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Former Member
February 25, 2014 3 minute read

Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more FM needed)

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36 Likes 71,653 Views 53 Comments

Hello everyone!

This one is for all of those and me too. Most of the posts I have seen on SDN where people asking for alternative READ_TEXT alternative fuvtion
module for read_text | SCN or mass usage of READ_TEXT. Some good or better developers – I must say – are worried about performance issues. Few
newbies are still looking for the usage of READ_TEXT. Lol. FM – READ_TEXT issue with data declaration | SCN

I was also looking for some alternate solution but all in vain. I found one good wiki about the usage of the FM: Function Example READ_TEXT ABAP
wrapper function – Enterprise Information Management – SCN Wiki. This one is great but obviously I have two main concerns. 1. Performance, 2.

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Mass usage of reading long text of any object. There is another way to achieve mass read of long text by looping the READ_TEXT (lol, that’s funny), I
don’t need this either because I need performance. I don’t want Basis guys cursing me! 😉

So, what I came with was to avoid READ_TEXT, now the question is HOW? You might think of a big NO! Not possible! But remember

Lots of time people say no when they don’t know.

Let me assure you one thing I have done this and it is ready working like a charm.

All you need to do is just fetch the data, rst from STXH then from the line item table STXL. Only question left is how to decompress the long text?
Well, that’s pretty easy and not a big deal all you need is the use of IMPORT statement.

Now let’s see what we have to and how to do it? Below is the code that’s is working 4 to 5 times faster than READ_TEXT performance and is as simple
as anything!

*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
*& Report  ZMA_READ_TEXT
*&
*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
*&
*&
*&---------------------------------------------------------------------*
REPORT  ZMA_READ_TEXT.
TYPES: BEGIN OF TY_STXL,
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          TDNAME TYPE STXL-TDNAME,

          CLUSTR TYPE STXL-CLUSTR,
          CLUSTD TYPE STXL-CLUSTD,
        END OF TY_STXL.
DATA:  T_STXL TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TY_STXL.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <STXL> TYPE TY_STXL.
* compressed text data without text name
TYPES: BEGIN OF TY_STXL_RAW,
          CLUSTR TYPE STXL-CLUSTR,
          CLUSTD TYPE STXL-CLUSTD,
        END OF TY_STXL_RAW.
DATA:  T_STXL_RAW TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TY_STXL_RAW.
DATA:  W_STXL_RAW TYPE TY_STXL_RAW.
* decompressed text
DATA:  T_TLINE TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF TLINE.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <TLINE> TYPE TLINE.
DATA: T_STXH TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF STXH,
       W_STXH TYPE STXH.
SELECT TDNAME TDOBJECT TDID
   FROM STXH
     INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF TABLE T_STXH.
*AND THEN
* select compressed text lines in blocks of 3000 (adjustable)
SELECT TDNAME CLUSTR CLUSTD
        INTO TABLE T_STXL
        FROM STXL
        PACKAGE SIZE 3000
        FOR ALL ENTRIES IN T_STXH "WITH APPLICATION DATA AND TDNAME
        WHERE RELID    = 'TX'          "standard text
          AND TDOBJECT = T_STXH-TDOBJECT
          AND TDNAME   = T_STXH-TDNAME
          AND TDID     = T_STXH-TDID
          AND TDSPRAS  = SY-LANGU.
   LOOP AT T_STXL ASSIGNING <STXL>.
*   decompress text

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     CLEAR: T_STXL_RAW[], T_TLINE[].

     W_STXL_RAW-CLUSTR = <STXL>-CLUSTR.
     W_STXL_RAW-CLUSTD = <STXL>-CLUSTD.
     APPEND W_STXL_RAW TO T_STXL_RAW.
     IMPORT TLINE = T_TLINE FROM INTERNAL TABLE T_STXL_RAW.
*  access text lines for further processing
     LOOP AT T_TLINE ASSIGNING <TLINE>.
       WRITE: / <TLINE>-TDLINE.
     ENDLOOP.
   ENDLOOP.
   FREE T_STXL.
ENDSELECT.

