Hi there community,

This will be a short blog post, for 2 reasons. First reason, I have some time to kill, but not that much! Second reason, I'm just writing this so I have a place to quickly find some information I keep searching over and over again.

This blog post will be about something that should be VERY clear for any seasoned developer, but unfortunately many times I see things done in a way that is going to fail very often. We are talking about currencies, units, and their external/internal formats and representation.

Writing a value or quantity to the screen or a form

When it comes to units, this is not so critical. The most popular option I have seen for this is WRITE variable TO output_field DECIMALS number_of_decimals. So, if you're displaying kilos, or square meters, or something like that, most of the times it will work decently. The next thing I see very often is a suppressing of the decimal places if the unit is pieces. Or if the decimal part of the number is zero. So quickly you get a lot of "ifs", you get added complexity, and as soon as there is a new unit you didn't think about, this fails.

When it comes to values (as in, money value), this is terrible. I think I have never seen this developed properly in my life. It seems that most people fail to understand that not all currencies were created equal. Most of them have 2 decimals, yes, but some have 3. And some, like my "ex-mother-currency", have none! Most of the times I don't even see a WRITE statement, I just see a MOVE TO. And then you get no thousand separator, and the decimal separator is always a point, regardless of where you are. There is also usually a fair amount of logic in the form to make up for this, that is completely unnecessary.

So what should you do?

You should learn more about the WRITE statement. The WRITE statement has very powerful additions CURRENCY and UNIT.

This will make use of the proper representation of the unit or currency you are displaying, and you have no extra work. What more could you ask?

Also, if for any reason there's a unit or currency in your system that doesn't seem to have the right format, you can use transaction codes CUNI and OY04 to maintain this output format.

Reading a number from an external format (like an excel sheet or text file)

This is also something that I see terribly implemented almost everywhere. The most popular way of converting a number from an external format (i.e. 1.123,12 for Europe), is to use the REPLACE statement abundantly. Followed by a condense... This works fine as long as this code will always be executed in the same "locale", but that's not always the case. And if it's not, what do you do? As many IF statements as you can think of? Wrong.

So what should you do?

You should use function module MOVE_CHAR_TO_NUM. This function module reads the setting of the user, and will convert the number accordingly. So, assuming the person is uploading numbers that follow the format said person is using in SAP, this will always work.

There are situations where this might still not work. For example, if it's some sort of background job being executed by a batch user, and this job is supposed to deal with different formats, this will be a hard task to achieve. You will need proper design to deal with this situation.

Conclusion

Now you don't have an excuse any more to use those silly SAP Script additions, to suppress zeros, to condense, to hide the decimals, etc. Just use the WRITE statement with the correct options.

When it comes to reading a number, if it's from an excel or a csv file, you are better off using my awesome file reader anyway.

If you have any further suggestions or comments let me know, I can update this blog post.

Cheers,

Bruno

Mastering SAP Technology 2015 in Melbourne

24th May to 27th May

We'll be Having a Ball (of wool)

Next week in Melbourne is the Mastering SAP Technology conference, kicking off with SAP Inside Track on the Sunday before the conference starts. I am flying out tomorrow lunchtime. This year the conference is co-located with the Mastering HR and Mastering Finance conferences, so it will be three times as big as usual, sort of an Australian mini-SAPPHIRE.

Melbourne has a very European nature for an Australian city, with tiny bars hidden in side streets (they don't have signs, they hide themselves, you have to know in advance where they are) and trams including a mobile restaurant tram (just like in Heidelberg in Germany). It is also filled with women pushing enormous balls of wool through the streets.

Expensive Junket?

I was asked at lunch this fine day "do you actually learn anything at these things?". It has to be admitted - that is the perception of these events, and indeed of SAPPHIRE itself. They are viewed as a giant party in Las Vegas or Orlando or wherever - at your companies expense - where the delegates just party like there is no tomorrow and occasionally go to a presentation where someone from SAP try's to sell you software you do not want or need.

Now there is no smoke without fire - there are huge parties (Oh I mean networking events) and in the real SAPPHIRE events pop concerts with Bon Jovi and the like. In the SAPPHIRE in Brisbane in 2003 the lead singer of INXS broke off singing and shouted at the audience "you are all nerds" which proves he at least knew what sort of event he was performing at.

And I would be the world's biggest liar/hypocrite if I said I would not be at the drinking (networking) events on Sunday & Monday evenings. Last year Graham Robinson noted that the networking at the conference had been the best he had ever seen to which Martin English shouted out "I network like a fish".

There must be more to life, there must be more than this...

So, if that was all there was to it, people extorting money out of their employers, going to a party and claiming it was education/training, then eventually the employers would cotton on and such events would be no more. That has not happened - the Mastering SAP Technology event is in it's tenth year, and SAPPHIRE has been going a lot longer.

Could it be that there is something useful in these things after all?

The first point I would make is that at the "Mastering" conference, and indeed to a large extent at "real" SAP conferences, most of the presenters are not SAP or a member of the "ecosystem" trying to sell you something but rather a bona fide SAP customer telling you the problems they have had and how they solved them (or more importantly failed to solve them) using SAP technology. People love to hear "warts and all" war stories - we all know no technology is perfect, we just laugh at salesmen who tell us it is, solves all your problems "out of the box" and takes just four weeks to install and go live "with not one line of code".

The Eventful Group run focus groups in each state of Australia (and in New Zealand) where assorted (SAP using) companies say what their pain points are and where they are struggling to use technology to solve those business problems. Then there is a sort of democratic vote as to what the most pressing problems are. And then you get a bottle of wine. You can't keep me away from such things, which is not to say the business challenges of my organisation are not real.

Thus a "hot list" of topics is drawn up and a call for speakers is made. Assorted people submit presentations that fit that list and these are voted upon by a peer group of people like me i.e. nothing to do with the company organising the conference. Thus the end result is that all the speakers are talking about topics that have been chosen by a popular vote, and their particular talk has been chosen by another voting process. The communists would be rolling in their graves.

The point here is that the resulting presentations are not adverts trying to sell you something at random. They are speeches by real people describing how they solved real world business problems - problems which other real people claim they have.

Life's What You Make It

So far so good but here comes the important bit - last year it was stressed again and again that it is so easy to just stay in your comfort zone. You are there with three friends from your company, and you sit next to them at the presentations, and have the sandwiches with them at lunchtime, and drink with them in the evening, and never even talk to anyone else during the whole event.

Can you see the problem with that? You are bound to have some sort of problem you are fixing or new enhancement you are making, and unless you are the greatest genius the world has ever known you are bound to be struggling with this to some extent. Somewhere in the room is someone else -  maybe several somebodies - who have the exact same problem as you and they have solved one part of it and you have solved another part of it. And yet you never talk to each other even though they are only five feet away from you.

Talk Talk

After each speech there is "speakers corner" where the delegates can asked detailed questions about whatever it is the presentation was just on. Furthermore I am willing to bet each speaker is willing to talk about whatever it is both before and after the presentation.

And that's just the speakers. The actual other delegates are likely to be mines of information also if you could just bring yourself to have a chat with them.

Last year I was nice and hung over as usual and felt the need to sit down on a sort of sofa thing and put my head in my hands. Just then an Indian gentlemen recognised my name hanging from my name tag and sat down next to me and started asking questions about HANA. Now I don't claim to know everything - or even that much - about HANA but it turned out I knew more than he did and was happy to tell him everything I did know.

The same applies this year - if you see me during the drinks or wandering around the booths collecting pens and yo-yos and fluffy toys, ask me about any of the nonsense I wrote about in my book ; ABAP 740, BOPF, BRF+, Monsters, whatever, I don't mind.

Likewise that is what the SAP Mentors who are there are for also - people like Graham Robinson and what have you. There will be lots of SAP Mentors there and they are bursting to help you.

And indeed you may well be able to help the other delegates there - one of the themes from last year was "help yourself then help others" like what you hear on an airline in regard to oxygen masks. Naturally it is human nature to be self-focussed, so work with that - see if you can't find the answers to your own problems, so you can justify the expense of coming back the next year, but once that is sorted, see if you can't help out other people who have questions you can answer. Those two activities can be concurrent.

Right Justified

You do need to justify why you are there if someone is paying for you, and I make a little summary of what was useful out of each presentation I go to.

Last year you were encouraged to write on a post it note something like "I can use XYZ tip I just learned at work next week", or even just the bullet points - there are usually only three core messages from each presentation, write them down if nothing else.

That way when your CIO asks you what you got out of it, you can actually present them with a list of information rather than saying "a big bag of toys and a huge hangover".

Happy Happy Happy Happy Talk

So to hammer home the point, the key to success here is to get out of the comfort zone and talk to people you do not know. A lot of IT types hate this as in "if I wanted to talk to other human beings I would have not been a programmer" but give it a go.

At the SAP Inside Track there will what can best be described as SAP Speed Dating, where you sit on a table with six other people and you all say who are you are, and then a bell rings and you have to go to a table with six other people and the process repeats until you have a least a general idea of what everyone in the room does for a living.

Wool I Never

That was a fairly incoherent stream of consciousness about what I think about SAP conferences, and I apologise if I went round in circles, but hopefully you get the point. In any event I hope next week to talk to a lot of people I do not know, and answer lots of questions, and learn new things myself.

Cheersy Cheers

Paul

P.S.

Oh and I almost forgot!

Another vital part of going to any SAP conference is taking pictures of the dustbins/trash cans and posting those pictures on SCN.

There is a top secret contest about this each year, it is so top secret you never hear about it anywhere.

Last year SAP looked at all the various dustbin photographs throughout SCN blogs and the winner got a thousand billion dollars and a life sized gold plated model of Mount Everest (encrusted with diamonds) and all the fish they could eat.

Mind you this is a double edged sword as the loser has to pay a forfeit, which this year was to have to drink ten bottles of whiskey laced with LSD one after the other and then design a new SAP GUI theme and do all the coding for the same, all in ten minutes after finishing the last bottle, which is how we got the Blue Crystal Theme and the initial version of the SAP 740 GUI.

Debugging ABAP code in background processing is a common requirement. How developers usually approch this task is by coding time delay or dead loop to take control of the process in trx. SM50 and debug it. There is no easy and graceful way to activate or deactivate such "break-point" in production environment.

Checkpoint Group provide flexibilty and ease of activation and deactivation of break-points using trx. SAAB. For example, break-point can be activation per specific user and will not affect other users.

If you execute ABAP program online execution will stop at activated break-point.

The same break-point will not interrupt execution in background processing. There is a way to use the same Checkpint Group to interrupt ABAP processing in both dialog and background processing. What it takes is to code activatable break-point using ZCL_AAB=>BREAK_POINT custom class method.

ZCL_AAB=>BREAK_POINT method checks if activatable break-point exists (calling ZCL_AAB=>EXISTS method) and active (calling ZCL_AAB=>IS_BREAK_POINT_ACTIVE method). If break point exists and active then in dialog processing execution is interrupted using BREAK-POINT statement, othersize is background processing excution is delayed for 60 seconds (calling ZCL_AAB=>TIME_DELAY method).

class ZCL_AAB definition
  public
  final
  create public .

*"* public components of class ZCL_AAB
*"* do not include other source files here!!!
public section.

  class-methods BREAK_POINT
    importing
      !IV_AAB_ID type AAB_ID_NAME .
protected section.
*"* protected components of class ZCL_AAB
*"* do not include other source files here!!!
private section.
*"* private components of class ZCL_AAB
*"* do not include other source files here!!!

  class-methods EXISTS
    importing
      !IV_AAB_ID type AAB_ID_NAME
    returning
      value(RT_EXISTS) type CHAR1 .
  class-methods IS_BREAK_POINT_ACTIVE
    importing
      !IV_AAB_ID type AAB_ID_NAME
    returning
      value(RT_BREAK_POINT_IS_ACTIVE) type CHAR1 .
  class-methods TIME_DELAY .
ENDCLASS.



CLASS ZCL_AAB IMPLEMENTATION.


* <SIGNATURE>-----------------------------------------------------+
* | Static Public Method ZCL_AAB=>BREAK_POINT
* +--------------------------------------------------------------+
* | [--->] IV_AAB_ID                      TYPE        AAB_ID_NAME
* +---------------------------------------------------</SIGNATURE>
METHOD break_point.
DATA: w_textTYPE string.

  IF exists( iv_aab_id) = SPACE.
    CONCATENATE 'Checkpoint Group' iv_aab_id'does not exist'
      INTO w_textSEPARATED BY SPACE.
    MESSAGE w_textTYPE 'I'.
    EXIT.
  ENDIF.

  IF is_break_point_active( iv_aab_id) = 'X'.
    IF cl_gui_alv_grid=>offline( ) IS INITIAL.
*     Foreground
      BREAK-POINT.
    ELSE.
*     Background
      time_delay( ).
    ENDIF.
  ENDIF.

ENDMETHOD.


* <SIGNATURE>---------------------------------------------------+
* | Static Private Method ZCL_AAB=>EXISTS
* +-------------------------------------------------------------+
* | [--->] IV_AAB_ID                      TYPE        AAB_ID_NAME
* | [<-()] RT_EXISTS                      TYPE        CHAR1
* +--------------------------------------------------</SIGNATURE>
METHOD exists.
DATA: w_aab_idTYPE  aab_id_name.

  SELECT SINGLE name
  INTO w_aab_id
  FROM aab_id_prop
  WHERE name = iv_aab_id.
  CASE sy-subrc.
  WHEN 0.
    rt_exists= 'X'.
  WHEN OTHERS.
    CLEAR rt_exists.
  ENDCASE.

ENDMETHOD.


* <SIGNATURE>---------------------------------------------------+
* | Static Private Method ZCL_AAB=>IS_BREAK_POINT_ACTIVE
* +-------------------------------------------------------------+
* | [--->] IV_AAB_ID                      TYPE        AAB_ID_NAME
* | [<-()] RT_BREAK_POINT_IS_ACTIVE       TYPE        CHAR1
* +--------------------------------------------------</SIGNATURE>
METHOD is_break_point_active.
DATA: wa_aab_id_actTYPE aab_id_act,
      wt_aab_id_actTYPE aab_id_act_tab.
DATA w_bit_valueTYPE i.
FIELD-SYMBOLS <mode_x> TYPE x.
CONSTANTS: c_breakpointTYPE i VALUE 8.

  SELECT * FROM aab_id_actINTO TABLE wt_aab_id_act
  WHERE name       = iv_aab_id
    AND is_program= SPACE.
*
  LOOP AT wt_aab_id_actINTO wa_aab_id_act
                        WHERE username = SPACE
                           OR username = sy-uname.
    ASSIGN wa_aab_id_act-actmodeTO <mode_x> CASTING.
    GET BIT c_breakpointOF <mode_x> INTO w_bit_value.
    IF NOT w_bit_valueIS INITIAL.
      rt_break_point_is_active= 'X'.
      EXIT.
    ENDIF.
  ENDLOOP.

ENDMETHOD.


* <SIGNATURE>---------------------------------------------+
* | Static Private Method ZCL_AAB=>TIME_DELAY
* +-------------------------------------------------------+
* +--------------------------------------------</SIGNATURE>
METHOD time_delay.
DATA: w_time_currTYPE tims,
      w_time_end   TYPE tims.
DATA: w_timestampTYPE timestampl.

  GET TIME STAMP FIELD w_timestamp.
  CONVERT TIME STAMP w_timestampTIME ZONE sy-zonlo
  INTO TIME w_time_curr.
  w_time_end= w_time_curr  + 60.
  WHILE w_time_curr< w_time_end.
    GET TIME STAMP FIELD w_timestamp.
    CONVERT TIME STAMP w_timestampTIME ZONE sy-zonlo
    INTO TIME w_time_curr.
  ENDWHILE.

ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.

Lets see it in action. First run the program in background and take over control of the program in trx. SM50

Then once in debugger session, interrupt WHILE loop setting W_TIME_CURR at least 60 seconds in the future. For simplicity just set it to 235959 and click on Return (F7) button

Press Return (F7) on next screen

Voilà you are in Z_DEMO program

Lets see how the break-point works in dialog processing. Run the program and execution is interrupted at BREAK-POINT statement, press Return (F7) button

Voilà you are in Z_DEMO program.

Introduction

Use Cases

• You generate an XML in your system and you want to perform schema validation.
• You are consuming a web service, you are not using ABAP Proxies not PI and you want to validate the request and/or response.

How does it work

How To

Generating the Service Consumer

The Code

Tweaks

Limitations and other Technical Considerations

Inherited Limitations

Memory Consumption

Final Words

One of the problems ABAP developers face from time to time is the need to store arbitrary values for processing. These values do not always justify creating a new table, and there is no convenient place to store such values. An example would be when some logic depends on a master data value (like a certain customer), or if the developer provides some tool that provides some customization options which need to be saved in an unstructured manner.

In cases where creating separate config tables are not warranted, developers often come up with creative ways to store values to avoid hard-coding them, such as writing entries to TVARV. However, this is not a very neat solution and sometimes leads to awkward workarounds for more specific sub-cases, like inventing conventions for putting composite keys into the name.

The solution I am presenting here (see below for a link to the source) consists of a hierarchical value store, not unlike the Microsoft Windows Registry. It allows the developer to retrieve and store values that cannot neatly be associated with some configuration and which does not warrant the creation of a new table.

The store is backed by the table INDX, which you will find standard in every ABAP installation and which is accessed conveniently with the statements EXPORT TO DATABASE and IMPORT FROM DATABASE. There is of course no reason not to use a custom table for this, but using INDX avoids you having to create yet another table; although if you are worried about keys colliding with other entries in there, you can simply use search-and-replace to specify your own table.

The solution is presented in the form of an API, the source for which is contained in an include. You could of course use the source-code view in the class editor in SE24 to add the class to the repository, but distributing the code as an include is just very convenient, and I am all for convenience.

Furthermore, the values are all stored as strings, though I imagine that if you consistently read to or write from fields of the same type, that should not be a problem. Maybe in a future version, I will look at adding a type specification for each value stored.

Additionally, there is some concurrency control in the form of optimistic locking, though I am not entirely sure whether there is a practical need for it. Adding new entries (keys) to the registry causes the new entry and the parent entry to be saved immediately, while values in each entry must be saved explicitly (although they will be saved automatically when making changes to the entries; I am still thinking about auto-saving all changes).

The second part of the solution is a registry browser/editor, which is similar to the RegEdit application on Windows, which allows an administrator/consultant to inspect the contents of the registry.

(The editor, like the library, is provided as a self-contained piece of source code that can be pasted into a report program, avoiding you having to create additional items in the repository. See below for the link to the source code).

Here is an example of how you could use the registry:

* Make the registry API available to our program

INCLUDE zlib_registry.

DATA: reg_root TYPEREF TO lcl_registry_entry.

DATA: reg_entry TYPEREF TO lcl_registry_entry.

DATA: lv_customer TYPE kunnr.

DATA: lv_run_date TYPE d.

DATA: lv_timestamp TYPETIMESTAMP.

START-OF-SELECTION.

* Get the root entry of the registry

  reg_root = lcl_registry_entry=>get_root().

* If we want to ensure, on startup, that a certain entry exists, we

* could do the following (e.g. in LOAD-OF-PROGRAM):

  reg_root->create_by_path('Sales/Enhancements/Process_XYZ').

* Retrieval of a specific entry. If we did not have the above line,

* we would have to check that the result of each call to GET_SUBENTRY( )

* to ensure it is bound.

  reg_entry = reg_root->get_subentry('Sales')->get_subentry('Enhancements')->get_subentry('Process_XYZ').

* Getting a specific value from the entry:

  lv_customer = reg_entry->get_value('ProcessCustomer').

* Writing values to the entry:

  lv_run_date = sy-datum.

  reg_entry->set_value(KEY='LastRunDate'VALUE= lv_run_date ).

  GET TIME STAMPFIELD lv_timestamp.

  reg_entry->set_value(KEY='LastRunDateTime'VALUE= lv_timestamp ).

* Saving the entry

  reg_entry->save().

I have given some thought to security; whereby you would want to prevent your section of the registry becoming inadvertently overwritten by another application or person. One approach is to lock down the registry and require applications to write their entries and provide an applicable UI, which is analogous to how Windows applications operate, e.g. when recording user settings. Another approach would be to extend the editor so that it can be run to access only a certain branch of the registry tree and give specific users access to that.

You can find the entire source code of the include for the library, as well as the registry editor and the example program at the following Gist on GitHub: https://gist.github.com/mydoghasworms/08ea60e95dd1fa90c90a

This article has been adapted from my original blog post here: Arbitrary value store (registry) for ABAP

All throughout my ABAP career in various organizations, I have come across many organization specific "Coding Standards Documents". And all of those documents had couple of things in common - Whenever you are making a change to existing code, mark your changes with comments stating

*Begin of changes by Juwin Thomas on 5/27/2015 ECDK909909

......

......

......

*End of changes by Juwin Thomas on 5/27/2015 ECDK909909

And I kept on wondering isn't this already handled by SAP's Version management? After 10 changes done by 10 different people, the commented lines in the program becomes more than actual executable code. Who reads these anyways? I haven't, I always go to version management, to see who did the changes, when and what was the change.

Another "Coding Standard" I have seen is - Do not delete any lines from the program, comment them instead. Isn't this similar to having dead code inside the program?

Has anyone felt the same way? Or, are there anyone here, who think something good is going to happen with all these comments in the code?

One of the arguments that I have heard from people who likes comments - especially code reviewers - is that, in production system, where there are no program versions maintained (generally), it becomes easy to understand the changes if there are comments. My question to them - is it too hard to open the development system and see the versions? Or, if they like to see the versions in production system, activate versioning in that system during transport. Why degrade the code readability by putting in all these comments?

SAP standard programs have been around for decades and have gone to regular maintenance by different developers. But, I hardly see any such comments in any of the SAP standard programs. I haven't worked at SAPLabs, so I don't know if they have such a Coding standard. If they don't, how do they manage their code reviewers?

Bored of writing these type of comments in my program, I developed a small utility program that I carry around with me, to different organizations. What I do is, whenever I have to do changes to an existing program, I write the code the way I want, without any change comments, and run it through my utility program when I am done. The utility program reads the current version and previous version of my changed program and inserts the comments wherever appropriate.

But, I still keep wondering, why do we need this practice? I feel that there should be a "Comments Standard Documents" also, in addition to the "Coding Standards Documents", to explain when & how to write comments.

Enterprises which have a global presence do a lot of business across the world in various countries bound by the rules of that particular country.

Take an example of a typical manufacturing company

Its daily operations and business include Procurement of material, sales of goods and services, Product Manufacturing, Financial Transactions and a lot more to put on. SAP ERP system is the right solution for all these kinds of business transactions. Every business transaction is recorded in SAP system with a unique identifier (Some number or alphanumeric characters). The good thing about this is that we can make a choice of how the number range should start from, end with, whether it should be internal or external. It’s not only restricted to a particular entity like sales order/purchase order, it can be used  to configure for any kind of business transaction and even could be used to generate a unique sequence number for custom data(Like Z transactions to store data in Z tables etc.,)

However there should be careful monitoring on these number ranges and mere negligence would lead to dire consequences especially in Production system.

I have prepared some list of points where we should keep an eye in particular in Production Systems.

Important Repository objects to Keep in Mind while working with Number Ranges

SNRO  - Number Range Transaction Code

NRIV   - Number Range Intervals Database Table

SNUM –Number Range Object Maintenance

Function Modules

NUMBER_GET_BUFFER To Read Buffer information

NUMBER_GET_INFO                Number range: Provides information for a number range number

NUMBER_GET_NEXT                NUmber range: Assigns next free number

NUMBER_GET_NEXT_V1 Assigns next free number(s)

Buffering Problem

Here you can observe Main Memory buffering enabled for Material Number Range Object and Number of numbers in buffer as 10.This means that if you’re calling the number range object for the first time the starting number will be picked up(Say Material Number Range starting from 1000 to 2000).

Material Number 1000 will be created and subsequent numbers 1001, 1002,1003,1004,1005 up to 1010 will be stored in memory buffer. Upon calling the number range object for the next time the sequence that is present in the buffer will be used instead of querying backend database table.

This  could give a better performance but will lead to problems if someone erase the memory buffer  Clearing memory buffer can be done using SM56 and one should be able to understand about the consequences of this activity. This often leads to skipping of number ranges and we could end up with documents which are no longer in sequence

Monitor Number Range utilization

If the number range reaches the upper limit and if it’s not changed before the next document gets created, system will raise an exception which would lead to SM13 update failure and subsequently ST22 dump like below. If we are performing the transaction on a foreground then system will be able to issue a warning when the number range utilization reaches the warning percentage.

Now Let’s Say the documents are created through a Batch Job, unless we monitor the system /incorporate auto alert mechanism to notify about this failure, we will not be aware of this issue.If it occurs in Production system and If we don’t take the necessary action it could lead to bad consequences and effects enterprise business as well

Interval Rolling

This feature given by SAP can be seen below as check box and this Functionality comes into picture when Number Range is completely exhausted. So, In continuation with the previous sub topic of number range utilization, Upon reaching the upper limit we can decide whether the document numbering starts from the beginning again by not enabling the check box. While this seems to be a pretty good option, care should be taken that previous documents already created must be archived/deleted periodically

Otherwise we would encounter the same ST22 Duplicate Records error which we discussed in the previous topic

Keep an Eye on Number ranges for which changes are to be done in Golden client“000”

Generally we have restricted number limit for spools and if it gets used up we will be getting SPOOL_INTERAL_ERROR occurs and system will no longer be able to generate the spool.

The Spool number range should be changed only in golden client “000” and the changes done in any other client wouldn’t be effective

We need to change the SPO_NUM number range , set the upper limit to 99,999 and its good practice to delete the spools regularly so the system uses the number range from the beginning again once it reaches the upper limit 

The spool retention period by default is 8 days and spools can be deleted by using RSPO1041 which can be scheduled as a background job using SM37. Below link from help.sap will explain you further details in brief .

Please read through

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw74/helpdata/en/4e/a0576140a97118e10000000a42189e/content.htm

Standard SAP transaction which can be used to check the spool utilization is RZ20

You can follow the below path RZ20 àSAP CCMS Monitor templatesàSpool system

You can observe the percentage utilization and  color legend showing as green which implies that “All is Well”

Never Transport Number Ranges to Production System

Generally any SAP System has a typical landscape of 4 systems

1. SandboxàDevelopmentàQualityàProduction

While Sandbox and Development systems are purely used for implementation of Repository objects and Unit testing from a developer perspective, Quality system is used for Business User Acceptance testing

The Data in quality system gets refreshed from that of production often but not on a daily basis. In Production Business transactions happen every day and in huge numbers and therefore the data is out-of-sync with a quality system. Even though we maintain the same number ranges across the two systems Initially ,the current number used will not always be the same .

Hence it’s not a good practice to transport number ranges to production. If done so system will trigger SM13 update errors and ST22 Dumps

Unauthorized Access to SNRO transaction

Granting access rights to unauthorized SAP users might lead to inconsistencies in number ranges if they aren’t sure of how to handle number ranges. Suppose if someone changes it by mistake , we can still retrieve the original series using change documents.

1. This can be accessed using the next screen of SNRO (i.e. once you press the display button on initial screen) .Then follow the menu path GotoàNumber Ranges

Please Note We have an option “Change Documents  available on menu and on tool bar itself, but it only reads the change data of Number range Object attributes (Like Text change or Checkbox change).In order to see the Interval range change documents you need to follow the below path

From the change documents screen you’ll get to know the user , timestamp, old value and new value etc.,. This is the beauty of change documents in SAP

Note: original of this article comes from my blog at oprsteny.com

In this article I'd like to present a solution how to implement a global class where all internalexceptions (exceptions raised by private methods only ⇒ always catched within the class itself) will be handled with its local exception class.

It is generally possible (and recommended) to use global exception classes but sometimes you can find a local exception class be more practical (no DDIC entries, no heavy coding/maintenance, ...).

I also wanted a simple solution supporting WHERE-USED functionality for all messages defined in SE91 which can be generated in my program's exceptions.

Sadly it is not possible to create a local exception class in a global class's "local definitions" section AND use it in the global class method's EXCEPTIONS section.

This is because such local exception class is NOT visible from the global point of view as will be demonstrated in the following few steps.

Navigation to the global class's local definitions & implementations:

Here follows our local exception class definition which I entered in the "Local Class Definitions/Types" section

CLASS lcx_exception DEFINITION INHERITING FROM cx_static_check.  PUBLIC SECTION.    METHODS:      constructor,      get_text REDEFINITION.    CLASS-DATA:
*     Statically accessible variable - the reason will be shown later      message TYPE bapiret2-message.  PRIVATE SECTION.    DATA:      mv_message TYPE bapiret2-message.
ENDCLASS.

I keep the local exception class implementation very simple:

CLASS lcx_exception IMPLEMENTATION.  METHOD constructor.    super->constructor( ).
*   Save the static variable to instance variable    me->mv_message = lcx_exception=>message.  ENDMETHOD.                     METHOD get_text.
*   Return message from the instance variable    result = me->mv_message.  ENDMETHOD.                   
ENDCLASS.

Now try to create new class method (called e.g. TEST_METHOD), which would like to raise exceptions of type LCX_EXCEPTION - you can see the system reacts with popup message saying that such exception class is NOT KNOWN!!!

...so the system offers to create a new GLOBAL exception class - but this is not what we wanted.

Therefore the class method must raise a generic exception (e.g. CX_STATIC_CHECK) or a global exception from which your local exception class is inheriting from.

In the caller method (called e.g. RUN_TEST) you handle the exception occurrence like it was of you local exception class type.

METHOD run_test.  DATA:    lr_my_exception     TYPE REF TO lcx_exception,    lr_static_exception TYPE REF TO cx_static_check,    lv_message          TYPE bapiret2-message.  TRY.          me->test_method( ).    
*   Catch my locally defined exception          CATCH lcx_exception INTO lr_my_exception.      lv_message = lr_my_exception->get_text( ).      WRITE lv_message.      
*   Catch any other exception of type CX_STATIC_CHECK     CATCH cx_static_check INTO lr_static_exception.      lv_message = lr_static_exception->get_text( ).      WRITE lv_message.  ENDTRY.
ENDMETHOD.

The code of the method TEST_METHOD being called would be like this:

METHOD test_method.  MESSAGE e001(ztest)    WITH 'ZCL_EXCEPTION_DEMO-TEST_METHOD'    INTO lcx_exception=>message.  RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE lcx_exception.
ENDMETHOD.

Important note:

In the above code please note the MESSAGE command.

Thanks to this command SAP system is able to find usage of the applied message with the WHERE-USED functionality from SE91

For testing purposes I created simple program that proves our solution:

REPORT  zr_test_local_exceptions.
DATA:  lr_demo TYPE REF TO zcl_exception_demo.

START-OF-SELECTION.
  CREATE OBJECT lr_demo.  lr_demo->run_test( ).

...and here comes the output:

     Essa é minha primeira postagem, bem simples, mais pode ajudar alguém.

     Qualquer correção ou dica é bem vinda.

     This is my first post, simple, but can help someone.

     Any correction or tip is welcome.

     Deixo aqui um pequeno e simples tutorial de como colocar valores fixos em um search help através das Search Help Exit, como na imagem abaixo:

     I leave here a small and simple tutorial on how to put fixed values ​​in a search help through the Search Help Exit, like the image below:

• Criar um grupo de funções.
• Create a function group.

          Ex.: ZGF_SHLP

• Criar um modulo de função para o Search Help Exit.
• Create a function module for Search Help Exit.

          Ex.: ZSHLP_EXIT

• Em parâmetros de modificação da função, definir o seguinte:
• In modification of parameters of the function, set the following:

• Em parâmetros de tabela:
• In table parameters:

• No texto fonte da função:
• In the source text of the function:

          No exemplo, para o campo COD_TAB virá por padrão os valores de 5.1.1. e 5.3.

          In the example, for COD_TAB field will by default the values ​​of 5.1.1 . and 5.3.

         Descomentando a linha (callcontrol-step = 'SELECT'.),não aparece a janela de seleção, já abre a seleção pronta, com os filtros definidos no código.

         Uncomment the line (CallControl - step = ' SELECT' .), does not appear the selection window, already opens the prompt selection with the filters defined in the code.

• Na se11 dentro do search help, colocar a função criada no campo Exit ajud.pesquisa.
• In SE11 within the search help , put the function created in Search help exit field.

     E é isso. Espero que tenha ajudado.

     And that's it. I hope it help.

Kill delayed work processses automatically through batch

Generally we use TCode SM50 to view running processes and delete the long running processes manually. This is an attempt to make this manual process into automated process.

SAP has given a function module'TH_SERVER_LIST'which gives all the details of the SAP Application Servers on the network.

SAP has given a function module  'TH_SYSTEMWIDE_WPINFO'which gives all the details of work processes on given SAP Application Server.

We can filter the details by which type of work processes shall be stopped based on the time it has taken.

We have to take those process identifications (PID) and SAP Application Server and call the function'ThWpInfo'to stop the process permanently.

This report could be scheduled so that it runs on its own and stop the long running processes automatically.

It is to be noted that this Program uses unreleased function modules and kernel calls, and so is to be used at your own risk.

Complete source is as follows:

I do hope it helps.

I thank Mr. Matthew Billinghamfor his valuable suggestions and guidance.

REPORT  ZR_KILL_PROCESS.

DATA: itab LIKE STANDARD TABLE OF WPINFO,
      wa LIKE WPINFO,
      delay_seconds TYPE i VALUE 900.

DATA: BEGIN OF TY. 
  INCLUDE STRUCTURE MSXXLIST_V6.
DATA: END OF TY.

DATA: itab_as LIKE STANDARD TABLE OF TY,
      wa_as LIKE TY.

CONSTANTS: opcode_wp_stop TYPE x VALUE 2.

CALL FUNCTION 'TH_SERVER_LIST'
TABLES
LIST           = itab_as
EXCEPTIONS
NO_SERVER_LIST = 1
OTHERS         = 2.

LOOP AT itab_as INTO wa_as.

  CALL FUNCTION 'TH_WPINFO'
   EXPORTING
   SRVNAME        = wa_as-name
   TABLES
   WPLIST         = itab
   EXCEPTIONS
   OTHERS = 1.

  LOOP AT ITAB INTO WA.

   IF WA-WP_TYP = 'DIA' AND WA-WP_STATUS = 'Running' AND WA-WP_ELTIME GT delay_seconds.

    CALL 'ThWpInfo'
    ID 'OPCODE' FIELD opcode_wp_stop
    ID 'SERVER' FIELD wa_as-name
    ID 'PID' FIELD wa-wp_pid.

   ENDIF.
  ENDLOOP.

ENDLOOP.

'How to make material master views mandatory ?'. This is one of the often asked questions on SCN. I also came across a similar requirement and after going through several posts in got an idea on how to achieve this. However , the steps to achieve the requirement were not properly documented and were spread across multiple posts which prompted me to write this blog post.

Requirement:

• Make Basic Data 1 , Basic Data 2 and Classification Data Views as mandatory. An error message should be triggered if the user tries to save a material without maintaining these views.
• Make all material classes and material characteristics mandatory.
• This should work for both MM01 and MM02. Thus a user should get an error is a new material  is being created without mandatory views through MM01 or changes are being done to an existing material not having the mandatory views.

Approach:

• We will make use of  customer-exit EXIT_SAPLMGMU_001 to write our logic.

• Function module MAIN_PARAMETER_GET will be used to get the views currently being maintained or views already present for a material ( material extension or change scenario).

• CLAP_DDB_ALLOCATION_FR_BUFFER will be used to read the material classes in buffer.

• CLAP_DDB_GET_BUFFER_PARAMS to read the material characteristic values in buffer.

• CLAF_CLASSIFICATION_OF_OBJECTS to get the material characteristics from database.
• Further explanations are given below as a part of comments in code snippets for better understanding.
  

  
  

  
  

Check for mandatory views:

Function module MAIN_PARAMETER_GET will give the list of material master tables that are going to be updated. The tables parameter MTAB is filled with the list of used tables at run time.

This table has 2 fields which we need to read to get the views being maintained.

MTAB-BISTSTAT will have the list of views that already exist for a material.

MTAB-PFSTATUS will have the list of views currently being maintained.

Code:

CALL FUNCTION 'MAIN_PARAMETER_GET'

      TABLES

        mtab = lt_mtab.

    IF sy-subrc EQ 0.

*--Check the existing view and current views being created.Read for table MARA. The status for  Basic Data is 'K' and classification data is 'C'.

      CLEAR ls_mtab.

      READ TABLE lt_mtab INTO ls_mtab WITH KEY tbnam = 'MARA'

      IF sy-subrc EQ 0.

*--Check for basic view

        IF ls_mtab-biststat CA 'K' OR ls_mtab-pfstatus CA 'K'.

*--Basic Data View is present ( Do nothing )

        ELSE.

*--Give error message

         MESSAGE 'Material Master Views Basic Data 1 / Basic Data 2 are mandatory' Type 'E'.

        ENDIF.

*--Check for classification view

        IF ls_mtab-biststat CA 'C' OR ls_mtab-pfstatus CA 'C'.

*--Classification Data View is present ( Do nothing )

       ELSE.

          MESSAGE 'Material Master View Classification is mandatory' type 'E'.

        ENDIF.

      ENDIF.

    ENDIF.

Check for mandatory classes and characteristic values in Classification View:

If user is currently maintaining classification view ( MM01 material create ) then the check should be done from the buffer values else in case of material extension or change ( MM02 ) the values should be read from database to check for completeness.

Code:

Check buffer values ( material create - MM01 ).

*--If classification data tab is currently being maintained

IF ls_mtab-pfstatus CA lc_c.

*--Check for material classes

      CLEAR lv_objkey.

 

*--Pass material number in object key

       lv_objkey = cmara-matnr.

*--Read buffer values

       CALL FUNCTION 'CLAP_DDB_ALLOCATION_FR_BUFFER'
EXPORTING
      object                       = lv_objkey
      classtype                  = '001'
      ptable                       = 'MARA'
TABLES
      t_allocations            =  lt_allocations
EXCEPTIONS
      no_allocations_in_buffer = 1
      class_not_in_buffer        = 2
      allocation_not_in_buffer = 3
      missing_parameter        = 4
      others                           = 5.

*--Delete the values in lt_allocations where VBKZ is 'D' (deleted allocation )
*--So after delete we will only have unchanged values ( VBKZ ' ') or
*--newly added ( VBKZ 'U' ).This ensures that we take care of allocations
*--being deleted in current maintenance

DELETE lt_allocations WHERE vbkz EQ 'D'. 

*--Now we can check in table lt_allocations whether all classes are present or not

*--Loop at the table and check if all the  required material classes  are present.

*--If required classes are not maintained give error message else proceed.

 

*--Check for mandatory classifications

 

CALL FUNCTION 'CLAP_DDB_GET_BUFFER_PARAMS'
EXPORTING
      object     = lv_objkey
      classtype  = '001'
      obtab      = 'MARA'
TABLES
      e_ausp_tab = lt_ausp.

