JR45338: ABAP EXTRACT STAGE DOES NOT HANDLE BINARY DATA CORRECTLY.

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• The ABAP stage extracts SAP binary fields as text representing
  the hexadecimal value. Users need to be able to extract the
  values as binary too.
  

Local fix

• NA
  

Problem summary

• The ABAP stage extracts SAP table binary fields (of type RAW) as
   text representing the hexadecimal representation of the field
  value.
  For example, an SAP table with a RAW field with value displayed
  in SAP GUI (transaction se16) is
  "4F8621C5A0300A30E1008000C68D0C06". Such field will be imported
  in Datastage as SQL type Binary.
  An DS job ABAP->sequential file will extract that value as ASCII
  text "4F8621C5A0300A30E1008000C68D0C06"
  
  Users need to be able to extract data as binary as well.
  A similar issue exists for BAPI stage (JR45207).
  

Problem conclusion

• JR45338 adds the option of extracting the binary fields as
  binary data. To enable, set the environment variable
  DSR3_ABAP_ENABLE_BINARY_OUTPUT = 1 for the DS job (on the Engine
   tier).
  This will change the extraction output, so the data is not
  extracted as text, but as binary data. For the example above,
  the data will actually be written as bytes in the output,
  byte1=0x4F, byte2=0x86, byte3=0x21 and so on. Note these values
  may or may not have an actual ASCII representation, so looking
  at the output with a text editor (including Datastage output
  viewer) may display unreadable characters. Binary files should
  be examined with a binary editor (for example in UltraEdit, use
  Hex edit mode).
  
  If the variable is not set, or set to 0, the default behavior
  will be preserved (data extracted as text representing
  hexadecimal values)
  
  Please note the binary representation of a binary column has
  half the column length of the hexadecimal representation. If
  'DSR3_ABAP_ENABLE_BINARY_OUTPUT' is set to 1, binary fields will
  be filled up with NULLs.
  You can manually halve the column length of binary columns in
  the Columns Tab of the ABAP Extract Stage UI to avoid this.
  However, the display length of the binary fields has to remain
  unchanged (as it's used for internal processing).
  
  The fix (implemented in Nov 2013) is included in version 7.1 GA;
  also available as a patch for version 6.5.0.2 and 7.0
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  IS PACK FOR SAP

• Fixed component ID

  5724Q5500

Applicable component levels

• R650 PSY

     UP

• R700 PSY

     UP

• R710 PSY

     UP