Here is the output: I have not restricted it to any object (obviously you can do it for your need) and boy it pulls more then 1300 records within a nano
second!

Boom!!

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There is another Function Module to fetch multiple texts: RETRIEVAL_MULTIPLE_TEXTS but I haven’t used it. 🙂

Now the last thing, I want to thank Mr. Julian Phillips and Mr. Thomas Zloch. Thankful to Julian because he posted and Thomas gave the solution.
Same solution I implemented with some additions. Here is the post I referred to: Mass reading standard texts (STXH, STXL)

Alert Moderator

I hope you will reuse this code to fetch multiple long text and your comments, suggestions and complaints are welcome! 😀
Assigned tags

Note:Development
ABAP Sourcecode attached!
| abap | abap unit | beginner | code |

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53 Comments

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Praveen Nenawa

February 25, 2014 at 1:56 pm

Hi Mansoor ,

Nice shot !!!!

Will use it for sure the next time . As of now bookmarked 😉.
Thanks for Sharing .

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Praveen .

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 25, 2014 at 1:57 pm

Thanks for the appreciation. Do let me know when you use it. You can also add some lters to the WHERE clause to restrict your query.

Like(0)

YUNUS KALDIRIM

February 26, 2014 at 8:31 am

Hi Mansoor,

Nice investigation. Thanks for your kind share about read_text.

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 28, 2014 at 11:26 am

Thank you YUNUS KALDIRIM keep sharing! 🙂

Like(0)

Bikas Tarway

February 26, 2014 at 9:18 am

https://blogs.sap.com/2014/02/25/alternative-to-readtext-function-module/ 7/32
4/15/2021 Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more FM needed) | SAP Blogs

Hi Mansoor,

Thanks for your blog.

I never knew read_text  also gives any performance issue 😯

Thanks

Bikas

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 26, 2014 at 3:34 pm

Thanks for the comment. Yes, it does give performance issues when you need to pull millions of texts at once. Obviosuly, you won't loop READ_TEXT.
Hope this makes sense! 🙂
Like(0)

Former Member

February 26, 2014 at 2:50 pm

Mansoor, very nice explanation. I had read the post you mention Mass reading standard texts (STXH, STXL) and had success implementing this as
well. Now I have another question that some more skilled ABAP'ers may be able to help with.

With regard to the IMPORT statement, does this work directly on the elds provided to it and convert this into the text

OR

Does this actually retrieve something else from the database based on the binary types that are provided, like a mapping technique?

For example, if I have the values in CLUSTR and CLUSTD in any given ABAP system, can I get the values or do I need to execute this in the source
where the STXH/STXL table exists?

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My requirement is related to SLT replication, whereas I am trying to convert the values that are extracted from ECC into SLT with the IMPORT
statement. My assumption is that the IMPORT is able to convert the CLUSTR and CLUSTD values outside of the source system, but now I am not
sure. Maybe the IMPORT statement is just converting the binary location in CLUSTR/CLUSTD and retrieving from some other location in the system?

Hope this makes sense.

Regards,

Justin

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 26, 2014 at 3:42 pm

Hi Justin. Thanks for the comments.

As far as I know, if import is speci ed in parameter_list from a data cluster, the data is automatically converted to the current byte sequence (Endian)
and character representation. You can make use of conversion_options to make adaptations to the current platform.

Hope this helps!

Like(0)

Former Member

February 26, 2014 at 4:07 pm

Not sure I understood you correctly there, you went over my head a bit with the rst comment.

If I have one single row of STXL, and extract that to another netweaver system, can I perform the IMPORT there or is there some link that needs to be
maintained?

Regards,

Justin

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Former Member | Post author

February 27, 2014 at 7:15 am

You can have an addition of Conversion type with import statement. That should work.

Like(0)

Adrián Mejido

February 26, 2014 at 3:54 pm

Hi Mansoor,

Good document and very useful document!!

Only one question, don't you think that use INNER-JOIN instead of FAE in the select would be better for performance?

