The BAPI Gateway component allows you to call BAPIs (which are methods of SAP business objects) and RFC function modules dynamically. This means that at design time you do not have to know which BAPIs or function modules you are going to call at run time.

Since you do not know which BAPIs or function modules you are going to call at run time, you also do not know the metadata of those BAPIs or function modules. For example, you do not know which BAPIs exist for a business object you wish to use, and for each of the BAPIs you may call in that business object you do not know what their parameters are, and what is the data type of each of the parameters. You can use the Repository Services component in conjunction with the BAPI Gateway to get this metadata at run time.

Internally, the BAPI Gateway component uses the following related products:

• It uses services from the SAP DCOM Connector to handle connections to R/3 when such a connection is required. You need to have the SAP DCOM Connector installed, and use its Destination editor to define at least one destination system, before you can call BAPIs or function modules in that R/3 system.
• It uses the SAP Automation DCOM Connector Logon Component to get necessary logon information.
• It also uses the Repository Services component to get metadata information.

The BAPI Gateway can be used by DCOM-compliant programs, such as those written in Visual Basic, Java, C++, and so on.