Category > Tips & tricks
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The magical F2 in Eclipse ADT

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Eclipse ADT calls it Code element information.

Use BASE to not ruin what you already have

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We used to use the APPEND and INSERT commands to add rows to internal tables. Now that ABAP has grown, we can use VALUE, REDUCE, CORRESPONDING, etc. But what if the internal table already has rows and we don’t want to lose them?

INNER JOIN instead of FOR ALL ENTRIES

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A while ago I showed you that you could SELECT from an internal table. And then I asked myself: if that is possible, shouldn’t INNER JOIN be possible too?

Copy from SAPGui to the clipboard

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Did you know that your ABAP programme can copy content to your operating system’s clipboard?

SELECTing from an internal table

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Now you can SELECT from an internal table.

SELECT SINGLE vs SELECT UP TO 1 ROWS

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Man, this is one of those endless discussions that will never get anywhere. Ditto trying to decide if you deserve to go on living if you put pineapple on your pizza or Philadelphia cheese on your sushi.

Call SM30 or SM34 from a function module

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If you want to call the SM30 from a program you can use CALL TRANSACTION but there is a simpler way.

Use a dictionary instead of IF or CASE

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The fewer IFs and CASEs the better, right? Every branch of an IF or a CASE is an exception. And we like rules better than exceptions. Here’s one more technique to achieve that.

Message collector

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SAP messages are all managed centrally through the SE91 transaction, but can appear to a program in a variety of formats.

SELECT single record using an incomplete key

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I was always told that, when selecting a single record, I should use UP TO 1 ROWS whenever the key was not fully provided. My elementary school teacher told me that I should always aks why: why? Nobody ever told me why.

Use & in SAPSript texts

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Let’s say you want to show an url in a SAPScript layout. You place the url in a SAPSCript text and assume everything will work fine. Because most times everything does work fine. It’s just that sometimes…

Clean data declarations

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While writing code, you should always keep present how easy it will be to maintain. This is particularly important in data declarations. And so easy to do right.

SELECT FOR UPDATE

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When you’re going to modify existing records of a database table it is common to first SELECT them to see how they are and only then UPDATE them with what they will be.

Table with all development keys

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When I get to a new project the system administrator generates a development key for each development system assigned to our SAP username. Usually it’s sent to me by e-mail. Usually I lose track of it.

Easily modify internal table record

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The new way to get data from internal tables is also the new way to put data into internal tables.