Cheers,

Adrián

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 26, 2014 at 4:16 pm

Hi Adrian,

There has been a never ending debate to use or not to use FAE. But you can use it and track it via Performance Analysis tool and check which one
gives you better performance. Thanks. 🙂
Like(0)

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Former Member

February 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm

And I'm pretty sure in almost all cases, you'll nd a join is better than FAE.  Have you tried to make your code even better by changing it to use a join?
😉
Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 28, 2014 at 11:25 am

Yeah absolutely! That's it! I was just telling Adrián Mejido to check it and come back to me 😉
Like(0)

Thomas Zloch

March 7, 2014 at 12:13 pm

Most of the code was taken from my original post, so please allow me to explain.

In my approach the list of single values for the TDNAME selection does not come from an STXH selection, but rather from a selection of application
data like BKPF/BSEG, to name an example. Long texts for FI document items have TDNAME values concatenated from BUKRS, BELNR, GJAHR and
BUZEI. You need to build these TDNAMEs in an intermediate step before accessing STXL, that's why a direct join is not possible, and FAE is the next
best option.

Thomas

Like(1)

Former Member

March 25, 2015 at 2:57 pm

Hi Thomas,

https://blogs.sap.com/2014/02/25/alternative-to-readtext-function-module/ 11/32
4/15/2021 Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more FM needed) | SAP Blogs

I have used your logic to read long texts. But sometimes texts I get have non-english characters(French characters in my case). When I have them the
program dumps at import statement. Do you have any suggestion for it.

Thanks for the assistance

Naveen

Like(0)

Thomas Zloch

March 25, 2015 at 8:28 pm

No practical experience with other languages. Please specify the dump: title, what happened, error analysis.

Thomas

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Former Member

March 25, 2015 at 8:47 pm

Error:

Category               Error at ABAP Runtime

Runtime Errors         IMPORT_CONTAINER_MISSING

What happened?

    Error in the SAP kernel

    The current ABAP program "XXXX"

     the ABAP

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    processor detected a system error.

IF T_STXL_RAW IS NOT INITIAL.

  IMPORT TLINE = T_TLINE FROM INTERNAL TABLE T_STXL_RAW.

IF T_TLINE IS NOT INITIAL.

Bold is the line where is it is going to dump.  I analyzed the text it is going to dump. I think special characters in words like Montréal, Québec are causing it.
Other texts are loading fine.

As the text would be in hexadecimal, is there anyway I could check for those special characters before passing it to Import statement.

Thanks for the input.

Like(0)

abilash n

February 27, 2014 at 7:44 am

Very nice research Mansoor Ahmed... Keep it up.....

Like(0)

Former Member | Post author

February 28, 2014 at 11:24 am

Thank you abilash n

Like(0)

Sandra Rossi
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May 19, 2014 at 11:08 am

Hello,

EDIT March 1st, 2019: here is a new version of the code at https://gist.github.com/sandraros/8b54e98166809fdb7ae39b1c11a846fe. It’s made as a
local interface and classes, which should make it more easy to process each long text with your own implementation. It also includes the JOIN on
STXH and STXL instead of FOR ALL ENTRIES as proposed by Kenneth’s comment, and the corrections proposed by Former member and Jacques.
Also, you have the newest function modules READ_MULTIPLE_TEXTS and READ_TEXT_TABLE, as explained in note 2261311 – Function module for
reading multiple SAPscript texts

I think the code is not entirely correct. It may dump in case a standard text is very long. As you can see, T_STXL_RAW is always one line before
IMPORT … FROM INTERNAL TABLE, but theorically there should be more lines if the original text is very long. I found the standard text
ADRS_HEADER_LOGO_PRES provided by SAP, which is very long, and it should demonstrate the bug.

The correction is not obvious as the loading is done by PACKAGE; consequently the last line of the package may not be the last line of a text. So we
need to wait for the next package to complete the text and be able to use IMPORT. That requires both a sorted read (ORDER BY) and a bu er table.

The following code should always work. Please feel free to ask me any question if it’s unclear.

IMPORTANT: please use the NEW code in the GIST mentioned ABOVE (in the EDIT at the top of the comment). 

