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Once you read the official documentation and surfed thru the various blogs and wiki pages, you
would realize the advantage of the adoption of this tool: improvements in the quality of ABAP
codes and correctness of programs, etc ...
This is truth, howeverwith some gaps. Do you want to know why?
The issue
I have to be honest; until I had a challenging problem with a standard program, I never used checkpoint groups
even for self written ABAP applications.
During the last project I had to fix a bad behavior in a very complex standard transaction and this experience
made me aware that everything would be much easier if I activated a checkpoint-group.
The problem I had was strange and had all the characteristics of a programs bug, but instead
of requesting the support of the OSS, I made sure that the origin of that issue was due to any
customization as an enhancement implementation, an exit routine or even a repair to the
standard.
A voice in mind start repeating: Ok Andrea ... no problem. Just starting from the transaction, get the custom
code, activate a break point then check, using the debugger, if the custom code is the cause of the problem
It wasnt so easy!
We mixed data coming from different trace tools generating an accurate list of the custom
routines called during the transaction processing ; using this list we activated a lot of breakpoints (1 break for each custom routine) in order to check that the custom code didnt influence
the normal flow of the standard transaction...
Well, if I set a checkpoint group and added a BREAKPOINT ID statement in all the custom routines, my
analysis would be very easy!
Lesson Learned
I spent a lot of time in reading ABAP code and debugging applications and I can assure, that SAP standard
code makes a wide use of the checkpoints groups.
ABAP Testing and Troubleshooting: Checkpoint-Group the powerful friend of every ABAPer but# beware!
In my opinion this is one key to good, robust and efficient programming; very often we are tempted
to quickly code a new functionality without looking forward
Although we wrote one of the most beautiful ABAP program in the world, what could we use in order to analyze
the program in case of problems?
ABAP Testing and Troubleshooting: Checkpoint-Group the powerful friend of every ABAPer but# beware!
These tables are used only for checkpoints (trx SAAB) and won't lose any productive data when truncating
these tables.
However, if you need to perform this simple but useful check as a scheduled background job , I implemented a
simple report and the code snippet can be found here.
2.
How could I delete the active checkpoints groups?
All the checkpoint activation can be deleted from the SAAB transaction by selecting the menu: Activation>
Delete> ALL
ABAP Testing and Troubleshooting: Checkpoint-Group the powerful friend of every ABAPer but# beware!
3.
How could I delete the records in the log tables?
The easiest solution would be that the DBA team truncates the SRTM_DATAX and SRTM_SUB tables , but we
love abap programming so the following snippet could be useful
Hope this helps ;-)
3206 Views Tags: abap, saab
Drew Xiu
Jun 6, 2014 5:46 AM
Great instruction!
However current SAAB supports Activation Period/Delete Log feature.
Manuel Bellet
Nov 9, 2011 7:06 AM
Many thanks Andrea for this great overview concerning "checkpoint-group". Especially for highlighting
advantages and warning about points to take care of before activation!
Michelle Crapo
Nov 9, 2011 4:11 AM
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, about checkpoint-groups. So now I know how to set them. AND I know how
and that I should turn them off. Oh boy - if I left them on in a production environment it could cause a mess.
Thank you!
Michelle