Intro abaplint is an open-source static analysis tool for ABAP, it runs well with continuous integration tools like GitHub Apps, GitHub Actions, GitLab Pipelines, Bitbucket Pipelines, Azure Pipelines, Travis, and more. But the developer had to create a pull/merge request before the logic was triggered, now it is possible to run the checks earlier in the development process. Setup The setup consists of 2 components, https://github.com/abaplint/abaplint-abap-backend to be installed on the ABAP backend using abapGit, it implements a custom code inspector check that can be added in the default variant. https://github.com/abaplint/abaplint-cloud-foundry is a component that can be installed on your private cloud foundry environment, SAP offers a free CF trial. The configuration is done via the normal code inspector UI, but the configuration is global and not per variant. If the package is also configured in abapGit, it is easy to pull the abaplint.json configuration from the remote git repository. For testing purposes, endpoint http://sci.abaplint.org can be used instead of a private CF environment, use at own risk, unencrypted code will leave your infrastructure, plus the server is slow. The vscode extension can be used to edit the configuration locally and offers checking of the config file via the latest json schema.   Result When the configuration is done, it's possible to run the code inspector checks using your favorite editor/environment. Note that the code inspector check will hook automagically into ADT or ATC.   Outlook As with all IT, this is work in progress, multithreading is not implemented on the server-side, in a CF set just add more instances. There is lots of bugs, ABAP is a crazy language, but so far 300+ versions of abaplint have been released, and it will continue to evolve.   ... View more

Dear all,  I implement currently the BAdI ME_PROCESS_REQ_CUST to update the PR-items. In my scenario it is necessary that in case of a specific change to the current item, I need to update an append-field in all other items of the PR as well. I am not sure if this is supported by the mentioned BAdI because it is not working in the moment. This is my coding which I call in the menthod PROCESS_ITEM. ls_data = io_item->get_data( ). ls_data_prev = io_item->get_previous_data( ). lo_header = io_item->get_requisition( ). " Check if the Material Group has been changed CHECK ls_data-matkl NE ls_data_prev-matkl. " Get PR-items lt_item_obj = lo_header->get_items( ). " Process each PR-item LOOP AT lt_item_obj ASSIGNING <ls_item_obj>. " Get Item-Details ls_item = <ls_item_obj>-item->get_data( ). " Update ZZ-Field ls_item-zzxxx = 'ABC'. ls_item->set_data( ls_item ). ENDLOOP. I get all the other items using the header-object which leads me then to the list of items and their corresponding object which I use to update the item data. Did you already try to implement a similar requirement using this BAdI? I tried as well using method CHECK but I guess here it is not allowed to change the items details anymore. I tried it but w/o success as well. Thank you very much for every hint/advice Kind regards Jens     ... View more

TL;DR - SAP Build Code is GA, and for a limited time (1 month, starting now) you can test drive the generative AI features of Joule in SAP Build Code. Introduction This week, SAP Build Code is GA: Generally Available. That's pretty exciting, given that one of the key features is the set of generative AI capabilities available through Joule. But guess what - you can try these capabilities out in SAP Build Code starting now. There's a test drive tutorial that's ready and waiting for you, and a period of four weeks, until Fri 26 Apr, where you can kick the tyres and put Joule through its paces. We'll round out this period with a special live stream episode too (see later in this post for details). Building CAP services with the help of generative AI If you saw the Developer Keynote, part of SAP TechEd 2023, you will have seen a glimpse of Joule in action here, where we built an SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) service with Joule starting from simple text prompts. Here's a quick overview of the four main areas where generative AI comes into play, in the form of Joule, when putting together a CAP service. Creating the data model and service Normally the first thing you'll want to do is define the entities and the relationships between them. You'll also want to describe how these entities are then exposed. In CAP terms, these are the entities and relationships at the persistence layer (which by convention we like to define in the "db/" directory), and the exposure thereof at the service layer (which by convention we like to define in the "srv/" directory). With the "Data Model and Service Creation" section of the guide, which is part of Joule, you can do this by supplying a text prompt: Generating and managing sample data CAP already makes it super easy to supply test data for your entities, for use at design time. Joule goes one step further in not only generating that test data for you, but giving you a facility to enhance it, by supplying constraints to which the test data must comply, again in the form of a text prompt. Applying custom logic for the service While it still blows my mind that CAP provides complete support, out of the box, for all operations of an OData service (known as "CRUD+Q", in other words "Create, Read, Update, Delete and Query"), wait until you see what the generative AI facilities can offer you so that you can make that service your own. The Joule developer facilities in SAP Build Code allow you to have Node.js (JavaScript) code generated for all the standard phases of the four main events. In other words, for the "Before", "On" and "After" phases of the "Create", "Read", "Update" and "Delete" events ("Query" is handled with "Read"). Here's what that looks like: These facilities are available in the "Application Logic" section of the guide. As I remarked in my section of the Developer Keynote where I showed off this facility, the generated code is more than fine, it's often exemplary - of a standard to which I can aspire. Pretty amazing. Help with unit testing I'll be the first to admit that I am not great at creating unit tests. It's a chore, and I'm not very good at it. So I'm happy that the fourth section of the guide, "Unit Testing", offers me help in this area. Here again, using Joule, I can generate and subsequently manage unit tests for my service. Now that is something that I will definitely be digging into more, because - remember kids - the three virtues of any great programmer are Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. Test drive tutorial available now Talking of digging in, you can too. For a limited period, every developer can get access to these facilities. To mark the occasion of the GA event, the team has put together a "test drive", available in our Tutorial Navigator. It's a mission called SAP Build Code Test Drive and it consists of two tutorials, where you can first get everything you need set up, before diving in to try things out: In addition, you get enough "prompt credit" to be able to run through the test drive. The best thing? All you need is a trial account on the SAP Business Technology Platform. And everyone who completes the mission gets a badge too. Support during the test drive period This test drive is available until Fri 26 Apr. So get started right now! During this test drive period, there are some awesome folks from the SAP Build Code and Joule team here at SAP ready to help with your questions. Where? In the SAP Build Code topic area of the SAP Community platform. In particular, you can use the menu item shown here to ask a question: If you want to jump straight to the question form, with the "SAP Build Code" managed tag already assigned (which is basically where this menu item will take you), you can use this URL: https://community.sap.com/t5/forums/postpage/choose-node/true/product-id/73555000100800004372/board-id/technology-questions Wait, there's more! At the end of the test drive period, we in the Developer Advocates team will be looking forward to kicking the tyres with you too, and we plan to do that live, on the Hands-on SAP Dev show on Fri 26 Apr. That will definitely be a fun and enlightening episode for all of us, I'm sure. There will be two live streams, one for each of the main regions: EMEA / APJ at 0800 BST (UTC+1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpuVqWDT2hw AMERICAS at 1200 EDT (UTC-4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqGldi8yBbI  Just in case you missed it, there was a great blog post from Bhagat Nainani just published too: SAP Build Code is now generally available to speed up your development with generative AI. And for a high level overview, check out this article: SAP Build Code is now on SAP BTP Trial: Elevate Your Development Experience. So what are you waiting for? 👉 Head over to the Tutorial Navigator right now and dive in, the test drive is waiting for you. Don't forget, this test drive period will end in a month from now! ... View more

Introduction Scenario Step by step procedure Coding  Introduction For raising error messages first we have to prepare a message container. Message Container is used to add corresponding success or error messages to the response of the OData service. We use a standard interface /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER to add the messages to the OData response. To add a message to the message container, we can use any of these methods in the message container interface apart from these 5 methods other methods also available. In this blog I will be showing these methods only. ADD_MESSAGE - Adds an error message ADD_ERROR_DETAIL – Add error detail to the OData Inner Error section. ADD_MESSAGE_TEXT_ONLY – Adds an Error text without Message Details ADD_MESSAGE_FROM_BAPI – Adds one message of type BAPIRET2 to the message container ADD_MESSAGES_FROM_BAPI – Adds messages of type BAPIRET2 to the message container Raising an error message from SAP Odata method is a 3 step process: Define a message container object Add message text to message container object Export message container object in raised exception Let’s start by creating an example to display the messages in the OData service. I will show create_entity as an example for all the methods of message container. Scenario We have Employee information Custom table as YEMP_DETAILS containing below fields. By taking these fields we are performing post operation. Step-by-Step Procedure #1 Creating Odata service: Create a OData service with an entity set called “EmpdetailsSet” which retrieves the Employee details available in the table. Here I took this simple example to demonstrate the concept, you may choose a different example as per your need. Code may look like below for create_entity.  METHOD EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY. " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA                 = ER_ENTITY. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS              INSERT yemp_details FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDMETHOD. #2 Testing Odata service: Test the OData service in the gateway client, if we don’t validate fields, you will see response like below with HTTP response code as 201. Fig 1 As you can see in above fig.1 even though all field values are initial it will be saving into database. To avoid this, we have to validate fields. #3 Adding a messages to OData response using methods Now our next step is to add the error message to this response. So modify the implementation of ‘EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY’ for adding messages to  the response. Coding ADD_MESSAGE:  Using this method we can handle both single and multiple messages to response. ADD_MESSAGE required message class, id and type of the message. For this we have to create message class in SE91 T-code and have to add messages with message numbers. The important parameter which should be noted here is IV_ADD_TO_RESPONSE_HEADER, if we set this parameter as ‘ABAP_TRUE’ then the message will be added to the response header parameter “sap-message”, In case of displaying success message we must set that parameter to true because success message will not display in response body. I’m not displaying message in response header rather I was displaying in response body. Handling Single Message in response: METHOD EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY. " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY.                                                                                                      . " Instantiate Message Container DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER.                                        CALL METHOD Me->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. " Validations IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE   = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR " Message Type IV_MSG_ID     = 'YB_MSG'   " Message Class IV_MSG_NUMBER = '001'.  " Message Number – Enter EmpId . RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE   = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR IV_MSG_ID     = 'YB_MSG' IV_MSG_NUMBER = '002'  " Enter name . RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-CITY IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE    = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR IV_MSG_ID      = 'YB_MSG' IV_MSG_NUMBER  = '003'   " Enter City . RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. ENDMETHOD. fig.2 As you can see in fig.2 by using the above code for add message method we are raising exception individually for every if conditions, so if in HTTP request all the three fields are initial but in HTTP response only Empid Message was displaying. So change code as below for displaying multiple messages in response. Handling Multiple messages in response: METHOD EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY. " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY. " Instantiate Message Container DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER. CALL METHOD ME->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. " Checking Validations IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE   = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR IV_MSG_ID     = 'YB_MSG' IV_MSG_NUMBER = '001'   " Enter Id . ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE   = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR IV_MSG_ID     = 'YB_MSG' IV_MSG_NUMBER = '002'.   " Enter name ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-CITY IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE    = /IWBEP/CL_COS_LOGGER=>ERROR IV_MSG_ID      = 'YB_MSG' IV_MSG_NUMBER  = '003'.   " Enter city                                                                                     ENDIF. " Raising Exception RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. ENDMETHOD. fig.3 Here in the fig.3, here we modified code to raising exception only once not individually as above scenario, so if In HTTP request all the three fields are initial and in HTTP response all three error messages are displaying. ADD_ERROR_DETAIL: Here we have to pass error detail work area of type /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER=>TY_S_ERROR_DETAIL. Since it is work area, we cannot pass error details directly to method because we have more than one validations. Instead we have to assign details to a local work area and then we have to pass that work area into that method parameter. DATA : LS_ERROR TYPE /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER=>TY_S_ERROR_DETAIL. *    " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY. " Validations IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. LS_ERROR-MESSAGE_TEXT = 'Enter Id'. LS_ERROR-SEVERITY = 'E'. ENDIF. * IF LS_ERROR IS INITIAL AND ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. LS_ERROR-MESSAGE_TEXT = 'Enter Name'. LS_ERROR-SEVERITY = 'E'. ENDIF. " Instantiate Message Container DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER. CALL METHOD ME->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_ERROR_DETAIL EXPORTING IS_ERROR_DETAIL = LS_ERROR.   " Error detail " Raising exception RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. "Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. fig.4 In fig.4, In HTTP Request both name and city field values are initial but in HTTP Response only error message related to 'name' displayed. ADD_MESSAGE_TEXT_ONLY:  In this method no need of passing message class, id, type instead we directly have to pass message text and type whether it is Error/ Warning/Success. METHOD EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY. " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY. " Instantiate the Message Container DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER. CALL METHOD ME->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE_TEXT_ONLY EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE = 'E'   " Message Type - defined by GCS_MESSAGE_TYPE IV_MSG_TEXT = 'Enter Employee id'.  " Message Text ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE_TEXT_ONLY EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE = 'E'   " Message Type - defined by GCS_MESSAGE_TYPE IV_MSG_TEXT = 'Enter Name'.  " Message Text ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-CITY IS INITIAL. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE_TEXT_ONLY EXPORTING IV_MSG_TYPE = 'E'   " Message Type - defined by GCS_MESSAGE_TYPE IV_MSG_TEXT = 'Enter City'.  " Message Text ENDIF. " Raising Exception IF LO_MSG IS NOT INITIAL. RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. fig.5 In fig.5, in HTTP request both empid and city are initial and in HTTP response both error messages are handled along with corresponding text and severity. ADD_MESSAGE_FROM_BAPI: we have to pass BAPI work area and also target id i.e, message class name. since we have to pass work area name to the method first we have to assign BAPI message detail to work area. DATA: LS_BAPI TYPE BAPIRET2. " Bapi Workarea " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY. IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. LS_BAPI-ID = 'YB_MSG'. LS_BAPI-NUMBER = '001'. LS_BAPI-TYPE = 'E'. ENDIF. IF LS_BAPI IS INITIAL AND ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. LS_BAPI-ID = 'YB_MSG'. LS_BAPI-NUMBER = '002'. LS_BAPI-TYPE = 'E'. ENDIF. IF LS_BAPI IS INITIAL AND ER_ENTITY-CITY IS INITIAL. LS_BAPI-ID = 'YB_MSG'. LS_BAPI-NUMBER = '003'. LS_BAPI-TYPE = 'E'. ENDIF. IF LS_BAPI IS NOT INITIAL. " Instantiate Message Container DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER. CALL METHOD ME->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG.   " Message Container Interface ENDIF. IF LO_MSG IS BOUND. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGE_FROM_BAPI EXPORTING IS_BAPI_MESSAGE            =  LS_BAPI  " Return Parameter IV_MESSAGE_TARGET          =  'YB_MSG'  " Target (reference)(e.g.Property ID) of a message . " Raising Exception RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING TEXTID            = /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION=>BUSINESS_ERROR MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. fig.6 In fig.6, in HTTP Request all id, name and city fields are initial but in HTTP Response only one message was displaying along with target name and message. ADD_MESSAGES_FROM_BAPI: This method will add multiple messages in odata response. For this we have to pass BAPI internal table. Since it is internal table we cannot directly pass messages to method instead we gave to append message details to internal table first then we have to pass that internal table to method. METHOD EMPDETAILSSET_CREATE_ENTITY. DATA: LT_BAPI TYPE TABLE OF BAPIRET2. " Read Request Data CALL METHOD IO_DATA_PROVIDER->READ_ENTRY_DATA IMPORTING ES_DATA = ER_ENTITY. " Checking Validations IF ER_ENTITY-EMPID IS INITIAL. APPEND VALUE #( ID = 'YB_MSG' NUMBER = '001' TYPE = 'E' ) TO LT_BAPI.      ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-NAME IS INITIAL. APPEND VALUE #( ID = 'YB_MSG' NUMBER = '002' TYPE = 'E' ) TO LT_BAPI. ENDIF. IF ER_ENTITY-CITY IS INITIAL. APPEND VALUE #( ID = 'YB_MSG' NUMBER = '003' TYPE = 'E' ) TO LT_BAPI.      ENDIF. IF LT_BAPI IS NOT INITIAL. " Instantiate Message Container  DATA : LO_MSG TYPE REF TO /IWBEP/IF_MESSAGE_CONTAINER. CALL METHOD ME->/IWBEP/IF_MGW_CONV_SRV_RUNTIME~GET_MESSAGE_CONTAINER RECEIVING RO_MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG.   " Message Container Interface ENDIF. IF LO_MSG IS BOUND. CALL METHOD LO_MSG->ADD_MESSAGES_FROM_BAPI EXPORTING IT_BAPI_MESSAGES = LT_BAPI.   " Return parameter table " Raising Exception RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION EXPORTING TEXTID        = /IWBEP/CX_MGW_BUSI_EXCEPTION=>BUSINESS_ERROR MESSAGE_CONTAINER = LO_MSG. ENDIF. " Insert Data in table YEMP_DETAILS IF ER_ENTITY IS NOT INITIAL. INSERT YEMP_DETAILS FROM ER_ENTITY. ENDIF. ENDMETHOD. fig.7 Here in the fig.7, In HTTP request all the three fields are initial and in HTTP response all three error messages are displaying along with raised exception. Conclusion:  Based on requirement we can choose any of the methods available to perform error handling in OData. ... View more

Dear SAP customers and partners, dear ABAP developer community, ABAP  Platform Trial 1909 is available now. ABAP Platform Trial replaces the former Developer Edition 1909. With ABAP Platform Trial 1909 we want to return to you what the ABAP developer community and many SAP customers and partners were missing for a long time: a standalone ABAP trial offering free of charge which you can use for your own educational purposes, for your own configuration and test setups and as a home for your open source projects. Over the last year, we have been in close contact with the SAP Mentors and DSAG (Sebastian Freilinger-Huber and team from AK Development) to better understand their needs and to find a way to offer the trial version again. Like its predecessor, ABAP Platform Trial is a docker image containing an ABAP application server (ABAP Platform 1909 SP 07) running on top of the SAP HANA 2.0 database and SAP Cloud Connector. You can pull the entire image from docker hub and create a docker container from it, see ABAP Platform Trial on Docker. ABAP Platform Trial on Docker Hub ABAP Platform Trial is modeled as an official SAP product and therefore is delivered through a delivery program. A delivery program ensures that the product meets all SAP product and delivery standards. Special thanks to the SAP HANA team who helped us to get started and for their support during the project. In this fast-paced world with Cloud and AI everywhere version 1909 might sound a bit like an anachronism. However, this version is still in broad use by SAP customers. It was a good starting point for our new delivery approach. We are already working on a