Preface

17

Audience

17

Your ABAP Learning Path

18

SAP Professional with Some Knowledge of ABAP

18

SAP Professional or Power User with No Knowledge of ABAP or Other Programming Languages

19

Professional Developer with No Knowledge of ABAP

20

Reader with No Knowledge of SAP, ABAP, or Any Programming Languages

21

Where to Go from Here?

21

1 Introduction to SAP’s ERP Systems

23

1.1 What Are SAP and ABAP?

23

1.2 Current State of SAP’s ERP Systems

24

1.3 “Old” versus “New” ABAP

26

1.4 Navigating SAP ERP Systems

28

1.4.1 Overview of SAP GUI

29

1.4.2 Overview of SAP Fiori

33

1.5 Summary

34

2 Creating Your First Program

35

2.1 “Hello, World!”

35

2.1.1 Creating a New Program with Eclipse

35

2.1.2 Creating a New Program in Transaction SE80

40

2.1.3 Writing a “Hello, World!” Program

45

2.1.4 Adding Features to Your First Program

46

2.2 Summary

49

3 ABAP 101

51

3.1 Variables and Constants in ABAP

51

3.1.1 The DATA Keyword

51

3.1.2 Numeric Data Types

53

3.1.3 Character-like Data Types

55

3.1.4 Boolean

57

3.1.5 Structures and Internal Tables

58

3.1.6 Inline Data Declarations

61

3.1.7 Constants

62

3.1.8 System Fields and Predefined Constants

63

3.2 Arithmetic and Basic Math Functions

65

3.2.1 Arithmetic Operations

65

3.2.2 Math Functions

68

3.2.3 CLEAR Command

70

3.3 Flow Control

72

3.3.1 IF Statements

72

3.3.2 CASE Statements

76

3.3.3 DO Loops

79

3.3.4 WHILE Loops

79

3.4 Selection Screen Programming

80

3.4.1 PARAMETER

81

3.4.2 SELECT-OPTIONS

85

3.4.3 Selection Texts

87

3.4.4 SELECTION-SCREEN

88

3.4.5 BLOCK

88

3.4.6 Other Selection Screen Elements

91

3.5 Event Blocks

92

3.5.1 INITIALIZATION

93

3.5.2 AT SELECTION-SCREEN

93

3.5.3 START-OF-SELECTION

95

3.6 Formatting Code

95

3.7 Comments

97

3.7.1 Common Commenting Mistakes

98

3.7.2 Using Comments while Programming

100

3.8 Debugging Basics

100

3.8.1 Program to Debug

101

3.8.2 Breakpoints in Eclipse

103

3.8.3 Breakpoints in the SAP GUI

108

3.8.4 Watchpoints in Eclipse

113

3.8.5 Watchpoints in SAP GUI

116

3.9 Tying It All Together

117

3.9.1 The Problem

118

3.9.2 The Solution

119

3.10 Summary

120

4 Data Dictionary Objects

121

4.1 What Is a Database?

121

4.2 What Is a Data Dictionary?

122

4.3 Database Design

123

4.3.1 Entity Relationship Diagrams

123

4.3.2 Database Normalization

124

4.3.3 Relationships in ERDs

126

4.4 Navigation to ABAP Dictionary Objects

127

4.5 Table, Data Element, and Domain

129

4.6 Training Data Model and Example Definition

132

4.6.1 SAP Flight and Booking Data Model

133

4.6.2 Training Example: Enhancing the SAP Model

134

4.7 Creating a New Domain

135

4.8 Creating a New Data Element

139

4.9 Creating and Editing Tables

144

4.9.1 Viewing the Flight Table Configuration

144

4.9.2 Creating an Append Structure

151

4.9.3 Creating a Custom Transparent Table

154

4.10 Documentation

161

4.11 Viewing Data in the Database Tables

162

4.11.1 Data Preview in Eclipse

162

4.11.2 Data Browser in SAP GUI

164

4.11.3 Setting Up the Flights Example Data

169

4.12 Table Maintenance Dialogs

170

4.12.1 Generating Maintenance Dialog for a Table

170

4.12.2 Table Maintenance Transaction SM30

172

4.13 Structures and Table Types

174

4.13.1 Creating Structures

174

4.13.2 Creating Table Types

176

4.14 Search Help

177

4.15 Views

181

4.16 Summary

184

5 Accessing the Database

185

5.1 SQL Console in Eclipse

186

5.2 Reading Data

187

5.2.1 SELECT Statements

188

5.2.2 INNER JOIN

