subject: Sap Abap Online Training [print this page] SAP 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 enable large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting.
ABAP used to be an short form of Allgemeiner Berichts AufbereitungsProzessor, 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 provide a high level of abstraction from the basic database level(s).
The ABAP programming language was initially 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 is fairly easy to learn[opinion] for programmers but it is not a tool for direct use by non-programmers. Knowledge of relational database design and preferably also of object-oriented concepts is necessary to create ABAP programs.
The ABAP language environment, including the syntax checking, code generation, and runtime system, is part of the SAP Basis component/layer. SAP Basis is the technological platform that supports the entire range of SAP applications, now typically implemented in the framework of the SAP Web Application Server. In that sense SAP Basis can be seen as the virtual machine on which SAP applications run. Like any operating system, SAP Basis contains both low-level services (for example memory management, database communication, or servicing Web requests) and high-level tools for end users and administrators. These tools can be executables ("SAP kernel") running directly on the underlying operating system, transactions developed in ABAP, or Web-based programs.
SAP Basis also provides a layer of concept between the business applications and 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 Basis 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 IBM DB2, Informix, MaxDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server (support for Informix was discontinued in SAP Basis release 7.00).
Types of ABAP programs
As in other programming languages, an ABAP program is either an executable unit or a library, which provides reusable code to other programs and is not independently executable.
ABAP distinguishes two types of executable programs:
Reports
Module pools
Formatting rules
The basic formatting rules of ABAP are simple:
Every ABAP statement must end in a period
Tokens within a statement must be separated by at least one space
An end of line is equivalent to a space
Statements and keywords are not case-sensitive
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