*--Delete the values in lt_ausp where STATU is 'L' ( old values )
*--So after delete we will only have unchanged values ( STATU ' ') or
*--new changed values ( STATU 'H' ).This ensures there is only 1 entry
*--per classification

DELETE lt_ausp WHERE statu EQ 'L'

*--Now we can check in table lt_ausp whether values for all material classifications are present

*--or not. If not the trigger error message.

 

Code:

Check data base values ( MM01 - material extension scenario where classification tab is not maintained currently OR MM02 - material change ).

 

*--If classification tab is not being maintained currently

ELSE.

*--Pass material as object key

 

lv_objkey = cmara-matnr.

CALL FUNCTION 'CLAF_CLASSIFICATION_OF_OBJECTS'
EXPORTING
      classtype          = ‘001’
      object               = lv_objkey
TABLES
      t_class             = lt_class
      t_objectdata      = lt_objectdata
EXCEPTIONS
      no_classification    = 1
      no_classtypes        = 2
      invalid_class_type  = 3
      OTHERS              = 4.

*--Check for mandatory classes

*--Check in table LT_CLASS if all the material classes are present. If not then trigger an error message.

 

 

*--Check for characteristic values

*--Fetch the characteristic details from CABN

*--Check if values exist for each characteristic in table LT_OBJECTDATA.

*--To determine if a value for characteristic has been given compare with character ‘?’

*--If values are not present  CLAF_CLASSIFICATION_OF_OBJECTS returns '?' else it can be blank or some value.

 

ENDIF.

Execution Snapshots:

Go to MM01 to create material:

Enter material number , industry sector and material type. Select views to be maintained. Do not select Basic Data views.

Enter data on views selected:

Save the material.

Error message is triggered.

NOTE:

• The class type for material class is '001'.
• Material classes and characteristics related data can be fetched from tables KLAH ,KSML.
• Characteristic details can also be fetched from table CABN.

Welcome to another ABAP Trapdoors article - the first one posted using my new SCN user. If you are intersted in the older articles, you can find a link list at the bottom of this post.

I've been using asXML for some years now as a convenient way to serialize and deserialize arbitrary ABAP data structures. Some time ago, I learned about IF_SERIALIZABLE_OBJECT and its use to include class instances (aka objects) in an asXML representation as well. A few days ago, I decided to use this technique in a current development project. At the same time, I was trying to use CL_DEMO_OUTPUT_STREAM instead of classic lists as suggested by the online documentation, and since I was supposedly familiar with the basics of using transformations, I focused rather on the usage of this new output technology. I hacked together a small demo programm like this one:

REPORT z_test_serialize.
CLASS lcl_serializable_thingy DEFINITION CREATE PUBLIC.  PUBLIC SECTION.    INTERFACES if_serializable_object.    METHODS constructor      IMPORTING        i_foo TYPE string.    METHODS get_foo      RETURNING        VALUE(r_foo) TYPE string.  PRIVATE SECTION.    DATA g_foo TYPE string.
ENDCLASS.
CLASS lcl_serializable_thingy IMPLEMENTATION.  METHOD constructor.    g_foo = i_foo.  ENDMETHOD.  METHOD get_foo.    r_foo = g_foo.  ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.
CLASS lcl_main DEFINITION CREATE PRIVATE.  PUBLIC SECTION.    CLASS-METHODS run.
ENDCLASS.
CLASS lcl_main IMPLEMENTATION.  METHOD run.    DATA: lr_stream        TYPE REF TO cl_demo_output_stream,          l_foo_in        TYPE string,          lr_first_thingy  TYPE REF TO lcl_serializable_thingy,          l_xml_data      TYPE string,          lr_second_thingy TYPE REF TO lcl_serializable_thingy,          l_foo_out        TYPE string.    lr_stream = cl_demo_output_stream=>open( ).    SET HANDLER cl_demo_output_html=>handle_output FOR lr_stream.    lr_stream->write_text( iv_text = 'XML Serialization of ABAP Objects Instances'                            iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>heading                            iv_level  = 1 ).    l_foo_in = |Hello, this is Foo Bar calling from { sy-sysid } client { sy-mandt }.|.    lr_stream->write_data( iv_name  = 'Input Data'                          ia_value  = l_foo_in                          iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>nonprop ).    CREATE OBJECT lr_first_thingy      EXPORTING        i_foo = l_foo_in.    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE instance = lr_first_thingy      RESULT xml      = l_xml_data.    lr_stream->write_data( iv_name  = 'XML Serialization'                          ia_value  = l_xml_data                          iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>nonprop ).    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE xml      = l_xml_data      RESULT instance = lr_second_thingy.    l_foo_out = lr_second_thingy->get_foo( ).    lr_stream->write_data( iv_name  = 'Output Data'                          ia_value  = l_foo_out                          iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>nonprop ).    lr_stream->close( ).  ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.
START-OF-SELECTION.  lcl_main=>run( ).

Instead of the expected output (some text, an XML representation of the instance and the same text again), I got - a shortdump. The reference lr_second_thingy was not set after the second transformation - so the deserialization must somehow be broken, right? The debugger quickly revealed that the string variable that was supposed to contain the serialized instance was empty - so it's the serialization that must be broken, then, and not the deserialization? Well, they both are, in a way. To cut straight to the point, here is the faulty code:

    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE instance = lr_first_thingy      RESULT xml      = l_xml_data.    lr_stream->write_data( iv_name  = 'XML Serialization'                          ia_value  = l_xml_data                          iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>nonprop ).    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE xml      = l_xml_data      RESULT instance = lr_second_thingy.

And here is the corrected version:

    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE instance = lr_first_thingy      RESULT XML        l_xml_data.    lr_stream->write_data( iv_name  = 'XML Serialization'                          ia_value  = l_xml_data                          iv_format = if_demo_output_formats=>nonprop ).    CALL TRANSFORMATION id      SOURCE XML        l_xml_data      RESULT instance = lr_second_thingy.

Yup, the difference is a single character - or two characters in this case. Without the equals sign, XML is treated as a keyword to denote a variable containing the raw XML data. With the equals sign, something else happens that I have yet to find a sensible and practical use for - at least when used with the identity transformation. You can spot this issue if you use the pretty printer to convert the keywords to upper case - and if you notice the tiny difference between xml and XML.

Older ABAP Trapdoors articles

• 2011-03-07: The Myth of the Instance Constructor
• 2011-03-25: Morphing Method Parameters
• 2011-04-28: LOOP Dizziness
• 2011-06-29: A momentary WEAKness
• 2011-10-05: Type Lock-In
• 2011-11-21: Death By STRING
• 2014-11-14: R-F-Conversion on a STRING

     Essa é minha primeira postagem, bem simples, mais pode ajudar alguém.

     Qualquer correção ou dica é bem vinda.

     Deixo aqui um pequeno e simples tutorial de como colocar valores fixos em um search help através das Search Help Exit, como na imagem abaixo:

• Criar um grupo de funções.

          Ex.: ZGF_SHLP

• Criar um modulo de função para o Search Help Exit.

          Ex.: ZSHLP_EXIT

• Em parâmetros de modificação da função, definir o seguinte:

• Em parâmetros de tabela:

• No texto fonte da função:

          No exemplo, para o campo COD_TAB virá por padrão os valores de 5.1.1. e 5.3.

         Descomentando a linha (callcontrol-step = 'SELECT'.),não aparece a janela de seleção, já abre a seleção pronta, com os filtros definidos no código.

• Na se11 dentro do search help, colocar a função criada no campo Exit ajud.pesquisa.

     E é isso. Espero que tenha ajudado.

Hi ABAP XML experts,
some days ago I started a discussion on SCN and asked about debugging in ABAP/XSLT. I am new on handling XLST by asXML, not by the ST, simple transformation. In addition to this I am not an XSLT expert. I did a lot of simple transformations but now, I had to use a real XSLT program. The SCN question of my problem wasn't unfortunately answered. Have a short look ...

