, all columns of the ALV output get the settings (in the graphic below, row 3).

For this type of control columns, use the following methods:

Use Graphic Column

In list-type ALV outputs, you are only able to display icons or symbols in columns that are specifically defined for this purpose. They may only contain entries that uniquely identify an icon or symbol in your system.

Exception Column

The exception column is a special form of the graphic column:

It displays a status of the current data record with specific icons.

As opposed to regular graphic columns, the exception column has additional properties:

• The values in the exception column must be between 1 and 5

• It can only display a specific set of icons. You are able to choose the icons you wish to display from several exception groups. In the exception column itself, only the values allowed in this exception group are available

• Users cannot hide the exception column

• In list-type ALV outputs, the exception column is always displayed as the first column

Columns with Special Function

With some special columns, you control functions that are only useful in very specific situations.

Expansion Column

This column is only available in the hierarchical-sequential list. You use it to specifically display and hide position rows for specific headers. Here you only check whether an entry in a row of this column is included: if the cell is empty, only the position rows for the associated header are displayed. If the cell gets a value, the position rows for the associated header are hidden.

Text Column for Labels in Results Rows for Intermediate Results

You are able to display intermediate results for aggregations. These intermediate results are displayed in a special results row in the column the values of which are used in the aggregation. All other columns in this row are empty by default. You are able to specify a column the values of which are also transferred to the results row.

Counter Column to Determine the Number of Rows

You are able to determine and output the number of data records of the ALV output. To do this, you need a special column, the count column. The rows of this count column never display data. The results row, however, contains the number of data records.