Structure / value mappings

Question

What is the differene between structure mapping and value mapping ?

Answer 1

Hi midhun,
Value Mapping concentrates on the actual values that are being mapped.
Sometimes the requirement is like although source and target strcutres are similar, values need to be translated into another set and then mapped.
Value mapping is used when both sender and receiver treat the same object differently,it is achieved by making a value mapping table.
e.g. we have an element called <TravelClass> in both source and target element.
Now assume that source message uses codes such as 1, 2 etc. for this element. However, the target mmay expect strings values such as 'business', 'economy' etc. for this element.
In such cases, we use value mapping. Essentially we achieve the following translation:
1 -
> business
2 -
> economy
In graphical mapping we have a standard function called ValueMapping to define a simple table like one above.
Finally, the term 'Functional Mapping' is given only to confuse the people
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw2004s/helpdata/en/13/ba20dd7beb14438bc7b04b5b6ca300/frameset.htm  -
value mapping
Structure Mapping is not very much concerned which values are being mapped. It is more concerned about the structure of source and target elements.
It can be of two types (these don't have formal names as such)
1) Mapping values of some source elements to some target elements
e.g. source has element <fname> which is directly mapped to element <FirstName> in the target.
2) Mapping values after changing the element structure
e.g. source is
<name>
<fname> --- </fname>
<lname> --- </lname>
</name>
And target is
<fullname> --- </fullname>
So here we concatenate source elements and map to target.
Regards
srinivas