subsequent delivery for ABAP Platform Trial 2022 (we leave out version 2020 and 2021). We plan to deliver ABAP Platform Trial for every new ABAP Platform release (version 2023, 2025 and 2027 according to the release strategy for SAP S/4HANA). In addition, we plan to update ABAP Platform Trial subsequently whenever a new SP update for ABAP Platform is released. Please note that the ABAP Platform Trial roadmap like any other SAP roadmap is subject to the usual roadmap disclaimers. ABAP Platform Trial 1909 is a docker image and very easy to install. You need to get Docker Desktop installed on your Windows laptop or Mac. Then you open a command prompt or Terminal: docker pull sapse/abap-platform-trial:1909 docker run --stop-timeout 3600 -i --name a4h -h vhcala4hci -p 3200:3200 -p 3300:3300 -p 8443:8443 -p 30213:30213 -p 50000:50000 -p 50001:50001 sapse/abap-platform-trial:1909 -skip-limits-check Please make sure you have enough main memory on board (>=32 GB). The documentation readme on docker hub provides additional technical details. Once the docker container is up and running you can log on with ABAP Development Tools for Eclipse, via SAP GUI or via SAP Fiori Launchpad, see screen shots below. Enjoy your ABAP Platform Trial 1909. The available scope including the preconfigured scenarios are described in Julie Plummer's ABAP Platform Trial rollout blog. ABAP Platform Trial is a team effort. Many colleagues have contributed in many ways. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to the core team: Ralf Henning who owns, develops and maintains (upgrade, patch) the master image, drives the content and test efforts Stephan Daub who drives the delivery program end to end Jakub Filak who develops the docker image and scripts for publication on docker hub Natalia Brik, Roman Anisovich, Irina Petrov and Derna Hetherton for their support around non-ABAP technical assembly Frank Rotter who validates our delivery tasks Sandra Thimme who executes the test plan Julie Plummer who writes the rollout information and interacts with the community Roland Brethauer and Matthis Langhoff for security validation and export classification Bettina Knauss for her CAL support I would like to thank the SAP Mentors for their continuous engagement. Special thanks go to the following SAP Mentors for testing the image and providing their valuable feedback and input: Gregor Wolf, Wouter Lemaire, Martin Fischer and Paul Hardy. Last but not least I would like to thank you all for your patience regarding this topic. We will keep you in the loop and should something happen unexpectedly we will brief the SAP Mentors and SAP user groups prior to the publication on external media. Best regards Karl ABAP Platform Trial in Docker Desktop ADT connected to ABAP Platform Trial SAP Fiori app on ABAP Platform Trial ... View more

New ABAP expressions for generic and dynamic programming in ABAP Platform 2021: Part I - Dynamic Access to (maybe generic) references Do you use the new ABAP expressions like constructor operators or table selectors in your coding? But you often find that when using generic programming, i.e. data types like REF TO DATA, DATA or ANY you fall back to programming style of the 70th? Then the new ABAP platform 2021 (which shipped with kernel 7.85 last week) has some new features to get you clean up your coding. The main mantra of the new release is: "Get rid of field-symbols!" This is part of a series of multiple blog posts. Please revisit this page as it might point to the sequel in a few weeks or if new topics concerning generic programming in ABAP may arise. 1. The old days: how to handle generic data references classically? When using non-generic references in ABAP you always could write the following: DATA foo TYPE REF TO i. ... foo->* = 5. Here and in the following the CREATE DATA statement or NEW operator has been omitted. But when using generically typed references this was not possible: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... foo->* = 5. " Syntax error: No dereferencing of generic reference possible The only possibility to access the variable "foo" would be to use field-symbols. DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... ASSIGN foo->* TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). <fs> = 5. This makes the code uglier and more difficult to read. It also makes dereferencing the reference impossible inside ABAP expressions, as there is no expression variant of ASSIGN. Another disadvantage is the tricky error handling of ASSIGN. You can have subtle bugs when the error handling is forgotten. 2. Dereferencing generic references is now possible: (nearly) everywhere! We now lifted the above restriction. You can now use the dereferencing operator in most places in ABAP where you can use generically typed ABAP variables. A simple example would be: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... my_object->meth( foo->* ). If FOO is the initial reference, then a runtime error will occur, as in the non-generic case. So no error handling is necessary in most cases. Of course this also works in ABAP SQL like follows: DATA ref TYPE REF TO data. ... SELECT * FROM T100 INTO TABLE @ref->*. This however, immediately leads to a new question: The variable REF is a "REF TO DATA", not a reference to an internal table type. The latter is not possible in ABAP yet. There simply is no "REF TO TABLE" - type. 3. Generic References and Internal Tables In the past in many circumstances you could not use field-symbols of type ANY or variables of type DATA to access internal tables. FIELD-SYMBOLS <any> TYPE any. ... READ TABLE <any> ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<line>) WITH TABLE KEY (dyn_key) = value. " Syntax error: <any> is no internal table Note that I am