192

5.2.3 LEFT OUTER JOIN

197

5.2.4 FOR ALL ENTRIES IN

199

5.2.5 With SELECT-OPTIONS

201

5.2.6 Aggregate Expressions in SELECT Statements

203

5.2.7 New Open SQL

205

5.2.8 ABAP CDS Views

207

5.3 Changing Data

210

5.3.1 INSERT

210

5.3.2 MODIFY/UPDATE

211

5.3.3 DELETE

213

5.4 Table Locks

214

5.4.1 Viewing Table Locks

216

5.4.2 Creating Table Lock Objects

218

5.4.3 Setting Table Locks

220

5.5 Performance Topics

224

5.6 Obsolete Database Access Keywords

226

5.6.1 SELECT…ENDSELECT

226

5.6.2 Short Form Open SQL

227

5.7 Summary

227

6 Storing Data in Working Memory

229

6.1 Using ABAP Dictionary Data Types

229

6.2 Creating Data Types with the TYPE Keyword

231

6.3 Field Symbols

233

6.4 Defining Internal Tables

234

6.4.1 Defining Standard Tables

234

6.4.2 Keys in Internal Tables

236

6.4.3 Defining Sorted Tables

238

6.4.4 Defining Hashed Tables

240

6.5 Reading Data from Internal Tables

241

6.5.1 READ TABLE

241

6.5.2 LOOP AT

247

6.6 Modifying Internal Tables

250

6.6.1 Inserting/Appending Rows

250

6.6.2 Changing Rows

253

6.6.3 Deleting Rows

255

6.7 Other Internal Table Operations

257

6.7.1 Copying Table Data

257

6.7.2 SORT

258

6.7.3 DELETE ADJACENT DUPLICATES FROM

260

6.8 Which Table Should Be Used?

261

6.9 Updating ABAP Dictionary Table Type

263

6.10 Obsolete Working Memory Syntax

265

6.10.1 WITH HEADER LINE

266

6.10.2 OCCURS

266

6.10.3 Square Brackets

267

6.10.4 Short Form Table Access

267

6.10.5 BINARY SEARCH

267

6.11 Summary

268

7 Making Programs Modular

269

7.1 Separation of Concerns

269

7.2 Subroutines

272

7.3 Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming

274

7.3.1 What Is an Object?

274

7.3.2 Modularizing with Object-Oriented Programming

276

7.4 Structuring Classes

277

7.4.1 Implementation versus Definition

278

7.4.2 Creating Objects

278

7.4.3 Public and Private Sections

280

7.4.4 Class Methods

282

7.4.5 Importing, Returning, Exporting, and Changing

286

7.4.6 Constructors

293

7.4.7 Recursion

295

7.4.8 Inheritance

297

7.4.9 Composition

302

7.5 Global Classes

308

7.5.1 How to Create Global Classes in Eclipse

309

7.5.2 How to Create Global Classes in Transaction SE80

310

7.5.3 Using the Form-Based View in Transaction SE80

312

7.6 Design Patterns

317

7.7 Function Modules

317

7.7.1 Creating Function Groups and Modules in Eclipse

318

7.7.2 Creating Function Groups in Transaction SE80

322

7.7.3 Calling Function Modules

326

7.8 Summary

327

8 Error Handling

329

8.1 SY-SUBRC

329

8.2 Message Classes

331

8.2.1 Displaying a Message Class

331

8.2.2 Creating a Message Class

333

8.2.3 Using the MESSAGE Keyword

336

8.3 Exception Classes

341

8.3.1 Unhandled Exceptions

342

8.3.2 TRY/CATCH Statements

348

8.3.3 Custom Exception Classes

350

8.4 Non-Class-Based Exceptions

355

8.5 Summary

358

9 Presenting Data Using the ABAP List Viewer

361

9.1 What Is ALV?

361

9.2 Report Example Using an SALV Table

366

9.3 Report Example Using SALV Tree

371

9.4 ALV with Integrated Data Access

380

9.5 Outdated ALV Frameworks

383

9.5.1 REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY Function Module

383

9.5.2 CL_GUI_ALV_GRID Class

385

9.6 Summary

386

10 Creating a Shopping Cart Example

387

10.1 The Design

388

10.1.1 The Database

389

10.1.2 The Global Class

390

10.1.3 The Access Programs

390

10.2 Database Solution

392

10.2.1 Data Elements

392

10.2.2 Transparent Tables

397

10.3 Accessing the Database Solution

