ARTICLE
Contexts (Obsolete)
Contexts are repository objects
defined abstractly in Context Builder
(transaction SE33 ) in ABAP
Workbench that are used to derive the values of additional fields
from key fields. ABAP programs work with instances of contexts.
A context comprises fields and modules. The fields of a context are
subdivided into key fields and derived fields. The modules describe how
the values of the derived fields are created from the key fields.
Modules are based on foreign key
dependencies between database tables and function modules defined in
ABAP Dictionary, or on other contexts. Viewed from a technical
perspective, contexts are special ABAP programs (context programs)
generated by Context Builder.
An ABAP program can create one or more instances of a context. It can
supply the key fields for each instance with values and query the fields
derived. Each context has a cross-transaction
buffer on the application server
, whose attributes are defined in Context Builder. When an instance
is queried for values, the system first searches the corresponding
buffer for a record with the corresponding key fields. Only if there are
not yet any values recorded for this key are they derived from the
modules and written to the buffer.
The statements CONTEXTS ,
SUPPLY , and DEMAND are used to
handle contexts.
Note
Although contexts can be compared with highly specialized classes, they
are not ABAP Objects . Contexts were
introduced for high-performance access to frequently required derived
data. Since the introduction of ABAP Objects, further development of
contexts has been discontinued. Contexts can now be replaced by
shared objects .
Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved