Limitations of File Content Conversion (FCC)

Question

Hi
I want to know the Limitations of File Content Conversion (FCC) while defining for a particular structure.
I was bit confused from the [SAP Help |http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw2004s/helpdata/EN/2c/181077dd7d6b4ea6a8029b20bf7e55/content.htm]
It says "There can be a fixed or variable number of substructures in a recordset." but from sdn i found
[Content Conversion in File Adapter   |Content Conversion in File Adapter]
It will support "A maximum of 3 hierarchy level will be supported in FCC"
Is <recordset> Mandatetory in for FCC, what if we dont have <recordset> in the structure.
Till what hierarchy level it supports
what is the limitation of FCC
Regards,
Varun
Edited by: Varun Reddy on Feb 26, 2009 4:52 PM

Answer 1

Varun,
Both statements are true:
Consider, for instance, a file containing orders. You could have:
HEADER;123;456;11112 (containing sender 123, receiver 456, order number 11112)
PARTNER;OR;234 (containing the ordering partner number 234)
PARTNER;DL;235 (containing the delivery address 235)
DATE;OR;20090226 (containing the order date 26/02/2009)
DATE;DL;20090228 (containing the delivery date 28/02/2009)
LINE;9998;12 (article number 9998, quantity 12)
LINE;9996;25 (article number 9996, quantity 25)
LINE;9991;3 (article number 9991, quantity 3)
HEADER;123;456;11113 (2nd order containing sender 123, receiver 456, order number 11113)
PARTNER;OR;234 (containing the ordering partner number 234)
PARTNER;DL;237 (containing the delivery address 237)
DATE;OR;20090226 (containing the order date 26/02/2009)
DATE;DL;20090301 (containing the delivery date 01/03/2009)
LINE;9998;4 (article number 9998, quantity 4)
Parsing such a file with FCC would be possible, provided there's an identifier that indicates the type of line (like 'HEADER', 'PARTNER', etc). This is an example of There can be a variable number of substructures in a recordset.
If the records do not contain an identifier from which you can see the line type, FCC can only parse this if the order of the various structure types is fixed, so that it can determine from the line number what type of record this is. This would be an example of There can be a fixed number of substructures in a recordset.
Now, about A maximum of 3 hierachy level will be supported in FCC. In the FCC, there are three levels: the recordset (one order in the above example), the record (a line in the file) and the field (the order number, for instance). The FCC does not support files with deeper nesting. For instance, if a line item in your flat file could also contain a delivery date, FCC does not support this.
Hope this helps,
Koen