What are I docs?

[Former Member]

Hello All,

What are "I" docs, and what are their functions?.Is it also SD domain?

Please explain.

Thank you, and appreciate your response.

Archer.

[jignesh_mehta3 · Accepted solution]

Dear Friend,

IDocs are structured ASCII files (or a virtual equivalent). They are the file format used by SAP

R/3 to exchange data with foreign systems.

IDocs are simple ASCII data streams. When they are stored to a disk file, the IDocs are simple flat files with lines of text, where the lines are structured into data fields.

The typical structured file has records, each record starting with a leading string that identifies the record type. Their specification is stored in the data dictionary.IDocs is the acronym for Interchange Document. This indicates a set of (electronic) information which builds a logical entity. An IDoc is e.g. all the data of a single customer in your customer master data file, or the IDoc is all the data of a single invoice.

IDoc data is usually exchanged between systems and partners that are completely independent. Therefore, the data should be transmitted in a format that can easily be corrected by the computer operators. It is therefore mandatory to post the data in a human readable form.

Nowadays, this means that data is coded in ASCII format, including numbers which are sent as a string of figures 0 to 9. Such data can easily be read with any text editor on any computer, be it a PC, Macintosh, UNIX System, S/390 or any internet browser.

The information which is exchanged by IDocs is called a message and the IDoc is the physical representation of such a message. The name u201Cmessagesu201D for the information sent via IDocs is used in the same ways as other EDI standards. .

Everybody who has ever dealt with interface programming, will find IDocs very much like the hierarchical data files used in traditional data exchange. International standards like the ODETTE or VDA formats are designed in the same

way as IDocs are.

Other EDI standards like XML, ANSI X.12 or EDIFACT/UN are based on a data description language. They differ principally from the IDocs concept, because they use a programming language syntax (e.g. like Postscript or HTML) to embed the

data.

Hope this helps...

Give points if useful...

Thanks,

Jignesh Mehta

[Lakshmipathi]

Dear Archer

Check this link

[IDoc Definition|http://searchsap.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid21_gci852485,00.html]

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[former_member204513]

Dear Archer,

It is not Sales domaon it is a format document to transfer data from one system to other system.

IDOC means Intermediate document.

IDoc (BC-MID-ALE)

ALE Integration Technology (BC-MID-ALE)

An Intermediate document (IDoc) container for exchanging data between R/3, R/2 and non-SAP systems.

Application Link Enabling (ALE) uses IDocs to exchange data between logical systems. Non-SAP systems can use IDocs as the standard interface for data transfer.

IDocs are created when message types and (object) methods are distributed. The message type is the format in which the data for a specific business process is transferred.

IDoc (BC-SRV-EDI)

Standard SAP format for electronic data interchange between systems (Intermediate Document).

Different message types (for example, delivery confirmations or purchase orders) normally represent the different specific formats, known as IDoc types. Multiple message types with related content can be assigned to one IDoc type

Example:

The IDoc type ORDERS01 transfers the logical message types ORDERS (purchase order) and ORDRSP (order confirmation).

I hope this will help you,

Regards,

Murali.

Edited by: Murali Mohan.Tallapaneni on Nov 1, 2008 6:57 AM