Sun Microsystems SAP BAPI manual Creating SAP Bapi OTDs, SAP Bapi Encoding

Chapter 4

Creating SAP BAPI OTDs

The SAP BAPI wizard is used to create BAPI and RFC OTDs. You use these OTDs in Java Collaborations and eInsight business processes to create the needed business rules to communicate with SAP R/13.

What’s In This Chapter

ƒSAP BAPI Encoding on page 39

ƒDate and Time Stamp Requirements on page 40

ƒSAP JCo Installation on page 40

ƒCreating BAPI and RFC OTDs on page 41

ƒBAPI and RFC OTDs on page 45

4.1SAP BAPI Encoding

SAP BAPI/RFC OTDs are encoding independent of the SAP R/3 system. This means that OTDs created on a Unicode SAP R/3 instance can seamlessly interact with non- Unicode SAP R/3 instances, and vice versa.

In addition, the marshal and unmarshal encoding methods on the

IDOC_INBOUND_ASYNCHRONOUS OTD only apply to the data, and not to the SAP R/3 instance. The default for all processed byte data is UTF-8, regardless of connection type (Unicode or non-Unicode).

When attempting to unmarshal data flows using an encoding other than UTF-8, such as UTF-16, then you must also call the setUnmarshalEncoding method to specify this encoding. This enables the eWay to properly unmarshal the byte array.

You also need to set the correct Character Set in the Environment parameters for an inbound eWay when receiving data from SAP R/3. This way, the eWay knows whether it is receiving Unicode or non-Unicode data from the SAP R/3 instance. The setMarshalEncoding method is only for marshaling the OTD data into a byte array and is not related to the SAP R/3 system character set.

Like the outbound data flows mentioned above, attempting to marshal data flows using an encoding other than UTF-8, such as UTF-16, requires setting the setMarshalEncoding method to match this encoding. This enables the data received from SAP R/3 to be correctly converted to a byte array of the desired encoding.

eWay™ Adapter for SAP BAPI User’s Guide 39 Sun Microsystems, Inc.