Project Explorer

When Chapter 1 described the creation of the ABAP and ABAP Cloud projects, the Project Explorer view was introduced. This is the base view that will probably stay open in most of your perspectives, as it allows you to navigate through all the objects using the package or object type folders.

As you might remember, each ABAP project is a virtual representation of the SAP instance, with a fixed client, user, and language. There are on-premise ABAP projects and ABAP Cloud projects. As you can see in Figure 2-1, these project types display different content, as the systems are also different.

ABAP Repository Trees

When you expand the project on a system that’s based on SAP NetWeaver release lower than 7.51 and/or without the SAP HANA database, you will see the following repositories: Favorite Packages and System Library. Favorite Packages can be added during the creation of the project as well as by using the context menu of the Project Explorer. The System Library contains all the packages of the current SAP instance. Each package in this view can contain zero or several subpackages and folders assigned to the current package objects. Its hierarchy is very similar to the SE80 one, which you can see in Figure 2-2. As in SE80, using the context menu on a folder, package, or object will allow you to create or delete new objects, activate them, or change the package assignment.

The default Favorite Packages folder contains the $TMP package with the user’s local objects linked to the project. By using the context menu (right-click the Favorite Packages node), you can add other packages to your favorites as well as add other users’ local objects to your favorites. To do so, use the context menu, then choose Add a Package… or Add Local objects of User….

The Add a Package action will open a separate popup window, which you saw when creating the project. It will allow you to search for the packages by name.

Add Local Objects of User will also open a separate popup window, but only to select the user whose local objects you want to see in your favorites.

The Favorite Packages folder is extremely helpful if you work on a larger development, and if you use one or several packages only for the purpose of this project. When you have huge packages in your company that contain development objects for one big module, for example, it’s no longer useful to use the Favorite Packages folder. Too many unconnected objects make it difficult to navigate through.

Systems that already work on SAP NetWeaver 7.51 or higher and with the SAP HANA database have a different structure. By default, they have Favorite Packages, Favorite Objects, and Released Objects repositories. Of course, the Favorite Packages node works exactly the same as before.

Favorites Objects works very similarly to Favorite Packages, but it contains only the single repository objects, not the packages. This means you can add function groups, function modules, classes, programs, and other repository objects there, but not packages. You can add objects to the favorites by selecting them from the Project Explorer, either from Favorite Packages, Released Objects, or any other ABAP Repository Tree.

Released Objects contains all released objects in the cloud environment. These objects can be released by SAP or by anyone else from your company.

There are some more repositories that you could use. To use one, right-click the project and choose New ➤ ABAP Repository Tree.. Or, if that option is not available in your installation, choose New ➤ Other ➤ ABAP ➤ ABAP Repository Tree. A new window will appear with all the possible repository templates for the current system, as you can see in Figure 2-3.

Those repositories are much more powerful than the ones in older SAP releases, as they allow additional filtering by type and name. If you choose, for example, the My Objects template, you will get the property filter set to your username. As you can see in Figure 2-4, the tree structure can be defined in here. It is preconfigured for the My Objects template that the structure will be Package ➤ Object Type. But if you want to, you can remove one or both and choose any other tree level from the available levels found on the left side of the window.

All the available property filters can be found in Figure 2-5. It can be extremely helpful to combine filters together. For example, you can filter the repository by package, owner (creator), and type (like class or CDS).

The property filter, together with the naming filter, allows you to create useful repositories for your daily work.

Caution

Although you may be able to add GUI transactions to the Favorite Objects, or see them if you add one of the standard SAP packages to your favorites, you will not be able to use the GUI transactions in cloud projects, as GUI is not allowed with ABAP Cloud projects.

Toolbar and View Menu

If you thought we were done covering Project Explorer, then you were wrong. There are still a few important functionalities that you can run from the toolbar and the View menu.

The toolbar can always be found close to the view tab. If there is enough space, it is visible on the right side of the view tab name; in other cases, it can be found below the tab. This behavior is the same for any view.

Besides the toolbar it is common to have the View menu, which is accessible from the toolbar. You can see the toolbar and the View menu in Figure 2-6.

