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ABAP/4

Paradigm
Object-oriented, structured, imperative

Designed by
SAP SE

First appeared
1983

Stable release

7.53[1] / 2018

Typing discipline
Static, strong, safe, nominative

OS
Cross-platform

Website
scn.sap.com/community/abap

Major implementations

SAP R/2, SAP R/3, SAP S/4HANA

Influenced by

Objective-C,[citation needed] COBOL,[citation needed] SQL[citation needed]

ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming, originally Allgemeiner Berichts-
Aufbereitungs-Prozessor, German for "general report creation processor"[2]) is a
high-level programming language created by the German software company SAP SE. It
is currently positioned, alongside Java, as the language for programming the SAP
NetWeaver Application Server, which is part of the SAP NetWeaver platform for
building business applications.

Contents [hide]
1 Introduction
2 ABAP runtime environment 2.1 SAP systems and landscapes
2.2 Software layers

3 Transactions
4 Types of ABAP programs
5 Development environment 5.1 ABAP Workbench
5.2 ABAP Development Tools

6 ABAP Dictionary
7 ABAP syntax 7.1 Hello world
7.2 Chained statements
7.3 Comments
7.4 Spaces
7.5 ABAP statements

8 Data types and variables 8.1 Explicitly typed declaration

8.2 Inline declaration

9 ABAP Objects
10 CDS Views 10.1 Features

11 Internal tables in ABAP

12 History
13 See also
14 References
15 External links

Introduction[edit]

ABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs)

first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a
platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications
for materials management and financial and management accounting.ABAP establish
integration between independent softwares.

ABAP used to be an abbreviation of Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor,

German for "generic report preparation processor", but was later renamed to the
English Advanced Business Application Programming. ABAP was one of the first
languages to include the concept of Logical Databases (LDBs), which provides a high
level of abstraction from the basic database level(s),which supports every
platform, language and units.

The ABAP language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3
platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP
applications � customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP
programming. The language was geared towards more technical customers with
programming experience. It is extracted from the base computing languages Java , C,
C++ and Python.
ABAP remains as the language for creating programs for the client-server R/3
system, which SAP first released in 1992. As computer hardware evolved through the
1990s, more and more of SAP's applications and systems were written in ABAP. By
2001, all but the most basic functions were written in ABAP. In 1999, SAP released
an object-oriented extension to ABAP called ABAP Objects, along with R/3 release
4.6.

SAP's current development platform NetWeaver supports both ABAP and Java.

ABAP has an abstraction between the business applications, the operating system and
database. This ensures that applications do not depend directly upon a specific
server or database platform and can easily be ported from one platform to another.

SAP Netweaver currently runs on UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux), Microsoft
Windows, i5/OS on IBM System i (formerly iSeries, AS/400), and z/OS on IBM System z
(formerly zSeries, S/390). Supported databases are HANA, SAP ASE (formerly Sybase),
IBM DB2, Informix, MaxDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server (support for Informix
was discontinued in SAP Basis release 7.00).[3]

ABAP runtime environment[edit]

All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. They are not stored in separate
external files like Java or C++ programs. In the database all ABAP code exists in
two forms: source code, which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench
tools; and generated code, a binary representation somewhat comparable with Java
bytecode. ABAP programs execute under the control of the runtime system, which is
part of the SAP kernel. The runtime system is responsible for processing ABAP
statements, controlling the flow logic of screens and responding to events (such as
a user clicking on a screen button); in this respect it can be seen as a Virtual
Machine comparable with the Java VM. A key component of the ABAP runtime system is
the Database Interface, which turns database-independent ABAP statements ("Open
SQL") into statements understood by the underlying DBMS ("Native SQL"). The
database interface handles all the communication with the relational database on
behalf of ABAP programs; It also contains extra features such as buffering of
tables and frequently accessed data in the local memory of the application server.

SAP systems and landscapes[edit]

All SAP data exists and all SAP software runs in the context of a SAP system. A
system consists of a central relational database and one