405

10.4 Creating a Message Class for the Solution

415

10.5 Creating Classic Screens for the Solution

416

10.5.1 Product Maintenance Program

417

10.5.2 Shopping Cart Maintenance Program

423

10.6 Summary

429

11 Working with Strings and Texts

431

11.1 String Manipulation

431

11.1.1 String Templates

432

11.1.2 String Functions

435

11.2 Text Symbols

437

11.2.1 Creating Text Symbols

437

11.2.2 Translating Text Symbols

442

11.3 Translating Data in Tables

445

11.4 Translating Messages

451

11.5 Obsolete String and Text Commands

453

11.6 Updating the Shopping Cart Example

454

11.6.1 Updating the Database

454

11.6.2 Using the Text Table

460

11.7 Summary

463

12 Working with Dates, Times, Quantities, and Currencies

465

12.1 Dates

465

12.1.1 Date Type Basics

466

12.1.2 Factory Calendars

469

12.1.3 Datum Date Type

473

12.1.4 System Date Fields

475

12.1.5 Date-Limited Records

475

12.2 Times

477

12.2.1 Calculating Time

477

12.2.2 Timestamps

478

12.2.3 SY-UZEIT (System Time versus Local Time)

482

12.3 Quantities

482

12.3.1 Quantity Fields in Data Dictionary

484

12.3.2 Converting Quantities

485

12.4 Currencies

486

12.4.1 Currency Fields in Data Dictionary

487

12.4.2 Converting Currencies

488

12.5 Updating the Shopping Cart Example

490

12.5.1 Updating the Database

491

12.5.2 Updating the Global Class

497

12.5.3 Updating the ABAP Programs

500

12.6 Summary

504

13 User Interface Technologies

505

13.1 Working with Classic Dynpro Screens

505

13.1.1 Dynpro Screen Events

506

13.1.2 Creating a Dynpro Screen

508

13.2 Modern UI Technologies

528

13.2.1 Web Dynpro

529

13.2.2 SAP Screen Personas

531

13.2.3 SAP Gateway, SAPUI5, and SAP Fiori

532

13.3 Summary

534

14 Working with ABAP Professionally

535

14.1 ABAP System Architecture Basics

535

14.2 Transport Management

539

14.3 Authorization Concept

550

14.3.1 Authorization Object

550

14.3.2 Performing an Authorization Check in an ABAP Program

560

14.4 Working with Files

566

14.4.1 Files on the Presentation Server

567

14.4.2 Files on the Application Server

577

14.5 ABAP Development Guidelines

582

14.6 Maintaining Documentation

586

14.7 ABAP Unit Tests

593

14.8 Background Jobs

602

14.9 Tools of the Trade

611

14.10 Backward Compatibility and Dealing with Legacy Code

621

14.11 Summary

623

A Preparing Your Development Environment

627

A.1 ABAP Developer Edition Overview

627

A.2 ABAP Trial System Using SAP CAL

630

A.3 ABAP Trial System Using the Download Option

632

A.4 Getting Started with ABAP in Eclipse

633

A.4.1 Eclipse Workspaces

633

A.4.2 Eclipse Perspectives

634

A.4.3 ABAP Projects in Eclipse

636

A.5 ABAP-Based IDEs

639

A.5.1 Transaction SE80

639

A.5.2 Other ABAP IDE Transactions

643

B Interfaces, Forms, Enhancements

645

B.1 Interfaces

645

B.1.1 File Interfaces

645

B.1.2 Remote Function Call

646

B.1.3 IDoc and EDI

647

B.1.4 Web Services

648

B.2 Output Implementation in SAP ERP

649

B.2.1 Output Programs

650

B.2.2 Forms

650

B.3 Enhancements

654

C Differences Between ABAP Versions

661

C.1 Release 7.0

661

C.2 Release 7.02 (7.0 EHP 2)

662

C.3 Release 7.4

663

C.4 Release 7.4 SP 5

663

C.5 Release 7.4 SP 8

663

C.6 Release 7.50

664

C.7 Release 7.51

664

C.8 Release 7.52

664

C.9 Release 7.53

665

D Other Resources

667

D.1 SAP PRESS Books

667

D.2 SAP Community

668

D.3 openSAP

669

D.4 SAP Certifications

669

D.5 SAP TechEd Conferences

669

D.6 SAP Community Events

670