In the Project Explorer view, the toolbar consists of Collapse All, Link with Editor, Filter, View menu, and the Minimize and Maximize buttons.

Collapse All is helpful when you have opened several projects during the day and you want to collapse every node. When this is used, all tree nodes will be collapsed.

The Link with Editor function is quite common in Eclipse views. The behavior can be a bit different between the views, but basically the content of the view will change to show information linked to the active editor. In the Project Explorer, the aim of the linking is to navigate through the whole structure of the project to the currently opened object.

It may not be clear to you yet that you can open objects in several ways, not only from the Project Explorer. That is why, when you open the object using other ways, the Project Explorer can show you the place where the object is placed. Depending on whether I am working from home using VPN or at office, I switch this option on or off, as it can be very frustrating on a slow network connection.

The filter is not useful in ABAP projects, but it can be with other ones. Here you can set up what kind of content you want to see in your project.

The View menu, in the case of ABAP Projects, could be shortened only to the working sets part and the top-level elements. I mentioned working sets during the creation of the projects. You can group projects in them, and select which workings sets should be displayed. To use working sets, just go to the View menu and choose Select Working Set. The window shown in Figure 2-7 will be displayed.

There are no built-in ABAP working sets, so you need to create your own. To do so, just click the New… button and select Resource as the working set type. In the next step you will be able to give it a name and select which projects should be included in it.

In my example, I created two working sets. On-premise, which contains the project NPL, and Cloud, which contains TRL. You can create different working sets, and the split and grouping depends only on you. In order to display your working sets, you need to select the checkbox close to their names from the working sets list.

You may be surprised that nothing has changed in the Project Explorer after you confirm all the steps. In order to display working sets, you need to go to the View menu and choose Top Level Elements ➤ Working Sets. Now your Project Explorer view should look similar to the one shown in Figure 2-8.

Outline

This view is available in the ABAP perspective from the beginning and is one of the most commonly used (Figure 2-9). It helps you navigate through the code of the currently opened objects. It allows you to see all the members of the currently opened object.

This may be strange, but you should know it from the start: you will not see the components of the includes here if your editor currently handles the main object (program). But of course you will see the list of the includes and you will be able to navigate to them. You will see types, variables, local classes, events, friends, forms, and methods, but only for the current object. This might seem a disadvantage, but in most cases, it is not. After more than 20 years of availability of the object orientation in ABAP, I hope that you are familiar with it and will miss only inherited members on this view, in comparison to SE80.

When you select any of the object members from the Outline view, the code editor will navigate to the position of the selected member.

You can choose to sort the displayed members. By default they are sorted by type, visibility, and placement in the code, but you can use the Sort button on the toolbar to sort them by type and name only.

You can also show only public members of the object using the Hide Non-Public Members button.

By default, this view is linked to the editor, which means when you switch the editor tab to another object, it will be refreshed and members of the selected object will be displayed. You can unlink it from the View menu.

Problems

This view is also one of the basic. It is helpful during programming, as all messages will be visible here. You will see syntax errors and warnings here, as well as error messages found when activating an object (Figure 2-10).

When you double-click the message, you will be navigated to the problem line. When you right-click and select Problem Description, a new view called ABAP Problem Description will open with additional information. Once you fix the problem, it will disappear from the list.

By default, this view shows all the errors of the objects opened in the workspace. You can customize it by clicking the Filters button on the view toolbar or selecting it from the View menu. You can customize the filters, as shown in Figure 2-11, by choosing the scope of the view, setting the severity of the messages, and setting the types of the issues. This can be quite useful when you work with several systems and are mainly in maintenance mode, or when you use Eclipse to create Java or another type of application and you keep all of them in one workspace.

There are four predefined configurations:

• Errors/warnings on project

• Errors/warnings on selection

• Warnings on selection

• All errors on workspace

You can switch between this configuration using the Show action of the View menu, where all configurations will be listed. You can also create your own configurations using the New button on the Filters area.

One last thing you can do, besides sorting and grouping, is create an additional Problems view. You can do this by using the View menu and choosing the New Problems View action. You will be able to give the view a name and set up its configuration, but this additional view will only be available in the current perspective.