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3751547

I parallel I tried to find out the solution by myself of course.  After some very short nights to sleep, a lot of coffee, many open books, blogs and faqs I found the easy solution. Experts will think "were is the problem ?" but I lost a lot of time for this.

To earn my badget on blogging I decided to share my new knowledge to this issue. I hope that I can help someone someday in the same situation with my blog. If so, it would be nice to give a little reply on this. This is my first blog, so I hopefully do this in a right way and you will enjoy this !

What is the matter ? Debugging on XSLT !

If you try to export complex ABAP structures via XSLT to XML, the writing of the XSLT rules is not always easy. If you have internal tables referenced into internal tables this will cost all your attention to rule this correctly. In my case the ABAP structures had in addition many content realized by dynamic structures depending on the object you want to export.

After writing my XSLT, drinking the last rest of my cold coffee, putting all XLST books away from my desk, this was the time to do the first run on the transformation ... and of course it failed 

This was the time to check the XSLT code by the XSLT debugger within transaction XSLT_TOOL. I realized that I need the "exact" source XML for debugging. There is no way (I think) on a ABAP 7.00 system to do this directly while debugging the ABAP code and jumping to the XSTL debugger.

Lets start how to solve this ...

Step 1: define the ABAP side program to use a transformation.
In my case I created a little table with references to my internal ABAP tables or structures.

DATA: lt_source TYPE abap_trans_srcbind_tab,      ls_source TYPE abap_trans_resbind,       lv_xmlstr TYPE xstring,      .....

Then the table must be filled with content to export:

* add table 1  GET REFERENCE OF lt_my_table1 INTO ls_source-value.  ls_source-name = 'my_table1'.  APPEND ls_source TO lt_source.
* add structure 1  GET REFERENCE OF lt_my_structure1 INTO ls_source-value.  ls_source-name = 'my_structure1'.  APPEND ls_source TO lt_source.
* add table 2  GET REFERENCE OF lt_my_table1 INTO ls_source-value.  ls_source-name = 'my_table2'.
 APPEND ls_source TO lt_source.

You can see, that this is a mixture of tables and structures and tables, again.

Step 2: then we have to use the transformation

Create the call of the transformation, handled by a try-catch-structure.

  TRY.        CALL TRANSFORMATION zmy_complex_transformation            SOURCE (lt_source)            RESULT XML lv_xmlstr.    CATCH cx_root.      "error handling ...  ENDTRY.  "then follows implementation to store this lv_xmlstr to a file XML file

Step 3: after this we can develop the XSLT transformation programm 'zmy_complex_transformation'

This is just a simple frame, if you create a new XSLT program

<xsl:transform xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">  <xsl:output encoding="iso-8859-1" indent="yes" method="xml" version="1.0"/>  <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>  <xsl:template match="/">  <!-- ************* here is my specific code *************** -->  </xsl:template></xsl:transform>

Step 4: ready ?

No ... this was just the framework to export ABAP data via XSLT to XML. While development of XSTL program you will have a lot of exceptions type of CX_XSLT_ ... even in the following code processing.

No we have to talk about how to get the ABAP exact output of XML ! The situation is shown in the diagram of the SAP help very well. In our case we want to do a red marked serialization from ABAP via asXML (by using a XSTL) to XML.

This was unclear to me a long time. I did not realize, that there is a real transformation already given named "ID", delivered by SAP to do this.

So lets have a look to this delivered transformation:

XSLT experts will have some fun on this, because, the code is rather easy and will pass everything without any mapping. But if you are not very familiar, you will have thousands questions first

So this was the secret and the solution for my problem ...

To get an output I modified the code of step 2 like this:

DATA: lv_debug TYPE flag,      lo_doc TYPE REF TO cl_xml_document,      lv_subrc TYPE sy-subrc.
...      IF lv_debug IS NOT INITIAL. "<<<<<< change manually to X while debugging        CALL TRANSFORMATION id "SAP standard transformation ... let's pass everything without any mapping            SOURCE (lt_source)            RESULT XML lv_xmlstr.        CLEAR lo_doc.        CREATE OBJECT lo_doc.
* load hex string to XML document ...        CALL METHOD lo_doc->parse_xstring          EXPORTING            stream  = lv_xmlstr          RECEIVING            retcode = lv_subrc.
* ... and do an output to the local filesystem        CALL METHOD lo_doc->export_to_file          EXPORTING            filename = 'c:\temp\input.xml'          RECEIVING            retcode  = lv_subrc.      ELSE.        CALL TRANSFORMATION zca_tr_export_list            SOURCE (lt_source)            RESULT XML lv_xmlstr.      ENDIF.

Now we have the possibility to create an XML with the direct APAB output to get an better imagination of the data structures. After running this code we will have an XML file on the specified path. I called this file input file, because it's the input of our transformation.

Then we can go to the XSLT debugger by using this XML file for the XSLT transformation:

Within the debugger you can exactly step trough the XSLT code and see what's going wrong with it ... or hopefully not.

That's all and happy debugging

I hope you had some fun and can use these information.

Ahhh ... I forgot one interesting code gift.

One additional note:

You can also implement a nice little XML viewer in your code to get the result ... if you get or need one. So use this code to get a preview:

  IF lv_xmlstr IS NOT INITIAL.    CALL FUNCTION 'DISPLAY_XML_STRING'      EXPORTING        xml_string            = lv_xmlstr
*   TITLE                 =
*   STARTING_X            = 5
*   STARTING_Y            = 5     EXCEPTIONS       no_xml_document       = 1       OTHERS                = 2.  ENDIF.

The XML viewer looks like this short example:

Regards,

Markus

Prior to ABAP 7.4 it was not possible to use right table fields in the WHERE clause of LEFT OUTER JOINs. It required to code multiple SQL selections and merge data in ABAP. In case of right table constant selection the limitation can be walk arounded by wrapping selection into view.

For example, for each sales order item it is required to get ship-to from both header and item. Coding right table selection creates a syntax error.

Lets wrap right table selection into ZVBPA_WE view.

Using ZVBPA_WE view will do the trick.

Lets run the program and make sure it selects the data as expected. Yes, it does.

If you need a list of all transparent tables used in a given ABAP class ( or function module, objects which belong to a given transport request, etc ) for analysis usage, you could follow the tips below, it is very simple but efficient.

Suppose you need to scan ABAP class CL_CRM_OPPORTUNITY_IMPL to find out all transparent tables used by this class.

1. use tcode SCI, create a new check variant:

Enable "Table Names from SELECT statements" and save variant.

2. create a new inspection:

Specify the class to be scanned, and load the check variant created in step one, then execute the inspection.

3. Once inspection is done, you see a green light and could get the inspection result by clicking button below:

All accessed tables are listed there:

Double click on each entry and the ABAP code will automatically be opened. Quite easy, isn't it?

Summary

As we know that the code inspection is done statically by scanning source code so any other tables which are accessed dynamically by dynamic SQL in the runtime will not appear in the scan result of code inspector. If you need to get the COMPLETE list of the tables involved within a given part of ABAP codes, it is recommended to use transaction code ST05, ST12 or SAT to trace the scenario in the runtime.

Further reading

1. ABAP Code inspector is far more than a static code scanner but in my opinion a powerful weapon which is for every ABAPer worth adding it to your toolbox. For more extensive usage on it to make your life easier, please read this document Useful tips regarding ABAP code inspector that you may not know .

2. Besides the approach to get accessed table list introduced in this blog, there is another approach using transaction code SQF, which is also done based on static code scan. For details please read ABAP static analysis tool SQF.

Introduction:

  Precaution is always better than cure!! Although this is an old thought, has very special meaning and same I thought to apply while working as developer in SAP ABAP.

In spite of facing problems with development after releasing them in production why not to review the code in Development environment with less manual intervention and high accuracy. While exploring to the various checks provided by SAP I came across a very powerful code review tool Code Inspector, and it was what I was searching for.

