Newbie: python hetting started with BAPI_PO_CREATE

Question

Hi,
After studying the documentation and looking for some source code as an example, I am at a total loss and looking for some help. I do not understand how the PO_HEADER (LIKE  BAPIEKKOC STRUCTURE  BAPIEKKOC) parameter should be filled with data and how the table PO_ITEMS (STRUCTURE  BAPIEKPOC) should be handled in the program.
Is there somebody that has some examples or could help me with a basic program setup?
Thanks in advance,
Frans

Answer 1

Installing the sap rfc module on Windows turned out to become a nightmare. On Linux it was no problem but under Windows it gets very hard. We are using SAP R/3 v4.6C and the Python applicatioin MUST run both on both Linux and Windows.
So I went for the pysaprfc module, which is just a wrapper for the librfc library using ctypes. On Windwos installation is really easy since the librfc library comes with the SAP GUI. On Linux, you have to hunt down a suitable librfc library from the download area on ftp.sap.com.
This is a small example to get the data from a purchase order:"
import pysap
import sys
import ctypes
from mx.DateTime import *
try:
    sap_conn=pysap.Rfc_connection(conn_file='sapconn.ini')
    sap_conn.open()
    func=sap_conn.get_interface('BAPI_PO_GETITEMS',
                                func_args=\['PURCHASEORDER'\],
                                func_res=\['PO_HEADERS', 'PO_ITEMS'\])
    print func.desc
    po_header, po_items = func(PURCHASEORDER='4500341734')
    for t in po_header:
        print t
    print '----
    for t in po_items:
        print t
    sap_conn.close()
except pysap.SapRfcError,desc:
    print "Error making py function for BAPI': %s" % desc
except Exception, e:
    print e
Or just read a table with some simple SQL:
data = conn.read_table('EQUI',
options=\["sernr eq '%s'" % sernr\],
fields=\["sernr", 'equnr', 'matnr', 'kunde'\],
max_rows=20)
The examples directory has some very helpfull code.
The pysap module solved my problem and works great within a Plone / Zope portal. It's efficient and turns out to be very reliant.