REPORT.
TYPES: BEGIN OF ty_stxl,
relid TYPE stxl-relid,
tdobject TYPE stxl-tdobject,
tdname TYPE stxl-tdname,
tdid TYPE stxl-tdid,
tdspras TYPE stxl-tdspras,
srtf2 TYPE stxl-srtf2,
clustr TYPE stxl-clustr,
clustd TYPE stxl-clustd,

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END OF ty_stxl.
DATA: t_stxl TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl,
t_stxl_buffer TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <stxl> TYPE ty_stxl.
* compressed text data without text name
TYPES: BEGIN OF ty_stxl_raw,
clustr TYPE stxl-clustr,
clustd TYPE stxl-clustd,
END OF ty_stxl_raw.
DATA: t_stxl_raw TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_stxl_raw.
DATA: w_stxl_raw TYPE ty_stxl_raw.
* decompressed text
DATA: t_tline TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF tline.
FIELD-SYMBOLS: <tline> TYPE tline.
DATA: t_stxh TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF stxh,
w_stxh TYPE stxh.
TABLES stxh.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_object FOR stxh-tdobject.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_name FOR stxh-tdname.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_id FOR stxh-tdid.
SELECT-OPTIONS s_langu FOR stxh-tdspras.

SELECT tdname tdobject tdid tdspras

FROM stxh
INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF TABLE t_stxh
WHERE tdobject IN s_object
AND tdname IN s_name
AND tdid IN s_id
AND tdspras IN s_langu.

DATA s_stxl TYPE ty_stxl.

DATA l_first_tabix TYPE sy-tabix.
DATA l_last_tabix TYPE sy-tabix.
DATA subrc TYPE sy-subrc.
DATA process TYPE abap_bool.

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CONSTANTS package_size TYPE i VALUE 3000.

* select compressed text lines in blocks of 3000 (adjustable)

DATA cursor TYPE cursor.
OPEN CURSOR cursor FOR
SELECT relid tdobject tdname tdid tdspras srtf2 clustr clustd
FROM stxl
FOR ALL ENTRIES IN t_stxh "WITH APPLICATION DATA AND TDNAME
WHERE relid = 'TX' "standard text
AND tdobject = t_stxh-tdobject
AND tdname = t_stxh-tdname
AND tdid = t_stxh-tdid
AND tdspras = t_stxh-tdspras
ORDER BY PRIMARY KEY. "<=== new

DO.
FETCH NEXT CURSOR cursor
APPENDING TABLE t_stxl
PACKAGE SIZE package_size.
subrc = sy-subrc.

IF subrc = 4.
IF lines( t_stxl ) > 0.
process = abap_true.
ELSE.
process = abap_false.
ENDIF.

ELSEIF subrc = 0.
IF lines( t_stxl ) < package_size.
process = abap_true.
ELSE.

" put lines of last key aside, as there may be other lines for the same key
DESCRIBE TABLE t_stxl LINES l_last_tabix.

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READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX l_last_tabix INTO s_stxl.

READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX 1 ASSIGNING <stxl>.

IF <stxl>-relid = s_stxl-relid
AND <stxl>-tdobject = s_stxl-tdobject
AND <stxl>-tdname = s_stxl-tdname
AND <stxl>-tdid = s_stxl-tdid
AND <stxl>-tdspras = s_stxl-tdspras.

" The whole package has same key -> load next lines

process = abap_false.

ELSE.

process = abap_true.

l_first_tabix = l_last_tabix.
l_first_tabix = l_last_tabix.
DO.
SUBTRACT 1 FROM l_first_tabix.
READ TABLE t_stxl INDEX l_first_tabix ASSIGNING <stxl>.
IF sy-subrc <> 0.
EXIT.
ENDIF.
IF NOT ( <stxl>-relid = s_stxl-relid
AND <stxl>-tdobject = s_stxl-tdobject
AND <stxl>-tdname = s_stxl-tdname
AND <stxl>-tdid = s_stxl-tdid
AND <stxl>-tdspras = s_stxl-tdspras ).
EXIT.
ENDIF.
ENDDO.

ADD 1 TO l_first_tabix.

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APPEND LINES OF t_stxl FROM l_first_tabix TO l_last_tabix TO t_stxl_buffer.