About Code Inspector:

  Code Inspector is a powerful tool provided by SAP to review the objects developed through following Tcode - SE11, SE24, SE37, SE38, or SE80. Code Inspector is mainly for the static analysis of ABAP programs and other SAP repository objects.

Code Inspector provides the detail analysis with appropriate message and line number.

How to customize Code Inspector:

Code Inspector can be customized by following steps:

• Create the code inspector variant in SCI.
• Make the variant as default variant.
• Send the result of code inspector in Email.

Creating Code Inspector Variant

       Code Inspector variant is created with tcode SCI. When you create the variant you have the option to select the checks as per your requirement and standards:

1.      Create the global variant in SCI.

2.  Customize the checks as per user requirement by creating this variant. It might possible that all the SAP provided classes has not been selected. You can add extra checks by selecting the required classes this can be done as:

            SCI -> Goto ->Management of -> Test Console

       From this list check the class that you want to make part of your variant and save.

     3. While creating variant select the checks you want to perform and provide with necessary input parameters. Information of the checks can be  

          obtained by clicking the  information icon as:

     4. Expand each of the check categories to view all the sub category checks. Parameters can be set according to your requirement. For example- In

          Programming conventions category , for check naming convention , you can set the syntax or convention check as per your project standard as:

       Similarly other input parameters can be set for different checks.

Creating Your Own Checks

   There might be requirement where you want to add your checks as per your need and that check is not provided by SAP defined class. Don’t worry there is everything in SAP you just need to explore it.

   This can be achieved by creating own class and writing your own rule. To know more follow blog:

code-inspector--how-to-create-a-new-check.

Making Variant as Default Variant

  Instead of executing the code with your own variant in SCI, you can make your created variant as default. That is every time you check the code inspector your variant will get executed. This can be done as:

Go to transaction 'SE16', at the table 'SCICHKV_ALTER', set the item DEFAULT flag and click on EDIT BUTTON.

Change the field 'CHECKVNAME_NEW', 'RESPONSIBL', 'CREADATE' and click on SAVE BUTTON.

Sending Result in Email

  You can send the result of the code inspector in Email. Execute the code inspector. At the result screen, click the result list option, on result list screen click the mail recipient where you can add the recipient mail and send the result.

  You can customize code inspector as per your need by further exploring it and thus you took precaution of your code before it could raise any harm.

Daisy Hernandez is vice president of enterprise social software at SAP, leading the product management team for SAP Jam. The recent 1505 release of SAP Jam includes enhancements that make life better for IT, and to find out more, I spoke to her.

What’s new in release 1505 that provides value to IT?

There are two main areas that we’ve improved: First, it’s now easier for IT to use SAP Jam to manage their own work. Second, SAP Jam now helps IT serve stakeholders in their enterprise better.

To help IT manage their own work, we’ve created two new work patterns.

The Issue Escalation work pattern makes it easy to pull tickets from a service request system into SAP Jam, where IT can then pull in experts from the right teams to help resolve a tough issue. Even if those other experts aren’t in IT and don’t have access to the service request system, they’ll be able to communicate and solve problems as a team with IT in SAP Jam – in context of the most up-to-date information from the service request system.

The IT Projects work pattern is designed for projects that IT is tasked with or funded for. If you’re developing a new application, rolling out a new tool, or upgrading an application, this work pattern will make it easy to track requirements and enhancements as the team works together on the project.

To help IT better serve their stakeholders, we’ve added capabilities that make it possible to deliver seamless integrations in more ways.

For instance, we’ve created what we call an activity hub: It’s a desktop application that allows users to pull together an aggregate view of feeds across multiple enterprise social networks. Instead of having to log into to more than one social network, they’ll have a single place where they can see all activity.

There’s also a new desktop file sync client that’s perfect for employees who travel frequently and need to have the latest versions of documents available, even when they don’t have internet access. For instance, salespeople who visit a prospect – but can’t connect to wireless – will still be able to access and deliver their presentations.

Because SAP Jam supports OpenSocial, it means IT can integrate even more capabilities from other tools with SAP Jam, opening up a vast array of possibilities. Support for Google spreadsheets, or even web conferencing, could be added using OpenSocial.

Support for mobile users has been expanded. SAP Jam now supports Android and includes a cross-section of features that build on its enterprise readiness: Secure storage, passcode security, and mobile auditing.

Finally, we’ve improved the onboarding experience for company admins. It’s much easier to get started – checklists and wizards within SAP Jam provide information about the tools available to company admins and let them choose which tools to support.

How does this release build on what’s already in SAP Jam?

It’s simple: SAP Jam has always been about providing collaboration where it matters – within the business processes that drive results for your company. These new capabilities continue to support that strategy by further connecting people, content, data, and processes so they can get work done.

The new work patterns for IT build on ones we’ve had in market that have already been supporting IT: The Onboarding work pattern helps IT ramp up new hires. The Help and Support work pattern helps them answer questions in a forum that makes the answers available to everyone in the company. The Planning and Implementation work pattern is perfect for smaller projects that don’t have multiple phases.

In turn, the integrations build on many that have already provided value to IT, like integrations for Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, and other productivity applications; integrations for search technologies that support federated search; and integrations for multiple content management systems.

What can people who are in IT do to learn more about how SAP Jam can provide value?

The free developer edition of SAP Jam is a great place to start. That’s a place where you can work on customizations and try out the work patterns by integrating service request applications. You can learn more about it and register for it here.

I’d also recommend reading the release notes and developer admin guide– so that you can get familiar with all the new integration possibilities.

To try out the activity hub and desktop file sync, you can ask your customer support representative for details. And for even more information about this release, please reach out to your account or service representative, and they’d be happy to help.

One of the more common mistakes I came across again and again in my own work as an SAP Support Engineer is caused by modifications in user-exits. In the include RV60AFZZ (transaction SE38) several exits are available, which are executed during invoice creation. Of those, two are quite popular, which are relevant to influence the pricing functionality. Everybody does have some own requirements in the pricing area.

In FORM USEREXIT_PRICING_PREPARE_TKOMK additional custom-own fields can be filled for TKOMK, which is the header level.

And the user-exit for the item level (TKOMP) is FORM USEREXIT_PRICING_PREPARE_TKOMP.

Both are called at the start of the pricing processing in include  LV60AA58, FORM PREISFINDUNG_VORBEREITEN. First the header one, thereafter the one of the item fields at the very end:

351 PERFORM userexit_pricing_prepare_tkomk.

....

785  PERFORMuserexit_pricing_prepare_tkomp.

Now the usual way here is to simply fill own z-fields as is suggested:

TKOMK-zzfield = xxxx-zzfield2.

But what happens if you perform here a LOOP command on the internal table XVBRK? Then no errror message will be the result, as in my previous post , but instead the created invoice could be inconsistent.

In a recent case, which I investigated, two deliveries, with entirely different payers, had been created combined together in transaction VF01. In the TKOMK user-exit such a LOOP command was executed:

Now in this case an invoice split has to be performed, due to different partner data, and in XVBRK two entries exist. At the point before the LOOP command the second invoice is processed by the system and visible in the debugger as the currently processed line.

After the LOOP is executed, this line is changed, and now instead of the second invoice, the first one is the one to be processed further:

The undesired result of this manipulation: the second invoice will get the wrong partner data! It will receive the same partners as the first invoice!

So such a direct LOOP must be avoided. If data of XVBRK should be used, then a custom own table ZVBRK would have to be used, and the data moved to there. Then on the Z-table the LOOP will not cause a change in the processing line of the XVBRK.

In other cases, when the LOOP is performed on XVBRP, in the other exit USEREXIT_PRICING_PREPARE_TKOMP, then error message VF004 "Reference document & & (Error during INSERT)" could be the result, if more than one item will have to be invoiced.

Again with the LOOP command the current processing line is changed, and then the inserting of the second item will fail, because the system thinks it is the first one, which is already present in XVBRP:

So my suggestion would be to strictly refrain from such LOOP commands on internal SAP tables which are processed by the system.

Further reading:

Note 381348