using a dynamic key specification here. You had to manually "reassign" the field-symbol like follows: FIELD-SYMBOLS <any> TYPE any. FIELD-SYMBOLS <table> TYPE any table. ... ASSIGN <any> TO <table>. IF sy-subrc <> 0. ... " error handling! ENDIF. READ TABLE <table> ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<line>) WITH TABLE KEY (dyn_key) = value. This makes the coding at least 5 lines longer, because of the error handling and the check for sy-subrc. It is also error-prone, as you might forget the error handling, which yields all kinds of funny results if you do this inside a loop and the field-symbol of the last loop iteration is still assigned. You can now use variables and field-symbols of type ANY and DATA directly in LOOP and READ statements. This gives many new possibilities: DATA ref TO REF TO data. ... LOOP AT ref->* ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). " now possible ENDLOOP. READ TABLE ref->* ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>) " now possible WITH KEY (dyn_key) = value. It also makes it possible to directly dereference a reference and apply a table selector. DATA itab_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... itab_ref->*[ (dyn_key) = key_value ] = value. The same mechanism has been applied to internal table functions like LINES: DATA itab_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... IF lines( itab_ref->* ) > 0. ... ENDIF. In case that ITAB_REF does not point to a an internal table at runtime, there is the new runtime error ITAB_ILLEGAL_OPERAND. There is however a serious limitation to this. You can still not access variables of type DATA or ANY by index. You will still need a field-symbol of type INDEX TABLE. DATA itab_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... itab_ref->*[ 1 ] = value. " syntax error itab_ref->*[ (dyn_key) = key_value ] = value. " ok 4. Introducing Dynamic Reference Expressions The previous paragraphs are only one part of the solution. What if the target of your reference is a structure type, which you do not know exactly at compile time? How to access the individual components of the structure? In the past you would have done something like this: DATA struct_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... ASSIGN struct_ref->* TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). IF sy-subrc <> 0. " error handling 1 ENDIF. ASSIGN COMPONENT 'COMP' OF STRUCTURE <fs> TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs2>). IF sy-subrc <> 0. " error handling 2 ENDIF. <fs2> = value. Some more knowledgeable colleagues even know the completely dynamic ASSIGN, where you could do this all in one step: DATA struct_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... ASSIGN ('STRUCT_REF->COMP') TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). IF sy-subrc <> 0. " error handling ENDIF. <fs> = value. This has of course serious drawbacks: You can not do this inside expressions Everything is dynamic. If you change the name of the variable STRUCT_REF, you will only know at runtime of there is an error ASSIGN is dangerous, because of the sy-subrc error handling you might forget You need many lines of code There also is a very unknown variant of ASSIGN you could use: DATA struct_ref TYPE REF TO data. ... ASSIGN STRUCT_REF->('COMP') TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). IF sy-subrc <> 0. " error handling ENDIF. <fs> = value. We now decided that this gives a good hint for a new kind of ABAP expression, which you can use in many places in ABAP platform 2021. You can now write: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. DATA comp_name TYPE string VALUE `comp`. ... my_object->meth( foo->(comp_name) ). You can use these new kind of expression in most places where you can use expressions and generically typed variables. But what to do, if the component is again a reference to another structure or a reference to a simple type? You have two possibilities. The component name can be an arbitrary assign expression, like: COMP->* or COMP-COMP2 or COMP->COMP2 You can use chaining on these new kind of expressions. DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... " assign expression: my_object->meth( foo->('comp1->comp2->*') ). " assign expression with structures: my_object->meth( foo->('comp1-comp2->*') ). " new kind of daisy-chaining: my_object->meth( foo->('comp1')->('comp2')->* ). Of course you always get nice exceptions if the components do not exist or are not assigned. No sy-subrc is set, of course! The last example with daisy-chaining does not work with structures yet. So you can't write: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... my_object->meth( foo->('COMP')-('COMP2') ). This might by a possible improvement in later ABAP releases. Of course this new feature makes most sense, if you do not know the target type exactly. If you know the target type exactly at compile time, you can always do a: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... CAST concrete_type( foo )->comp = 5. This makes of course even more sense, if you need to access many components of the structure in one method. So the rule of thumb would be: If you know the type of the reference exactly at compile time and need to access multiple components, you should opt for CAST #( ). If you don't know the type of the reference exactly, but only know that the target type contains a column named BLA, use REF->('BLA') If you just need a single component from REF but you know the target type of REF statically, both methods are possible. It depends on the context if you should prefer REF->('BLA') or CAST concrete_type( ref )->bla. I would probably use the CAST #( ) more often in this case, as you will get syntax errors when the component is deleted or renamed in the original structure. This also enables "where used" functionality. Of course you will get a stonger coupling to the specific type in this case, which might not be desired in all cases. 