DELETE t_stxl FROM l_first_tabix TO l_last_tabix.

ENDIF.
ENDIF.
ELSE.
" can’t happen
ASSERT 0 = 1.
ENDIF.

IF process = abap_true.
LOOP AT t_stxl ASSIGNING <stxl>.

AT NEW tdspras.
REFRESH t_stxl_raw.
ENDAT.

" decompress text

CLEAR w_stxl_raw.
w_stxl_raw-clustr = <stxl>-clustr.
w_stxl_raw-clustd = <stxl>-clustd.
APPEND w_stxl_raw TO t_stxl_raw.

AT END OF tdspras.
IMPORT tline = t_tline FROM INTERNAL TABLE t_stxl_raw.
DESCRIBE TABLE t_stxl_raw.
FORMAT COLOR 5.
WRITE: / 'AA', sy-tfill LEFT-JUSTIFIED, <stxl>-tdobject, <stxl>-tdname, <stxl>-tdid, <stxl>-tdspras.
FORMAT RESET.
LOOP AT t_tline ASSIGNING <tline>.
WRITE: / <tline>-tdline.
ENDLOOP.
REFRESH t_stxl_raw.
ENDAT.

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ENDLOOP.
ENDIF.

t_stxl = t_stxl_buffer.
CLEAR t_stxl_buffer.

IF subrc <> 0.
EXIT.
ENDIF.
ENDDO.

ASSERT 1 = 1. "(line for helping debug)

Like(0)

Thomas Zloch

May 19, 2014 at 11:27 am

Nice catch, and thanks for enhancing the logic. It seems that the threshold of STXL-CLUSTR is 7902 (bytes?), then a new line is started.

My use cases so far were far below this threshold, so it never occurred to me.

Cheers

Thomas

Like(0)

abilash n

May 19, 2014 at 11:48 am

Thanks Sandra for amazing catch.

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Thomas Zloch

May 19, 2014 at 12:01 pm

Like(0)

abilash n

May 19, 2014 at 2:38 pm

Nice pic corresponding to my comment LOL. 🙂🙂🙂🙂

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Former Member

March 30, 2015 at 8:50 pm

Thanks Sandra. I ran into the same issue you discussed. Some of the texts I had to deal with were more than 7902 bytes (about 8 page word
document). I used your code to x it. Couple of small misses. One is close cursor statement and checking for internal table not being initial before
using FAE.

Like(2)

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Jacques Nomssi

December 10, 2018 at 9:32 am

Also, the bu er table t_stxl_bu er must be initialized before usage.

Like(1)

Kenneth Eriksen

February 28, 2019 at 7:24 pm

I know this is an old post, but just in case anyone is interested: This code is just what I needed for a prototype I am working on! I've been playing
around with the code and I had problems getting it to run on our HANA system. The select on STXL would take a long time and then short dump.

I think this is caused by using "FOR ALL ENTRIES IN" statement. I therefore decided to replace the two SELECTs on STXH and STXL with one, like so
(the where clause is a bit di erent than the original as I have di erent requirements):

OPEN CURSOR cursor FOR

SELECT l~relid l~tdobject l~tdname l~tdid l~tdspras l~srtf2 l~clustr l~clustd
FROM (
stxl AS l
JOIN stxh AS h ON
l~tdobject = h~tdobject AND
l~tdname = h~tdname AND
l~tdid = h~tdid AND
l~tdspras = h~tdspras )
WHERE l~relid = 'TX'
AND h~tdobject = l_tdobject
AND h~tdname LIKE l_tdname
AND h~tdid = l_tdid
AND h~tdspras = l_langu
ORDER BY
l~relid
l~tdobject
l~tdname
l~tdid
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l~tdspras
l~srtf2.

Also, I believe that the bu er table must be cleared once used:

Change this:
t_stxl = t_stxl_bu er.

to this:
t_stxl = t_stxl_bu er.
REFRESH t_stxl_bu er.

Like(1)

Sandra Rossi

March 1, 2019 at 7:54 am

Thanks Kenneth. I have added a GIST in my post, in which I included the JOIN and correction, and a better and object-oriented logic.

