Requests to Database Tables and Database Views 

Table names, view names, and field names

Usually, the naming conventions from the ABAP dictionary apply for table names and field names.

Naming convention for tables and views

Make sure that in the extraction you use only tables and views whose technical names are made up solely of upper case letters, numbers, and underscores (_). Using other characters can lead to problems.

The technical name of a DataSource that has been generated from a table or a view consists of the prefix 6DB_ plus the technical name of the table or the view. Since the names for DataSources in BW are limited to 30 characters, the technical name of the database tables or views can be no longer than 26 characters.
Tables and views with longer technical names are therefore not available for extraction.

Naming conventions for fields

Note that the technical field names can be no longer than 16 characters and must contain upper case letters, numbers, and underscores (_) only. Using other characters can lead to problems. You cannot use fields with reserved field names, such as COUNT. Fields that do not comply with these restrictions are not available for extraction.

SAP recommends that you use database views to access tables, so that you can convert the original names into upper case letters and make any other conversions that are necessary. For more information see Database Users and Database Schemas.

Codepage and sort sequence for the source system

SAP kernel-based systems, such as the BW system, work on the assumption that the database being used was created with the codepage cp850 and using the sort sequence ‘bin’. The source system configuration may be different from this. If the sort sequence is different, sample search ( like) and area search ( between, >,<) operations for character fields may return different results.

If you use multibyte codepages in the source system to store data for character records with more than 256 characters (special characters for Japanese (kanji and hiragana), Korean, Chinese, and so on) there is a risk that some of the characters will be corrupted.

When you generate the DataSource, you can check whether this kind of problem has occurred in the result of the extraction. See also Generating DataSources ® Step 3.

SAP recommends that you use the same codepage in both the database source system and in the BW system, because using different codepages can lead to problems with the data conversion and unexpected sort results.

DB data types

As a rule, the only data types that can be supported are those that can be modeled on ABAP Dictionary data types.

When you use DB data types, refer to the database-specific SAP notes for DB Connect shown below.

SAP recommends that you use database views to access tables, so that you can carry out any necessary data type conversions. For more information see Database Users and Database Schemas.

List of database-specific notes

When you use a MSS database, refer to SAP note 512739.

When you use an Oracle database, refer to SAP note 518241.

When you use an Informix database, refer to SAP note 520496.

When you use a SAP DB database, refer to SAP note 520647.

When you use an IBM DB2/390 database, refer to SAP note 523552.

When you use an IBM DB2/400 database, refer to SAP note 523381.

When you use an IBM DB2 UDB database, refer to SAP note 523622.