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ABAP Workbench: IntroductionPrepared by Jennifer Kreie

New Mexico State University 

Prerequisite knowledge for this series of lessons in ABAP

This series of lessons are written with the assumption that you have had at least one programming course inwhich you learned about basic programming concepts: variables, constants, data types, and commonly used

control structures, such as IF .. ELSE, L!, and "#SE. This series of lessons is not an introduction toprogramming but an introduction to #$#!. %ou can go through these lessons without &nowing programmingbasics simply by following the e'amples and instructions but you probably won(t understand much of the codeyou type.

The lessons are also written with the assumption that you are familiar with relational database concepts andcommonly used S)L commands. If you have not had a course that covered relational database concepts, youshould find a database management or systems analysis boo& and read the chapter*s+ about data modeling anddatabase design or go to %ouTube and search for database -reie and view a series of videos about databasefundamentals.

An Introduction to SAP and ABAP

S#! *Systems, Applications / Products in data processing+ is a software company that develops and sells allthe components of enterprise resource planning *E0!+ software, as well as add1on applications, such as datamining *a.&.a. business intelligence+, supply chain management, customer relationship management, and others.S#! has the largest mar&et share for E0! software. racle "orporation is second in mar&et share. FYI, thecompany says the etters, not the word !sap"#

S#! has a 21tier architecture: presentation layer, application layer, and database layer. The presentation layermay be delivered through S#!(s client1side 34I or through a 5eb browser. The application layer is handled byS#! 5eb #pplication Server. The application layer handles communication between the presentation layer andthe database layer. The database layer is handled by the 6$7S, which can vary depending on the choice of thecompany with S#! installed. The 6$7S could be racle, 6$8, 7a'6$, etc.

 #$#! 5or&bench is the development environment provided in S#! for creating and modifying programs that runin S#!. The development environment has a rich set of features to assist developers. In recent years S#! has

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ABAP Workbench: IntroductionPrepared by Jennifer Kreie

New Mexico State University 

offered 9et5eaver as a development environment that supports both ava and #$#! languages for webdevelopment. #$#! 5or&bench also provides some web tools. 4nli&e programs in other languages, such asava, #$#! programs do not run outside the S#! environment. 

 #$#!

 #$#! is the programming language developed by S#! and it was used to create the suite of software offered byS#!. #$#! was originally similar to "$L and other procedural languages. ver time #$#! has beenenhanced and now supports ob;ect1oriented programming features.

The #$#! language:

• <as the basic predefined data types: characters *c+, numeric *n+, integer *i+, date *d+, floating point *f+,

etc. *"lic& this lin& to see help.sap.com for the complete list.+

• Supports multilingual interpretation of input and output screens through the use of te't elements *list

headers, selection te'ts, te't symbols

• Supports fast, large dataset processing.

The #$#! 5or&bench helps developers by:• Enforcing certain conventions, such as naming conventions and the use of organi=ational features such

as pac&ages and transport re>uests.

• !roviding helpful features such as !attern which provides a template for writing commonly used #$#!

statements, such as 50ITE, "#SE, "#LL, etc.

• !roviding forward navigation that allows the developer to ;ump from #$#! code to the definition of a

table, another program and so forth.

• !roviding interfaces to help find information from the S#! data dictionary *metadata+, to see listings of

classes and ob;ects, and more.

Some general S#! terms to &now

"lient In S#! a client is not a customer. *%ou ;ust have to get used to this term as it is used in S#!.+ #business unit with its own financial statements such as subsidiary within a corporation is referred to as aclient.

Transaction code Each interface *one or more screens+ in S#! has a transaction code assigned. Fore'ample, transaction code F.01 is a financial statements screen that shows summary financial datafrom the general ledger accounts. Transaction code !0" shows information about each customer*a.&.a. $%siness Partner +. There are hundreds of transactions codes but if you wor& with S#! in abusiness, for e'ample, as an accountant, you probably would use no more than ?8 to 8@ transactioncodes in your wor&.

$asis The database and supporting platform for the S#! applications is called $asis. If you wor& for acompany with S#!, at least one person will be the $asis administrator *similar to database

administrator+.

6ynpros # series of dialog screens that complete a unit of wor& in S#!. For e'ample, when you create apurchase order, the dialog screens you use to do this ma&e up a dynpro.

7aster data 7aster data are fairly stable with occasional changes. These data support the daily processes ofa business which generate transaction data.

Transaction data Transactional data are generated routinely from the processes a business performsAprocesses such as creating a sales order for a customer, order supplies from a vendor, receiving

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ABAP Workbench: IntroductionPrepared by Jennifer Kreie

New Mexico State University 

payments from customers, etc. The data about the customer and vendor are #aster data since a newrecord customer or vendor is not created when an order is created. <owever, the sales order and thepurchase order data are transaction data. # new record *or records+ is created whenever a sales order is ta&en, for e'ample.

Logical database This is S#!(s term for a predefined dataset that combines data from several tables anddefines how the tables are ;oined. Logical databases are usually defined for a functional area or aspecific S#! module or program.

I6ES This acronym stands for Internet 6emonstration and Evaluation System and it is a client used for S#!software training. There is a lot of disparate sample data in this client. In other words, the data does notrepresent one corporation. For e'ample, there is data about manufacturing but there is also data aboutairline flights. Some of the data is also incomplete. %ou may not be able to trace the se>uence ofrecords that a cash1to1cash cycle would normally create. FYI, the cash&to&cash cyce is the cyce ofmoney spent b%yin' raw materias, man%fact%rin' a prod%ct, sein' the prod%ct, and receivin' paymentfor the prod%ct#

$esources % $eferences

 #$#! $asics, 3unther Farber and ulia -irchner, S#! !0ESSB3alileo !ress, 8CCD.

 #$#! b;ects: #n Introduction to !rogramming S#! #pplications, <orst -eller and Sascha -ruger, S#!!0ESSB!earson Education Limited, 8CC8.

$abelfish.yahoo.com *for language translations+

6iscover #$#!, -arl1<ein= -hnhauser, S#! !0ESSB3alileo !ress, 8CC.

<EL!.S#!."7

&er#s 'ou should know

 #$#! 5or&bench................................................................................................................................................... ?$asis....................................................................................................................................................................... 8"lient.................................................................................................................................................................. .... 86ynpros.................................................................................................................................................................. 8I6ES....................................................................................................................................................................... 2Logical database............................................................................................................................................... ..... 87aster data............................................................................................................................................................. 89et5eaver.............................................................................................................................................................. ?ob;ect1oriented........................................................................................................................................................ 8procedural language............................................................................................................................................... 8S#!....................................................................................................................................................................... . ?te't elements.......................................................................................................................................................... 8Transaction code.................................................................................................................................................... 8Transaction data..................................................................................................................................................... 8

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