Reading & writing from MS Excel files in Webdynpro ABAP

[Former Member]

Dear experts,

We have a requirement to read and write from an MS excel file in a Webdynpro ABAP based application. The application would be deployed on WAS (Web Application Server) which is running as part of SAP ECC on UNIX platform.

What is not clear is

1) If we store the MS Excel template on the server which has UNIX, will the file be recognised for reading/writing programmatically in Webdynpro ABAP? If this works, we have a requirement where the end users will download the excel template and upload the same after filling data into the excel file. The data filled into the excel has to be read and updated in the SAP backend (ECC).

2) There is an article on "Modifying Excel using WD ABAP" at the following link

https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/WDABAP/ModifyingexistingexcelsheetusingWDABAP

But again it is not clear whether this approach will work on Unix based SAP server (ECC WAS).

Thanks

Suresh

[thomas_jung · Accepted solution]

ABAP is highly platform independent. It executes in a virtual machine. The processing described in your link, uploads the file contents from the frontend into ABAP memory. It then uses ABAP commands (like the XML Parsing) to process the file contents. Nothing in there is OS specific. You won't know if that ABAP commands are executing on Unix, Windows, or any other OS supported.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Thomas. My query is about operating system support for MS Excel file. Since MS Excel can be recognised by MS Windows Operating Systems only, will MS Excel be recognised for parsing and reading on a UNIX based system.

Thanks.

Suresh

[thomas_jung · Accepted solution]

I don't know if there is an application in Unix that can read Excel files - if that is what you are asking. However that has nothing to do with this forum. If you are uploading the file to ABAP using Web Dynpro ABAP, then it doesn't matter what Operating System the server is running on. Unix, Linux, Windows - all the processing is done in ABAP and is OS independent. The actual reading of the file in ABAP involves reading either an XML or Text Tab Delimited version of the Excel file however - if you read through the links on manipulating Excel in ABAP.