Recently I was working on a custom VOFM routine implementation. My functional counterpart was sitting with me and we had configured the routine by entering the key.
Now it is my job to implement the code. I was able to get the values available in the structure KOMKBV2 inside the routine. But he needed the values from other structures (say LIKP) to implement the custom validation.
The functional consultant sitting next to me was very keen now. He wanted to know how to retrieve the internal table / structure values which are not directly available from the userexit / BADI / Customer Exit interface parameters.
I need to explain him now 
So I set a breakpoint in the VOFM routine. We executed the transaction and program stopped at the breakpoint in the routine which I had set earlier.
From the debugger, I started to loop back to previous program from the call stack. I showed him how to check the values of the internal tables & structures of the previous program which called the VOFM routine.
I told him that we have an option to use
ASSIGN ((<program name>)<internal table[]>) to <field symbol of that type>.
CONSTANTS : lc_likp TYPE char17 VALUE '(SAPMV50A)xlikp[]'.
FIELD-SYMBOLS:<fs_likp> TYPE STANDARD TABLE.
ASSIGN (lc_likp) to <fs_likp>.
Phew!!!
I was able to read the value which he was interested. But now he started to fire questions at me.
“How to find all the internal tables which I can use by this way. How to find that???”
I managed to tell him that if a program a loaded and available in context, we can access the global variables of that program by the above method. But it is not advisable to read the data by this way, as SAP has the right to change logic of the program or name of the internal table in the future release. But he was reluctant to accept that.
“Okay!! Then give me the list of all programs which are loaded and available in context now. I need to know”
Oh God!! Please save me from him. I honestly don’t know, how to get the details of all program which were loaded right now.
- Idea..!!! I can activate a trace and execute the transaction. Collect all the programs names displaying in the trace log and give it to him. That’s a good idea…!!! But… how do I get the list of internal table names & its value. I cannot directly get those from the trace.
Without a hope, I was going through the options available in the debugger. I noticed an icon with name “Replace Tool”. I hardly used that. I click on that and I got a pop up. It has many options coupled as a tree. I expanded the tree “Special Tools”. I was able to find “Loaded Programs (Global Data)”
I doubled click that and the tool was giving me everything I wanted. “Thank God… You saved me ..!!!“
It has two tabs Loaded Programs & Global data. From the global data tab, I was able to get the global variables, internal table, work area value. And the best thing was, I was able to search by CTRL + F based on the variable names. What else do I need..!!!
After he left, I did a quick search on this feature in google. I was amazed to find the below two URLs.
https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw73ehp1/helpdata/en/49/1ec3f1f3ee6492e10000000a42189b/content.htm
Everything was explained in detail and I had never read / bookmarked it First thing I did after that was to click on “Follow” and started following the updates on that space.
Thanks for your time to stop by and read this blog.
Regards,
Karthikeyan