We’ve all sorted internal tables to use AT NEW on a LOOP. But starting from 7.40, we can use GROUP BY on LOOPs.

The ability to group by values based on expressions or even methods is great.

The grouping is done on the first LOOP and can be processed afterwards. Try running the code below and I bet you’ll be as impressed as I was.

When we learn ABAP, we are taught a series of rules on how to name variables. Not everyone uses the same rules but, still, some strict rules are shared between many people:

• Local variables must start with L: L_BUKRS;

• Global variables must start with G: G_MODE;

• Internal tables must have T_: LT_MARA;

• Structures must have S_: LS_MARA;

• Object references must have R_: R_CUSTOMER;

• input parameters must start with I, output with O, changing with C and returning with R.

• And the most stupid of all, field-symbols must start with FS_: <FS_MARA>.

In the early XXI century those rules made some sense (except for the field-symbols on, which was, and still is, as stupid as writing ‘pencil’ in all our pencils). Today they don’t make much sense anymore. Let me explain.

If you want to serialize a set of strings stored in an internal table there are two ways to do it. One is dull, the other one is full of style.

What I’m about to show you is not exactly new. It has even been used in Abapinho before. But since there is still a lot of people out there using LOOP to change a single field of an internal table, I thought it would be worth talking about it.

DELETE CLEAR REFRESH FREE

These are different ways of deleting all data from an internal table. They look the same. But they aren’t.

Get ready because you’ll soon be running into a lot of surprises. ABAP is learning new tricks. Look at this one:

CONSTANTS:
  lc_menina TYPE STRING VALUE ‘GIRL',
  lc_menino TYPE STRING VALUE ‘BOY’,
  lc_senhor TYPE STRING VALUE ’GENTLEMAN’,
  lc_senhora TYPE STRING VALUE ‘LADY’.

SELECT nome,
 CASE
   WHEN sexo_id = ‘M' AND idade < 18 THEN @lc_menino
   WHEN sexo_id = ‘F’ AND idade < 18 THEN @lc_menina
   WHEN sexo_id = ‘M' AND idade >=18 THEN @lc_senhor
   WHEN sexo_id = ‘F’ AND idade >=18 THEN @lc_senhora
 END AS titulo
FROM zpessoa
WHERE pessoa_id = @pessoa_id
INTO CORRESPONDING FIELDS OF @lt_pessoas.

You just have to wait for version 7.40.

Reports still writing directly to the screen are very hard to maintain whenever changes to the layout are required. On such occasions, review the code and, if the effort involved is not too big, consider converting it to ALV. Always involve the functional people in this decision.

If you’re still not using exception classes, then you’re making a mistake. Cause they are very healthy for your code. They’re not only good nutrients for the system, they also make it lean and less vulnerable to diseases.

There are cases where you still need to deal with the old exceptions. For example, when a function module is invoked.

In this article I am presenting a suggestion that seems a little complex, but it works very well if you need to integrate the old exceptions with exception class in a simple way. And though it is sophisticated, you only need to do it once. Once it’s done, it’s easy to use.

Historically ABAP programs tend to grow very loooong. All programming best practices teach us there is not a single advantage in this approach. If any routine, be it a program, a method, a function or anything else, becomes longer than 200-300 lines, question it and seriously consider refactoring it into several sub-routines. This has the added advantage of potentially increasing code reuse. But the greatest advantage is encapsulation, isolating variables in their local context, instead of having all of them together, resulting in safer and more readable code. The Official ABAP Programming Guidelines book advises this in its chapter 2.2 KISS (pages 32-34). https://help.sap.com/abapdocu_731/en/abenencapsulation_guidl.htm

If the same piece of code is repeated at least once, question yourself why and try to avoid it by creating a reusable routine. If there is more than one SELECT for the same table in a program, make sure you can’t merge them into a single one. Sometimes a smart use of RANGEs to unify parameters can avoid the need for multiple SELECTs. If the same code is used in 2 different programs, don’t repeat the code. Instead, create a class for it which can be shared by both and move the reused code to the common class. https://abapinho.com/en/2012/06/mais-ranges-menos-selects/