Get table field description programmatically

Question

I'm trying to query SAP's data dictionary through ERPConnect's ABAP API. The code below retrieves the table names and various field properties fine but fails to show the field description. Anyone knows why?

Thanks

REPORT  ZSELECTCOMMAND.
TABLES: DD02L,
    DD03L,
    DD02T, DD04T.

DATA: BEGIN OF tb_meta,
    tabname   TYPE  DD02L-tabname,
    fieldname   TYPE  DD03L-fieldname,
    datatype    TYPE  DD03L-datatype,
    leng        TYPE  DD03L-leng,
    decimals    TYPE  DD03L-decimals,
    position    TYPE  DD03L-position,
desc    TYPE  DD04T-ddtext,
    END OF tb_meta.
DATA utb_meta LIKE STANDARD TABLE OF tb_meta.
DATA: ln_meta LIKE LINE OF utb_meta, m1 TYPE i, m2 TYPE i.
SELECT
    tb~tabname
fld~fieldname
    fld~datatype    fld~leng
    fld~decimals    fld~position
x~ddtext
    INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF TABLE utb_meta
FROM
    dd02L AS tb
INNER JOIN dd03L AS fld
    ON tb~tabname = fld~tabname
INNER JOIN DD04T AS x
ON fld~ROLLNAME = x~ROLLNAME
AND x~DDLANGUAGE = 'EN'
WHERE
    CONTFLAG IN ('A', 'C', 'S')  
    AND 
    APPLCLASS <> '' 
    AND 
    tb~TABNAME NOT LIKE '/%' 
    AND 
    tb~TABNAME NOT LIKE '%_BAK'
    AND
   tb~TABNAME = 'BSAK'.
*GET RUN TIME FIELD m1. 
loop at utb_meta into ln_meta.
    write:/ 
    ln_meta-tabname 
    && '>>' && ln_meta-fieldname 
    && '>>' && ln_meta-datatype
    && '>>' && ln_meta-leng
    && '>>' && ln_meta-decimals
    && '>>' && ln_meta-position
    && '>>' && ln_meta-desc.
endloop.

Answer 1

There are different places where text information of a table field or structure field can be stored. The data element texts that you are selecting from DD04T are only one place for those texts. You can define table components with built-in data types instead of dictionary data types, then the texts will be stored in DD03T(for example)

For these reasons (technical details of the DD*tables), I would strongly recommend you to use the function module DDIF_FIELDINFO_GETinstead of rolling your own DD* select. Just pass the parameters TABNAME and LANGU, and the resulting internal table DFIES_TAB will contain all the information you need, including texts.