Properties

Usually , we do not make many changes to the attributes of ABAP objects, but if you need to change the object description or some specific object type settings, you need to use the Properties view.

Figure 2-12 shows the General tab, which you will always find inside that view. It displays basic information about the object, such as its package, activation status, description, creation, and update information. With most of the objects, you will be able to change the description. Depending on the object type and system version, you may also see tabs like Specific, API State, or Chart.

The Specific tab shows different attributes for different object types. For example, in the case of classes, it will show ABAP Language Version, Fix Point Arithmetic, Shared Memory Enablement, Status, and Message Class. For function modules, you will find Processing Type (Normal, RFC, Update) and Release State here. In the case of programs, it will show the ABAP Language Version, Fix Point Arithmetic, Start Using Variant, Status, Authorization Group, Logical Database, and Selection Screen Number. Unfortunately, the visibility of the attributes depends on the NetWeaver stack.

The API State will be visible in classes, CDS views, and function modules, but only if your system is using a HANA database.

It’s the same with the Chart tab: if you’re using systems with a HANA database, you can see the graphical representation of the object type differentiation. This tab will be visible if you select a package or any of its subfolders in the Project Explorer.

Templates

When you are reusing parts of your code, but naming objects and variables differently, and you want to speed up the code-writing process, you can use templates. They allow you to prepare code snippets and containers for quick refactoring.

SAP prepared some default templates, but you are free to create some on your own. I bet you will create at least one—a program or class signature that your company or client wants to have at the beginning of each object.

Figure 2-13 shows an example of the template called lcl, which is used to create local classes more quickly. In order to use it, just double-click it and it will appear in the last place of the cursor in the active editor. (There is a quicker way to insert a template directly from the editor, but I will explain that later.)

Creating new templates is quite simple; you need to click the Create New Template button on the view toolbar, then fill out the name, description, and pattern. The pattern can be simple, static text, or you can use variables that enter some default values for you or allow you to rename them after inserting the template into your object.

This template will give the result shown in Figure 2-14. As you can see, the variables were directly replaced during inserting, the description was highlighted and will be overwritten upon pressing any character on your keyboard. And last but not least, when you press the Enter button, the cursor will move to the end of the description. If you had more than one variable that is not automatic, you can switch between them using the Tab key.

Bookmarks

When I was describing the Project Explorer, I mentioned a context menu function called Add Bookmark, which you could use to store the object for later use. They are stored in Bookmarks views, which can be used as a kind of favorites list.

You can add each object from the Project Explorer as a bookmark. They will be added with the name that matches the resource name. When you right-click the bookmark entry and choose Properties, you will be able to change the description. When you double-click the bookmark entry, the object it points to will be opened in the associated editor.

You can also create bookmarks directly from the Editors vertical ruler, by using the context menu. That link will point directly to the selected line of an object. Figure 2-15 shows an example of Bookmarks view with five entries, including links to classes, a table, and a SAP GUI transaction.

As it was with the Problems view, you can set up filters to change the scope of the view, or you can create several Bookmarks views, each with a different configuration.

This view is handy with small numbers of entries. However, because there is no search functionality and no way to group entries, it is very difficult to handle many entries in this view.

Search

Using the where-used list is very common task in a developer’s life. There are many use cases for it and it is nice to have a good tool for it. You can call it from the Project Explorer view or from the editor by using the Get Where-used List function.

As a result, you receive a tree with all occurrences of the selected object or its part (field of table, attribute of class, etc.). The Tree view is a nice solution here, as it shows the objects in which at least one occurrence of the searched object was found. You can expand the object to see the next level, which can be a method, a function module, an include, or the place of occurrence.

Figure 2-16 displays the results of a search for the ZCL_FALV class. These results are expanded on this example only in the first occurrence. You can see that there are five matches in the three lines of the CHANGE_SETTING method and there are a few more in other parts of the ZCL_FALV_COLUMN class.

When you double-click the line with the occurrence, the editor will open the place of occurrence. You can also navigate through the results using the up and down arrow buttons from the view toolbar, or using the Ctrl+, and Ctrl-. keyboard shortcuts. Using them will switch to the next/previous result and directly open the result in the editor.

