Search help needs more records than 500 or 5000

Question

I have a requirement to create search help on a non primary key field . So I need to work on search help exit to remove all the repeating and blank values . The problem I am facing rite now is that search help gets only 500 records by default and 5000 if we leave the restriction field blank . I need to get all the records which is approx more than 100000 and get only the unique values .
Please let me know how I can increase the number of record more than 5000
Regards,
Tashi

Answer 1

Hi Tashi,
The following approach might work out in y our case by overwriting the data fetch functionality of the standard Search help
1. Define internal table of desired structure, in the way you get the data from DB table
2. use your custom function module / class method or select statement to get the desired data into the newly
    defined   internal table
3. apply required sorting / filtering / formatting as per the requirements
3. loop through the resultant data in the internal table and append the records to standard internal
    table / parameter  RECORD_TAB of the Search help exit. Please make a note that RECORD_TAB has the
    structure field STRING which needs to be populated with the correct offsetting..for example, if the first field
     is of 10 characters and second field of 5 characters, it should be populated in the following way
loop at itab into ls_itab.
wa_record-string+0 = ls_itab-field1.
wa_record-string+10 = ls_itab-field2.
wa_record-string+15 = ls_itab-field3.
append wa_record to record_tab.
clear wa_record.
endloop.
EXIT.
Please try this approach and let us know.
hope this helps.
-Sajan Joseph.