5. Dereferencing fully generic types In the past you could only dereference variables which are explicitely typed as references. But to allow daisy-chaining this had to be lifted. Here is why: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... FOO->(COMP)->(COMP2) = 5. " ^__________ the result of FOO->(COMP) is *no* reference, " but of type DATA. It is now also possible to dereference completely generic types. An exception is thrown at runtime, if no reference is assigned to the variable. METHODS foo IMPORTING value TYPE data. ... METHOD foo. value->* = 5. " possible, runtime error if value is not a reference. ENDMETHOD. From a language theoretic point this is the following: If something can not be checked at compile time but could be valid at runtime, we should not disallow it, but postpone the check to the runtime. In ASSIGN, it was always possible to dereference a fully generic variable. But this is not really any safer: METHODS foo IMPORTING value TYPE data. ... METHOD foo. FIELD-SYMBOLS <fs> TYPE REF TO i. ASSIGN value->* TO <fs>. IF sy-subrc <> 0. ... " error handling ENDIF. ENDMETHOD. 6. Performance Many people ask for performance when new ABAP expressions are introduced. The new ABAP expressions described in this document have a very small performance penalty in comparison with their non-generic counterparts. The following holds regarding performance: The new expressions are faster or equally fast than the ASSIGN command. If you do proper error handling in ASSIGN, the new expressions will be faster. When you use the same expression many times in one ABAP method, using the old ASSIGN with a field symbol and continuously using that single field symbol is still a bit faster. Both assertions are not new: they apply (in a similar way) for nearly every other kind of ABAP expression. Also be aware regarding performance: measure, don't guess! Prefer the kind of coding which is most clean. Only if you have performance problems stick to less clean coding. The immediately leads to another question: What is faster? object->meth( BLA->('BLUB->BLOB->*') ) vs. object->meth( BLA->('BLUB')->('BLOB')->* ) i.e. old style ASSIGN-expressions vs. the new kind of daisy chaining. The answer, of course, depends. Generally we assume that old style ASSIGN expressions are a very very tiny bit faster if the chain is short. This (nearly unmeasurable) performance benefit should diminish for longer chains. If you need ABAP coding to produce  the string 'BLUB->BLOB->*' then the new daisy chaining will have an advantage. So it might depend on the context which of the two variants will perform better. But also here we would stick to the coding which is more clear and more easily understandable. 7. Outlook The new expressions provide an easier way to handle fully generic variables or references in ABAP. They can be used in expressions, throw exceptions and do not set any sy-subrc. They can be combined to form even more powerful constructs. As of ABAP platform 2021 still not every combination of the expressions is possible at every position in the ABAP coding. This leaves room for (possible) improvements in later releases. What additional stuff does not work at the moment? 7.1. Possible Improvement: Daisy-Chaining in ASSIGN for "simple" variables Using chaining of generic reference component access in ASSIGN does not work at the moment, i.e. the following does not work yet: DATA foo TYPE REF TO data. ... " Syntax error in ABAP platform 2021: ASSIGN foo->(comp_name)->* TO FIELD-SYMBOLS(<fs>). This does only work outside of ASSIGN. The reason is the sy-subrc semantics, as inside ASSIGN the sy-subrc must be set and no exception should be thrown. Due to implementation choices in the original ASSIGN implementation, it does work when using a table selector though: DATA itab TYPE TABLE OF REF TO data. ... "No syntax error in ABAP platform 2021: ASSIGN itab[ 1 ]->('BLA')->* TO FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs>). The latter sets sy-subrc to 4 if the itab is empty, but will throw a RABAX if there is no component BLA or references are not assigned. This is in sync with the behaviour in previous ABAP releases. 7.2. Possible Improvemement: Dynamic access to structure components At the moment the new dynamic expressions can only be used when the starting variable is a reference. If the starting variable is of type DATA or ANY or of structure type and points to a variable of structure type at runtime they provide no benefit. The following would be imaginable: METHODS foo IMPORTING value TYPE data. ... METHOD foo. value-(comp_name) = 5. " Syntax error in ABAP platform 2021 value->(comp_name)-(struc_comp) = 5. " Syntax error in ABAP platform 2021 ENDMETHOD. This could also be a possible future improvement. 8. Resumé In this article we described how you: can write better code when using generic data references by using the arrow operator ->* directly inside expressions use the new dynamic reference expressions to access components of generic data or object references Usage of these new tools will make generic coding ready for the 21th century and leads to much shorter, more concise code with less field symbols. Please give your feedback in the comments below. The ABAP language is strongly influenced from your user input. Please ask questions also in the corresponding Q&A forums. ... View more

Hello, all. We are using FM ALSM_EXCEL_TO_INTERNAL_TABLE to upload excel files in somo of our programs. I know this FM is not released and there things like abap2xlsx... but this is an old project with lot of programs using this FM, some of these programs have like 20 years... (we are still in SAP ECC 6.0 😕 ) Well, all this programs have been working well all these years, but suddenly starts falling from the last week. Dont who changed what. I think an integration with office 365 is being prepared and perhaps they have changed some system parameter. This FM uses ole2 Objects, and what it does is basically select all the data from the worksheet, copy it to the clipboard and paste it into an internal table. I think the problem is about the amount of data copied into the clipboard, because with small files it seems it working fine. I've made a session trace and I've seen this error: <100=Automation: CALL METHOD "ClipboardImport" OF [#9/0x0D34BA78/202/Sapgui.InfoCtrl.1] <100=(Error): CSapInfoCtrl::ClipboardImport: Failed to obtain clipboard data object handle, hres = -2147221040 <100=Automation: elapsed time for call = 0.001 sec <100=Automation: Result: LONG "-1" I'm not a basis buy, so I dont know how to interpret this... (Long - 1 ??) Any clue? Thanks in advance. ... View more

Starting the CAP server with cds watch is great for tight development loops at design time, especially with the built-in in-memory SQLite persistence layer, seeded by data in CSV files. When the server notices files have changed, it automatically restarts, which is great. But sometimes you want to maintain files and not have the server restart, perhaps because you have made modifications or additions to the data set that's being served, and don't want to lose that by such a restart. Here's a quick hack to achieve that. Behind the scenes If you set the DEBUG environment variable appropriately when running cds watch, like this:   DEBUG=cli cds watch   then you see a little bit more of what's going on behind the scenes:   [cds] - /cds 7.6.3 loaded: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/node_modules/@sap/cds [cds] - Command resolved: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/bin/watch.js [cli] - live reload available at http://127.0.0.1:35729/livereload.js?snipver=1 cds serve all --with-mocks --in-memory? 9734 watching: cds,csn,csv,ts,mjs,cjs,js,json,properties,edmx,xml,env ... ignoring: (node_modules|_out|@types|@cds-models)\/|app(\/.+)?\/((webapp|dist|target)\/|tsconfig\.json$|.*\.tsbuildinfo$) live reload enabled for browsers [cli] - livereload ignored: .vscode ... [cds] - /cds 7.6.3 loaded: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/node_modules/@sap/cds [cds] - Command resolved: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/bin/serve.js [cds] - loaded model from 2 file(s): srv/cat-service.cds db/data-model.cds [cds] - connect using bindings from: { registry: '~/.cds-services.json' } [cds] - connect to db > sqlite { database: ':memory:' } > init from db/data/my.bookshop-Books.csv /> successfully deployed to in-memory database. [cds] - using auth strategy { kind: 'mocked', impl: '../../usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/node_modules/@sap/cds/lib/auth/basic-auth' } [cds] - serving CatalogService { path: '/odata/v4/catalog' } [cds] - server listening on { url: 'http://localhost:4004' } [cds] - launched at 4/10/2024, 8:55:34 AM, version: 7.6.3, in: 736.516ms [cds] - [ terminate with ^C ] [cli] - live reload for . 0 ws clients   It's the "ignored" lines that we're interested in, rather than any containing "livereload", which is related, but separate. It's these two log lines that are interesting here:   9734 watching: cds,csn,csv,ts,mjs,cjs,js,json,properties,edmx,xml,env ... ignoring: (node_modules|_out|@types|@cds-models)\/|app(\/.+)?\/((webapp|dist|target)\/|tsconfig\.json$|.*\.tsbuildinfo$)   The CAP server uses node-watch behind the scenes providing the watch-and-restart mechanism. And it has a default regular expression, which we can see here, to describe file and directory name patterns that this mechanism should ignore. Normal behaviour Sometimes when marshalling data for an OData CREATE operation, for example, I'll use a file to store the JSON payload for such an operation. If I were to create or maintain the contents of a file called data.json in the project root, for example, like this:   touch data.json   then the CAP server would be restarted:   [cli] - Restart { events: [ { type: 'update', name: '/tmp/watchme/data.json' } ] } [cli] - ️ SIGTERM 15 received by cds serve [cli] - ️ cds serve - cds.shutdown [cli] - ️ cds serve - server.close(d) [cli] - ️ cds serve - process.beforeExit [cli] - ️ cds serve - process.exit [cli] - ️ cds watch - child exited 9745 ___________________________ [cds] - /cds 7.6.3 loaded: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/node_modules/@sap/cds [cds] - Command resolved: /usr/lib/node_modules/@sap/cds-dk/bin/serve.js ... [cds] - serving CatalogService { path: '/odata/v4/catalog' } [cds] - server listening on { url: 'http://localhost:4004' } [cli] - live reload for /tmp/watchme/data.json. 0 ws clients [cds] - launched at 4/10/2024, 8:58:31 AM, version: 7.6.3, in: 732.947ms [cds] - [ terminate with ^C ]   This would mean that the state of the in-memory data set served by my services would be lost and reset to the original CSV data file based state through the normal restart process. Avoiding normal behaviour If I wanted to avoid that happening, I could create a directory whose name was matched by the "ignore" regular expression. For example, If I could create a directory called _out/ in the project root:   mkdir _out/   And then any creation or maintenance of files in that directory:   touch _out/data.json   would not result in the server being restarted:   [cli] - ignored: _out [cli] - livereload ignored: _out [cli] - ignored: _out [cli] - ignored: _out/data.json   Good to know! Originally published on qmacro.org ... View more