If you want to scroll down quickly through all of the results, you can use the Expand All button. It will call the SAP backend to get details for all results and will expand the tree to the last level, giving you information about the total number of occurrences.

You can filter the results by package, object type, and creator. To do so, click the Filter button and add your criteria to the filter window. In Figure 2-17, you can see that I set up a filter for the $FALV package and CLAS/OC object type. You can find the description and possible entries by using the Ctrl+Space shortcut on the input fields. After the filter is applied, only the classes from the local $FALV package are displayed.

One more useful functionality of the Search view is the search history. It keeps the last where-used lists, so you do not have to do the search again. This option can be found under the Search History button on the toolbar, as shown in Figure 2-18. You can set the number of searches to keep by choosing Search History ➤ History… ➤ Configure…. By default, it keeps 10 entries.

By using the Pin button, you can ensure that the current results stay in the current view when you use the where-used functionality again. The results for the new search will be opened in a separate view.

History

Say you want to check the last changes in the object, to see if part of the code was removed. In SE80, you used Version Management for that purpose, but in Eclipse you use the History view. Like the Outline view, it can be linked to the editor, so whenever you change an active editor tab, the view will be updated with the history of the active object. As with the Search view, it allows you to pin it and to see the previously displayed results.

As it is presented in Figure 2-19, the view contains a list of all versions, release dates, linked transport requests, and descriptions. Once you choose the version to open, just double-click it. A new tab will appear in the editor area.

Figure 2-20 shows the comparison tab with current version on the left and the historical version on the right. You can navigate through the changes using the toolbar buttons or the overview ruler. What can be really helpful is that in the current version part, you can edit your code. When you find a part of the code that was deleted in the past and you want to put it back in, you can simply copy and paste it. Or you can use Copy Current Change From Right To Left button.

Debug

This view is very small, but it’s always used during debugging. It will always show up when an ABAP breakpoint is reached. If you have more than one debugging session open, all of them will appear here.

The example shown in Figure 2-21 contains one debug session on the NPL system. You can see on it information about the line and place of breakpoint, as well as the whole call stack. You can use this call stack to navigate to the previous levels of the call by simply clicking them.

I am not sure why the terminated debugger sessions are still kept in the view, but if you want to get rid of them, simply choose the Remove All Terminated action from the context menu.

Breakpoints

When you set up a breakpoint in the editor using the vertical ruler (not by using the BREAK-POINT statement in ABAP), all the breakpoints will be collected into the Breakpoints view. They will be visible there, no matter if you are logged onto the system or not.

All of the breakpoints set in Eclipse are external breakpoints, but in comparison to SAP GUI, they last until you remove them by demand. Figure 2-22 shows the checkboxes on the left side of the view. You can use them to deactivate the breakpoint until you want it back. Deactivated breakpoints will have a white icon as well. You can also delete certain breakpoints using the Remove Selected Breakpoints button or remove all of them at once using the Remove All button.

You can also create statement and exception breakpoints. To do so, click the Add ABAP Breakpoint button and choose one of the two breakpoint types. If you have a statement breakpoint, you will need to select one of the existing ABAP statements. Whenever this statement is called, the debugger will stop in this place. It works similarly to the exception breakpoints. You choose where the debugger should stop and whenever it will be raised, it will stop.

Two last possibilities of the Breakpoints view are to skip all breakpoints and to group them. Skipping All Breakpoints is nice when you want to continue running your code until the end, but you don’t want to remove the breakpoints. You just activate this by using the button on the toolbar. Until you deactivate it, the debugger will not care about the set breakpoints.

Grouping allows you to keep some order in your breakpoints, as in other cases it could be a bit messy. One of the grouping types that I use is Grouping by Projects, which in the case of ABAP means by system. You can see an example of this grouping in Figure 2-23.

Variables

This view is available during debugging. You can watch and change variables values from here. When it starts, you will have the following entries: SY-SUBRC, Locals and/or Globals nodes, ME (if the debugger stopped in a class object), and the <Enter Variable> field, which allows you to enter variable names manually.

