Extract hierarchies in background

Question

I am using Z_SAP_HIERARCHY_DOWNLOAD to extract hierarchies to use in a third party application. I would like to run this program as part of a process chain (together with running some InfoSpokes), however this program cannot run in the background as it uses the GUI_DOWNLOAD function. Does anyone know of a way to extract a hierarchy in background mode, or a BAPI/RFC that I can use to read a hierarchy? Alternatively, has anyone customized Z_SAP_HIERARCHY_DOWNLOAD to remove all of the GUI and Dialog dependent code and either write the hierarchy data to a db table or a file on the app server?
Many thanks for any help you can provide.

Answer 1

It looks that you are using a customer FB due to the Z_ at the beginning of the name and there is no SAP_HIERARCHY_DOWNLOAD in our BW system (3.5). So if you want to use a Hierarchy download in background, you could copy the FB and replace the GUI_Download by a download to unix (e.g.):
  DATA: lh_fname TYPE localfile.
  CLEAR: lh_fname.
Zusammensetzen von Pfad und Dateiname
  CONCATENATE xp_path sy-datum sy-uzeit '.csv' INTO lh_fname.
  OPEN DATASET lh_fname FOR OUTPUT IN TEXT MODE.
  LOOP AT xt_data.
    TRANSFER xt_data TO lh_fname.
  ENDLOOP.
  CLOSE DATASET lh_fname.
  CASE sy-subrc.
    WHEN '0'.
      WRITE: /1 Transfer of data succesful'.
      PERFORM tabellen_update.
    WHEN '8'.
      WRITE: /1 Error ........ '.
  ENDCASE.
Hope that helps!
Regards
Nicola