Like(0)

Sudhakar Devaraya

January 27, 2021 at 9:33 am

Hi,

Seems like Open Cursor has limitation of 17.

https://help.sap.com/doc/abapdocu_751_index_htm/7.51/en-US/abapopen_cursor.htm
I am not able to use it. Please suggest!

Like(0)

Sandra Rossi

https://blogs.sap.com/2014/02/25/alternative-to-readtext-function-module/ 22/32
4/15/2021 Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more FM needed) | SAP Blogs
January 27, 2021 at 12:50 pm
Your question is not related to my post, please ask it in the SAP forum (and please explain in that question why you let so many cursors open).

Like(0)

Former Member

May 19, 2014 at 3:12 pm

Hi Mansor,

Thanks for your e ort. In  Lot of cases many Abapers are using READ_TEXT fm. Now onwards we will follow above code what you have mentioned.

Thanks,

Gurunath D

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Thomas Zloch

May 19, 2014 at 3:20 pm

It's ne to use READ_TEXT. The approach described here is meant for performance-critical mass processing.

Thomas

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Jelena Per ljeva

May 19, 2014 at 8:30 pm

You might also want to add IF t_stxh[] IS NOT INITIAL check before 'FOR ALL ENTRIES'. Or a program could display some kind of 'No data found'
message and just exit in such case, I guess...
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Rüdiger Plantiko

May 20, 2014 at 6:28 am

Hi Mansoor,

the STXL storage mechanism that you proudly found out and exposed here (congratulations), is only a small part of the function module
READ_TEXT.  There is

validation of TDID, TDOBJECT &c.

resolving of references: A text can be stored at another location than that your report is looking for - indicated by the elds TDREFOBJ,
TDREFNAME etc.
a bu ering in a CATALOG memory segment,
a transactional memory connected to the CATALOG is provided: If the text has already been deleted earlier in this session, NOT_FOUND will be
issued, if it has been copied, newly created, etc., it will be served from the memory instead of the DB
reading from archive is possible

Regards,

Rüdiger

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Darshak Kathiriya

June 12, 2014 at 2:52 pm

Hi Mansoor,

Good post, I have tried RETRIEVAL_MULTIPLE_TEXTS that you mentioned to read batch short text and It is working ne !

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Thanks,

Darshak

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Former Member

June 12, 2014 at 4:36 pm

Wow! Very useful! Thanks for sharing!!!

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Former Member

July 24, 2014 at 8:25 am

Had similar requirement and SCN directly came in to help.

Thanks a lot as your program gave me base to tweak it for my requirements.

🙂🙂
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SOMENDRA SHUKLA

July 24, 2014 at 10:10 am

Nice Alternative to Read_Text & Excellent use of eld symbol and Import statement

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Mike Mathieson

June 22, 2015 at 6:17 pm

Hi all.  I hope someone is still monitoring this blog...

I'm using this technique (without Sandra's extra code) but getting a dump when the text is very long.  I'm going to implement her code, but before I do, I
would really like to understand....

Why does the long text dump?  I think my problem is - I don't understand the IMPORT statement.  I read HELP, but it still doesn't seem like this should cause
a dump.  Can someone please explain?

Thanks in advance,

Mike

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Jelena Per ljeva

June 22, 2015 at 7:08 pm

Sandra's comment already explains the issue. Not sure what sort of short dump long text is causing exactly, but you won't always nd this kind of
information in Help. It could be a generic dump, like conversion or out of memory. It is not necessarily speci c to the IMPORT command.

IMPORT converts data cluster into the "human readable" format. If you look at an STXL record in SE16 you'll see some kind of gibberish in the
CLUSTD eld. It's the "raw" data that needs to be converted to be readable.

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Mike Mathieson

June 23, 2015 at 5:13 pm

We are getting IMPORT_CONTAINER_MISSING dump in line 2523...

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2512       REFRESH: lt_stxl_raw, lt_stxl_out, lt_tline.

2513

2514       wa_stxl_raw-clustr = <stxl>-clustr.

2515       wa_stxl_raw-clustd = <stxl>-clustd.

