Opening Programs in the ABAP Editor

To open ABAP programs directly from within the ABAP Editor, select the menu path Tools → ABAP Workbench → Development → ABAP Editor from the SAP menu of SAP Easy Access (or start Transaction SE38).

Creating a New Program

Note If the program does not exist, choose Create. The ABAP: Program Attributes screen appears, on which you must maintain the program attributes .

If you create a program in this way, the system does not offer to create a Top include. This way of creating programs is therefore best suited for reports and short test programs. Once you have entered and saved the program attributes, the new program exists in the Repository.

Maintaining an Existing Program

To edit an existing program, enter its name on the initial screen of the ABAP Editor (Transaction SE38), select one of the following components, and then choose Display or Change.

Source Code
Starts the ABAP Editor.
Variants
Starts variant maintenance. Variants allow you to define fixed values for the input fields on the selection screen of a report.
Attributes
Allows you to maintain the program attributes .
Documentation
Allows you to write documentation for a particular executable program (report). The system starts the SAPscript Editor, where you can enter the documentation according to the predefined template. When executing the report, the user can display this documentation by choosing System → Services → Reporting (Transaction SA38) and Goto → Documentation. If the report is stored as node in a reporting tree (Transaction SERP), the user can choose Goto → Display docu. from the tree display to display the documentation.
Text Elements
Allows you to edit the text elements of the program. Text elements are all texts that appear on the selection screen or on the output screen of a report.

You can also access any of these components by using the Goto menu or forward navigation in the ABAP Editor itself.