Comparison of ALV with IDA Versus SAP List Viewer
From an application development perspective, programming with SAP List Viewer with Integrated Data Access is for fundamental technical reasons very different to programming with SAP List Viewer (ALV) on a standard database. This documentation describes the programming techniques, and provides links to sample programs that were delivered with the system.
| SAP List Viewer | ALV with IDA | |
|---|---|---|
| Data Retrieval | Responsibility of application, data is collected in an internal ABAP table (ITAB) | Responsibility of ALV, table name has to be transferred |
| Data Contents | All data from the ITAB | Visible area only |
| Roundtrip (e.g. scrolling) | From ALV perspective only operations on the ABAP Server, new area from the ITAB is displayed | Paging on the database, that is, new SQL statement is executed |
| Application ALV Services (sorting, filtering…) | On the ITAB (snapshot behavior) | New call to the database |
| Memory Consumption | Depends on the size of the ITAB | Visible area only, relating to columns and rows |
| Speed | Time required for all data to be transferred to the ITAB on first display | Time required for visible area to be transferred |
The following sections explain these differences in more detail.