Report Development Tools A–1
Appendix A: ABAP List Viewer (ALV)
Contents
Overview................................................................................................................. A–2
What Is The ABAP List Viewer?........................................................................... A–2
ABAP List Viewer: Cost Versus Benefit Analysis.............................................. A–3
Report Lists Without ABAP List Viewer.............................................................. A–4
Report Lists With ABAP List Viewer.................................................................... A–5
Technical Notes ..................................................................................................... A–9
Sample Code Using ALV (Release 4.0B)........................................................... A–10
Review .................................................................................................................. A–15
Where to Learn More........................................................................................... A–15 A
In this chapter you will
learn:
 Why the ABAP List
Viewer (ALV) is useful
 Some of the time-saving
features of ALV, as well as
its ability to enhance
information display
 The differences between
reports written with and
without the ALV
 Technical information
(sample code) to help you
build reports with ALV
“functionality”

provides a uniform user-interface and list format for ABAP reports. This standardization
helps eliminate redundant functions.
The ABAP List Viewer enables both simple and sequential (hierarchical) report lists. Simple
lists contain a number of non-hierarchical, user-defined columns. Sequential lists contain
columns that consist of column headings and their subordinate rows.

Goals of ALV
The primary goals of the ABAP List Viewer are to provide:
< Users with a consistent, user-friendly, and functional method of manipulating the
data which appears on report lists.
< ABAP developers with an efficient and consistent method of programming functions
that are commonly needed or requested in reports.
Appendix A: ABAP List Viewer (ALV)
ABAP List Viewer: Cost Versus Benefit Analysis

Report Development Tools
A–3

ABAP List Viewer: Cost Versus Benefit Analysis
Before taking advantage of the features of ALV, developers may want to consider the
benefits gained versus the “extra time” taken to include ALV in report development. The
following table shows estimates of time expenditures in report development. Note that an
estimated 50% of report developers’ time is consumed by building “fancy” features and
enhancing the look-and-feel of custom reports.

ABAP Report Development Activity Without ALV Percentage of Time Taken to Complete
Finding the right tables and table relationships that
need to be included in order for the program to be
written
50%

Report Lists Without ABAP List Viewer

Reporting Made Easy

A–4

Report Lists Without ABAP List Viewer
When a report is written, the report list (output) depends almost entirely on how the
developer programmed the report.
Shown below is a sample report list where the programmer did not to use the ABAP List
Viewer. For illustration purposes, consider a report that was simply written (using the
WRITE command) to the screen. The output of a report created with just the WRITE
statement is shown below:
A key point to note is that the function bar is blank. In addition, the data in the list is “dead”
which means that data listed cannot be used for any further data retrieval. It is essentially a
“data-dump.” Among other things, there are no headings for the columns. Any additional
functionality would have to be programmed. In short, the interface between the data you
see on the screen and the user’s eyes (the GUI) is limited and bland.
Report users routinely ask for additional features in their reports. Often they are looking for
the ability to:

Hint: These
functions are
all available
in ALV
< Sort
< Resize rows

< Headers for the columns that appear on the list.
< Colors that correspond to indented key information
< Buttons that appear on the function bar (some of whose functions will be introduced in
the pages that follow) As you review the additional functionality shown above, remember that without the ALV
each function would have to be programmed into the report.
Function bar is blank
A feature-rich function bar
gives the user commonly
requested functionality
List data is “alive”
Column headings make data
easier to understand
Appendix A: ABAP List Viewer (ALV)
Report Lists With ABAP List Viewer

Reporting Made Easy

A–6
Note: This appendix introduces you to some of the functions that the ALV makes
possible. However, this appendix does not cover the full breadth of ALV functionality.
For more information, refer to the ALV documentation in the R/3 online documentation:
R/3 Library
→
CA-Cross-Application Components

numbers 1000 and 2000.
4. Choose Copy to invoke the ALV to
filter the list.

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