IDoc Connector for XML Component (BC-FES-AIT) (SAP Library - IDoc Connector for XML Component (BC-FES-AIT))

IDoc Connector for XML Component (BC-FES-AIT)

Purpose

The IDoc Connector for XML is a COM component that provides an XML interface for working with IDoc documents.

The IDoc Connector for XML component accepts your XML documents and sends them as inbound IDocs to a specified R/3 system. Conversely, it can receive outbound IDocs and it translate them into XML documents for your application to use.

One advantage of using XML documents instead of IDocs is that an XML document is easier to write, read and interpret. The IDoc protocol is very particular, for example, about the placement of data fields and spaces in a document. In addition, XML is a standard language. Working with XML documents instead of IDocs allows you to take advantage of available standard parsers.

Features

The IDoc Connector for XML component lets you develop DCOM applications that can:

wait for one or more incoming outbound IDoc(s), receiving them as XML document(s) and also saving them as XML file(s)
send one or more XML document(s) to an R/3 system as inbound IDoc(s)

The XML document can be created by your program or it can be taken from an existing XML file

The IDoc Connector for XML component does the translation to and from XML automatically.

Implementation Considerations

The IDoc Connector for XML is an ActiveX Server. It is only available for Microsoft Windows systems (Windows 95 and up and Windows NT), for DCOM-compliant programs.

The IDoc Connector for XML works with R/3 releases 3.1 and higher.

Integration

The IDoc Connector for XML component can reside on the same system as your application, or it can reside on a separate system. It communicates with your application through Microsoft DCOM.

The IDoc Connector for XML component works with the SAP DCOM Connector, allowing you to use Destination entries that had been defined in the SAP DCOM Connector for logon information (See Using the Component for Creating Inbound IDocs).

The IDoc Connector for XML component also works with the DCOM Connector Logon Component (which is a part of the SAP Automation suite of tools and components) to get logon information from an end user (See Using the Component for Creating Inbound IDocs).

The IDoc Connector for XML component communicates with the R/3 system through the Transactional RFC (tRFC) protocol. To accept outbound IDocs the component must be set up to be an RFC server.

The R/3 system with which you exchange documents must be set up to send and receive IDocs. This involves configuring an ALE infrastructure and configuring the IDoc interface (See Prerequisite Setup).

Constraints

When sending inbound IDoc documents, the IDoc Connector for XML only verifies the syntax of the XML tags in the XML document you specify. It does not verify the resulting IDoc, or the data in it.