Defining a Form Interface 

Use

You define a form interface to send data from your application to a form.

Integration

The form interface is a part of the Interface form object and is defined in the Form Builder. The form interface of a form is structured in the same way as the interface of a function module in the system. However, form interfaces do not support Changing parameters.

Prerequisites

●     You have created an Interface form object.

●     The application program provides the data that you want to insert in the form. Therefore, you already know the types of the corresponding variables.

The semantics of the valid parameter types match the semantics of a function module,

See also:

Getting Information about Interface Parameters

Overview of Function Modules (in ABAP Workbench: Tools)

Creating Function Modules (in ABAP Programming (BC-ABA))

Procedure

...

       1.      Open the required interface in the Repository Browser of the ABAP Workbench.

       2.      The Interface tab is displayed. Under Form Interface, double-click the Import node.

       3.      You see a screen for entering import parameters. This screen also shows the standard parameter /1BCDWB/DOCPARAMS. You cannot change this parameter.

You use this parameter in your application program, to specify the value for the language setting, for example. To display this structure in the ABAP Dictionary, double-click the SFPDOCPARAMS type.

       4.      XML schema-based interface

○     The standard parameter /1BCDWB/DOCXML with the type XSTRING is used for sending data from the application program.

ABAP-based or Smart-Forms-compatible interface

○     To insert a new line, choose Insert Line (). Enter the parameter names of the data you want to import. These names are valid for the whole form and do not have to match the variable names in the data collection program. All data types are valid. TYPE can be selected under Type Assignment.

       5.      When you double-click Export, you see the standard parameter /1BCDWB/FORMOUTPUT of the generated function module. You cannot change this parameter.

You use this parameter in your application program, to make the generated form available as a PDF for further processing, for example.

       6.      To display the exceptions used by the generated function module, double-click Exceptions.

       7.      Activate the interface.

At runtime, the application program must provide the parameters. If a parameter has been defined in the form, but is not defined when the application program is called, then the output of the form ends with the program crashing (hex dump).

However, it is also possible that the application program provides parameters that the form does not need. You do not need to mention these parameters in the form; they can also be specified in a different order from the code of the application program. This has the advantage that an application program can work with several different forms.

Migrated Smart Forms Interface or New Smart Forms-Compatible Interface

When you edit the interface of a migrated Smart Form or a new interface that is compatible with Smart Forms, the Tables option gives you extra parameters. When you set the Import, Export, and Exceptions parameters, the system also lets you use the standard parameters from the Smart Forms.

If you have a Smart Forms-compatible interface, you can use the existing application program of this Smart Form without making any modifications. (See also Switching Runtime in Migrating Smart Forms.)

Result

You have defined the form interface and you can use the specified parameter names in the form context.