LV stands for ABAP List Viewer. ALV gives us a standard List format and user interface to all our ABAP reports. ALV is created by a set of standard function modules provided by SAP.
ALV provides a lot of inbuilt functions to our reports and some of the functions  are listed below.
  • Sorting of records
  • Filtering of records
  • Totals and Sub-totals
  • Download the report output to Excel/HTML
  • Changing the order of the columns in the report
  • Hide the unwanted columns  from the report
Because of the above functions, ALV substantially decreases the report development time. ALV takes care of rendering the list and we can concentrate only on the data retrieval part.
Some of the function modules used to create ALV reports are listed below.
Function ModuleDescription
REUSE_ALV_LIST_DISPLAYDisplay an ALV list
REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAYDisplay an ALV grid
REUSE_ALV_COMMENTARY_WRITEOutput List header information
REUSE_ALV_VARIANT_F4Display variant selection dialog box
REUSE_ALV_VARIANT_EXISTENCEChecks whether a variant exists
REUSE_ALV_FIELDCATALOG_MERGECreate field catalog from dictionary structure or internal table

Serkan AKKAVAK
Computer Engineer
ABAP Developer & SAP S/4 HANA Logistics Team Lead
Contact : serkurumsal@yandex.com




Advantages of ALV Reports
  • Better look and feel.
  • ALV report consists of some per-defined options like sort, filters, sum, downloading, print, changing the layout structure and many more.
List of Function Modules used to develop ALV reports
The below are the list of Function Modules we use to display ALV reports in different formats.
REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY. "Display ALV grid format
REUSE_ALV_LIST_DISPLAY. "Display ALV List format 
REUSE_ALV_COMMENTARY_WRITE. "Display Top of page, logo, etc.
REUSE_ALV_FIELDCATELOGUE_MERGE. "Used to generate field catalogue
REUSE_ALV_EVENTS_GET. "Use events in ALV
REUSE_ALV_HEIRARCHY_LIST_DISPLAY. "Display ALV Hierarchy 
REUSE_ALV_BLOCKED_LIST_DISPLAY. "Display blocked list

Simple ALV report.


DATA: it_spfli TYPE TABLE OF spfli.

SELECT * FROM spfli INTO TABLE it_spfli.

CALL FUNCTION 'REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY'
  EXPORTING
    i_structure_name = 'SPFLI'
  TABLES
    t_outtab         = it_spfli.