IDOC:

IDoc, short for Intermediate Document, is a SAP format for transferring the data for a
business transaction.[1]

IDoc is similar to XML in purpose, but differs in syntax. Both serve the purpose of
data exchange and automation in computer systems, but IDocs go further.

While XML allows having some metadata about the document itself, an IDocs is
obligated to have information at its header like its creator, creation time etc. While
XML has a tag-like tree structure containing data and meta-data, IDocs use a table
with the data and meta-data. IDocs also have a session that explains all the process
which the document passed or will pass, allowing to debug and trace the status of the
document.

Different IDoc types are available to handle different types of message. For example,
the IDoc format ORDERS01 may be used for both purchase orders and order
confirmations.

IDoc technology offers many tools for automation, monitoring and error handling. For
example, if the IDocs are customised that way on a particular server, then a user of
SAP R/3 system creates a purchase order; this is automatically sent via an IDoc and a
sales order is immediately created on the vendor's system.

When this order cannot be created because of an application error (for example: The
price per piece is lower than allowed for this material), then the administrator on the
vendor's system sees this IDoc among the erroneous ones and can solve the situation.
If the error is in the master data at the vendor's system, he can correct them and order
the IDoc to be processed again.

Because of the flexibility and transparency of IDoc technology, some non-SAP

technologies use them as well.

Purpose
The IDoc Connector for XML is a COM component that provides an XML interface for working
with IDoc documents.

The IDoc Connector for XML component accepts your XML documents and sends them as
inbound IDocs to a specified R/3 system. Conversely, it can receive outbound IDocs and it
translate them into XML documents for your application to use.
IDOC:

One advantage of using XML documents instead of IDocs is that an XML document is easier
to write, read and interpret. The IDoc protocol is very particular, for example, about the
placement of data fields and spaces in a document. In addition, XML is a standard language.
Working with XML documents instead of IDocs allows you to take advantage of available
standard parsers.

Features
The IDoc Connector for XML component lets you develop DCOM applications that can:

 wait for one or more incoming outbound IDoc(s), receiving them as XML document(s)
and also saving them as XML file(s)
 send one or more XML document(s) to an R/3 system as inbound IDoc(s)

The XML document can be created by your program or it can be taken from an
existing XML file

The IDoc Connector for XML component does the translation to and from XML automatically

Xml:

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is another approach to data interchange. Recommended by World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) and strongly supported by Microsoft (among many other vendors) it promises to be the way data
will be exchanged for many years to come. Similar to HTML, which makes up the skeleton of web pages, XML
consists of tags. Unlike HTML, with XML you can define your own tags for handling different data.

SQL Server 2000 is one of the first database engines to provide native XML support. Now, all you have to do is
provide an additional clause in SELECT Statement and data will be automatically given to you in XML format.

You can also configure SQL Server and Internet Information Server (IIS), so that users can query SQL Server
databases straight from their web browser. Native XML support in SQL Server is a very powerful feature. It virtually
lets the companies exchange the data over the web without any client-side programming. Unfortunately there are
some major security issues with XML support as provided with SQL Server 2000. These issues will allow your users
to learn your database structure, modify it or even delete your database altogether if they have appropriate
permissions. Therefore, you have to be extra careful when configuring security and allowing access to SQL Server
through IIS.

Along with running SELECT statements with FOR,the XML clause to read the SQL Server data, you can also read
XML documents with T-SQL. This is accomplished by the OPENXML function. OPENXML lets a developer read an
XML document and treat it as a relational data source, or as it is sometimes referred to a ROWSET provider. Starting
with SQL Server 7 you could write queries against other relational databases, and other supported OLE DB
providers. Now you can also query XML files, although the procedure is different.

Let's look at a quick example before discussing the syntax elements. The following query reads the XML string we
provide into SQL Server memory (with sp_preparedocument), transforms a portion of this string into a rowset, and
then unloads the string from memory (with SP_XML_REMOVEDOCUMENT