Background documentation  Migration of Help Views and Matchcodes to Search Helps Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Search helps were introduced with Release 4.0. Previously, input helps were defined by creating matchcodes and help views, but these did not provide as much functionality. When you upgrade to 4.x, these objects are converted to search helps with the same name (if necessary, the name is preceded with a Y or Z). The original objects remain in the system, but are now meaningless.

Prior to Release 4.0, a help view was a complete description of an input help, which was automatically attached to its primary table (and only to this table). An elementary search help is created from each help view. In a number of cases, the primary table of the help view can be entered as the selection method; the help view is used in the other cases. The search help that is created is attached to the primary table of the help view.

An elementary search help is created from a matchcode ID. It contains the database view that was created (for a transparent ID) or the generated pooled table of the matchcode ID (for a non-transparent ID) as selection method. In the first case, the generated view is now managed as a separate object in the ABAP Dictionary. In the second case, the pooled table still depends on its matchcode ID since the matchcode technique is used to update the data in this table.

A collective search help is created from a matchcode object. Matchcodes are attached to input fields on the screen. These attachments are converted to attachments of the generated collective search helps to the corresponding screen fields.

The following graphic illustrates the migration for help views and transparent matchcodes.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Leaving content frame