2516       APPEND wa_stxl_raw TO lt_stxl_raw.

2517

2518 * Decompress text. The trick is to pretend to import it from a DB.

2519       IMPORT tline = lt_tline FROM INTERNAL TABLE lt_stxl_raw.

2520

2521 * read the 1st decompressed text line and ll the short text of

2522 * output text tab, then append the tab.

>>>>>       READ TABLE lt_tline ASSIGNING <tline> INDEX 1.

2524       wa_stxl_out-stext = <tline>-tdline.

2525       APPEND wa_stxl_out TO lt_stxl_out.

And it is occurring when processing long text (> 7902 bytes).  So, while I haven't duplicated the error yet, I'm fairly certain/hopeful this is the problem
Sandra solves with her code. 

My problem is - I don't see what she has done to prevent the dump, and in fact I don't see why the dump happens in the rst place.  Keep in mind, I'm
not doubting the solution, I just want to understand why it occurs.  I could possibly see why the dump would occur on the IMPORT statement, but not
the READ.  Sandra's IMPORT-READ(LOOP) looks identical to me, so I don't understand how this solves the problem?

Mike

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Former Member

June 23, 2015 at 5:17 pm

Mike

Are you using Select or Cursor statement to get data from STXL table?

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Mike Mathieson

June 23, 2015 at 8:28 pm

I'm using a SELECT.  But, I've gured it out.  In case anyone needs more explanation of something most readers of this blog may already know (unless
you're new to the IMPORT statement like me), from the code above....

1. T_STXL_RAW must contain all the STXL entries for the text you are trying to read.  Most of the time that is only one entry but if the text is over 7902 bytes, you will have multiple
entries.  If you don't have all the entries, the IMPORT will dump.

2. T_STXL_RAW must have its entries in the same order as they are listed in STXL.  If not, the program will dump.

Mike

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Bob Ackerman

February 18, 2021 at 9:49 pm

Thanks Mike,  I was just reading this blog because I was performance tuning a program that uses READ_TEXT in a couple places.  Using the tip from
the original poster, I was able to get faster results.  But then in testing I got dumps.  Your post about how T_STXL_RAW needs to be processed for the
IMPORT to work properly was a huge help.   Thanks again

Bob

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Dennis Keßler

June 25, 2015 at 9:11 pm

Hi,

I just read your post concerning the alternative to the function module read_text.

I have an issue concerning read and save text and bring it to an adobe form.

I have to store texts with more than 132 characters in one row. Do you have any idea how to achieve this?

Thanks in advance

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Richard Harper

August 17, 2016 at 2:27 pm

Stick to the standard line length and concatenate your texts.

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Former Member

September 14, 2015 at 3:47 pm

Mansoor,

Thanks for such a valuable information.

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Naimesh Patel

August 23, 2016 at 8:46 pm

Also the logic doesn't handle the TDREF like Rüdiger Plantiko mentioned in his comment

The Reference Text is a critical part of the logic and it is widely used for many standard transaction where Text just ows from one "Object" to another
object. Like Shipping text for customer goes to Sales order to Delivery. If you use the same logic on Delivery, it will not work as the text is being used
as reference (STXH-TDREF). 

By reading the STXH and STXL directly, you should know that it may not give you the correct output for certain scenarios.

Thanks,
Naimesh Patel

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Simone Cattozzi

November 14, 2017 at 12:29 pm

Now you can read faster removing the FOR ALL ENTRIES, see blog

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Hammad Sharif

November 27, 2017 at 7:21 am

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4/15/2021 Alternative to READ_TEXT Function Module (No more FM needed) | SAP Blogs

Very helpful, Thanks alot Mansoor.

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Thiago Felipe Tkac

May 11, 2018 at 7:09 pm

With the advantage of the SAP Note below(From 2016), 2 new FM are created to solve this performance issue:

READ_MULTIPLE_TEXTS

READ_TEXT_TABLE

#2261311 - Function module for reading multiple SAPscript texts

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Adnan Dodmani

July 30, 2020 at 2:02 pm

what changes should i do to fetch the long text related to Q-info record ?

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