Database Views
Often several database tables contain the data about an application object. A database view provides an application-specific view of such distributed data.
Database views are defined in the ABAP Dictionary. The system automatically creates a database view in the underlying database when you activate the view.
Application programs can access the data of a database view using the database interface. You can access the data in ABAP programs with both OPEN SQL and NATIVE SQL. However, the system actually makes the data selection in the database. Since the join operation is executed in the database in this case, you can minimize the number of database accesses in this way. Database views implement an inner join(see Inner and Outer Join ). In the figure below you can see how a database view works.
If the database view contains only a single table, the maintenance status can be used to determine if data records can also be inserted with the view. If the database view contains more than one table, you can only read the data.
Database views must be created if you want to select logically connected data from different tables simultaneously. Selection with a database view is faster than access to individual tables. When selecting with views, you must also ensure that there are suitable indexes on the tables contained in the view.
Since a database view is implemented in the database; a database view can only contain transparent tables.
The technical settings of a database view control whether the view data must be buffered.
See also: