ABAP Programming Language and Development Tools()

Functionality

Documentation in the System

Expressions, Functions, Operand Positions

The new declaration operators DATA and FIELD-SYMBOL enable inline declarations in declaration expressions at declaration positions.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

A new type of expresion (so-called constructor expression) make it possible - using the constructor operators NEW, VALUE, REF, EXACT, CONV, and CAST - to construct return codes of other types and their contents at general expression positions.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The new integer power function ipow enables fields of any numerical type and with integer values to be raised to a power. The calculation type is determined by the base program.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The operand position after CASE has been changed to a general expression position.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The operand comp in the statement ASSIGN COMPONENT comp OF STRUCTURE is now a character-type or numeric expression position.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The operands after the addition WITH TABLE KEY in the statements READ TABLE itab and DELETE TABLE itab are now general expression positions.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The work area wa of the following statements has been changed from functional operand position to general expression position: APPEND wa TO ... , INSERT wa INTO ..., MODIFY ... FROM wa ...

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The specification of the internal table itab in the statements READ TABLE itab ... and LOOP AT itab ... is now a functional operand position.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The operand positions for formal parameters of the statement RAISE EVENT are now general expression positions. Functions and expressions can now also be passed to event handlers as actual parameters.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The specification oref after SET HANDLER ... FOR is now a functional operand position.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The following operand positions of the statement MESSAGE have been enhanced: oref is now a functional operand position; text is now a character-type expression position; dobj up to dobj4 after WITH are now character-type expression positions or functional operand positions.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The new formatting option ALPHA for embedded expressions in character string templates inserts leading zeroes in front of strings of digits or removes these zeroes.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

The new formatting option XSD for embedded expressions in character-string templates creates its asXML format for elementary data types.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

Comparisons of character-string expressions are now possible when the predicate BETWEEN is used. This was not previously the case.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

Exceptions raised in conversions can now be handled when making assignments of character-string expressions to target fields. This was not previously the case. Exceptions raised - for example, in assignments of non-numeric values to numeric data types or during overflows - can now be handled in the normal way.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

A character-type data object is now sufficient in all operand positions where a time zone could previously only be specified with exactly the type TZNZONE or as a text field of length 6. This concerns the statements CONVERT [INTO] TIME STAMP as well as formatting for character-string templates and WRITE.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

ABAP Objects

Alongside the return value defined using RETURNING, a functional method can now have any number of other formal parameters. Previously, only input parameters were possible. Accordingly, the additions EXPORTING, IMPORTING, and CHANGING are possible with the functional method call in order to bind actual parameters to the additional formal parameters. In the declaration of input parameters of a method, the addition PREFERRED PARAMETER can now also be specified if the method has output parameters or input/output parameters. The only requirement is that all input parameters and input/output parameters are optional.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

ABAP and HANA

The new statement CALL DATABASE PROCEDURE enables the calling of SQLScript (HANA) from ABAP programs.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

Using Open SQL, it is not possible to access HANA models directly through external views.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

ABAP and XML

The new ST statement tt:read-write is a short form of the statements tt:read and tt:write specified one after the other.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

For the ST statement tt:value, it is now possible to specify options for certain data types that override the standard mapping of elementary data objects onto the asXML format. This can be done through the attribute option="...,...".

ABAP Keyword Documentation

ABAP and JSON

The format IF_SXML=>CO_XT_JSON has been added to the formats supported by the sXML Library. Readers and writers generated with this format can process JSON files. For writing JSON files, a special JSON0-XML is used. This can display a JSON file. The statement CALL TRANSFORMATION can access JSON readers and JSON writers as XML source or XML target. XML sources can continue to be strings and internal tables with data in the JSON format. The canonical JSON representation asJSON defines a mapping between ABAP types and JSON objects. The escape symbol function escape supports a new format E_JSON_STRING for replacing special characters in JSON.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

Exceptions

If an SQL error occurs in the statements EXPORT, IMPORT, or DELETE FROM for data clusters in database tables, the new exception class CX_SY_EXPIMP_DB_SQL_ERROR can be used to handle the error.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

If a class specified dynamically after TYPE in the statement CREATE OBJECT does not match the static type of the reference variable, the exception can now be handled using the exception class CX_SY_CREATE_OBJECT_ERROR.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

If the string or the internal table is empty for the statements IMPORT FROM DATA BUFFER or IMPORT FROM INTERNAL TABLE, separate runtime errors IMPORT_FROM_DATA_BUFFER_EMPTY or I MPORT_FROM_INTTABLE_EMPTY now occur.

ABAP Keyword Documentation

Functionality

Documentation (in ABAP Development Tools under: Help > Help Contents )

Easy-to-operate and flexible Eclipse UI for ABAP Development Tools

ABAP Development User Guide

High-performing, failover-secure online development in multiple ABAP systems

ABAP Development User Guide

Efficient source code editing, including extensive refactoring functionality

ABAP Development User Guide

Quick, system-wide search for development objects

ABAP Development User Guide

Cross-system version management

ABAP Development User Guide

Support of task-oriented as well as task-driven development approach

ABAP Development User Guide

Integration of test and quality assurance tools (ABAP Debugger, ABAP Unit Tests, Runtime Analysis, ATC)

ABAP Development User Guide

Integration of HANA repository contents in the Change and Transport System of AS ABAP using the HANA transport container

ABAP for HANA Development User Guide

Integration of HANA models using external views

ABAP for HANA Development User Guide

Integration of HANA database procedures using proxies

ABAP for HANA Development User Guide

Provision of tools for support situations

Support Guide for Eclipse-Based SAP Development Tools