Locals will show you the local variables in the method, form, and function module. Globals will show the global variables for the program or function group. ME will show you the whole object and all of its attributes.

You can add the variables manually to the view or by double-clicking the variable name in the editor during debugging. When you add them manually, you can use dirty assignments or table lines directly. For example, Figure 2-24 shows the dirty assignment of (ZDEMO_FALV01)SFLIGHT, table line FCAT[1], or directly via the component NO_OUT of the first line of FCAT.

When you have the proper authorizations, during debugging you should be able change the variable value. To do so, just click the Value field next to the variable name. This will highlight the value and you will be able to put in your desired value. Confirm the change by pressing the Enter button.

When you are debugging a class in the default view, the ME node shows only the attributes that can be found directly in this class. No inherited attributes or constants will be shown. You can change that behavior by going to the View menu and choosing ABAP ➤ Show Inherited Attributes or ABAP ➤ Show Constants. You can see an example of the Variables view with this settings turned on in Figure 2-25.

ABAP Exception (Debugger)

Exception debugging can be useful to get an idea where an exception was raised. If you’re catching a few exceptions at a time and want to see the type and text without going into exception object details, this is the way to go.

In order to activate the update of the view, you need to add the name of the exception object to the input field and press or click Enter. When you stop the debugger inside the catch statement, the exception object name, text, and raise location will be shown in the view, as shown in Figure 2-26. The most common name for the exception object is E, and this is also used here.

When you use the context menu of the object, you can jump into the raise location or you can add the object to the Variables view from here.

ABAP Internal Table (Debugger)

One of the most common things you’ll do while debugging is check the internal table entries after a SELECT statement or after its manipulation some other way. The ABAP Internal Table view comes in handy here.

This view, if not already visible in your perspective, is activated when you double-click the internal table name during debugging. You can, of course, manually change the name of the table to watch the one here. As shown in Figure 2-27, the column headers are always internal field names and descriptions are not used.

From this view, you can also delete or add rows, you can sort the entries and filter them (but only on certain NetWeaver releases), and you can export the table into TXT, CSV, or XLS files. All these functions are available from the View menu and/or from context menu for the row entry.

There are two buttons that can be very useful. The first one is the Pin button, which will help you see the table entries all the time. The second one is the Automatic Refresh button, which may help if you have a slow connection.

Transport Organizer

There is no work in ABAP without transport requests and tasks. They have been with us since the beginning and will probably stay with us until the end. The Transport Organizer view helps you check and manage the transport requests you are involved with.

The view shows a list of all ABAP projects. They will not show an entry until you expand the project folder on it. Once you do this, you will see all the transport requests that you can find with an SE01 transaction. The only difference is that you will not be able to see all the released transports requests on demand there, but the one that was released during last two weeks will be visible in a separate subfolder. You can see all of this in Figure 2-28.

When you start to expand the transport orders, you will notice all the objects that are currently in it or inside the task. But that is not the only way to find the objects inside transport orders. What you can do is use the filter field. You can put the full or partial name of the object that you want to find. If any transport requests are in it, it will be shown on the view.

Of course, you can do much more with this view. For example, you can create new transport requests, change the owner and the type of the request, add a task for any user, and release the task and request. Not all of these functions are available in each system, availability depends on the backend as usual.

If your system is newer, when you double-click the transport request, it opens in Eclipse view, as shown in the Figure 2-29, not in SAP GUI.

Note that the creation button is active on the view toolbar. Once it’s used, you will be moved to the Transport Request wizard, which you can also see in Figure 2-30.

ABAP Language Help

Whether you are a newbie or an experienced ABAP developer, you will need to use the ABAP syntax help from time to time, either to learn how to use the syntax or to remind yourself about any additions you can use.

The ABAP Language Help view can be called by pressing the F1 button on any ABAP statement. You can also open it manually from the list of available views and use it on demand. When used with F1, it will directly show the help for the selected statement. When you have it open, you can manually type the statement or any other text into the search field and the view will open the information for you. As an example, Figure 2-31 shows the help for the FIELD-SYMBOL inline declaration.

One of the nice functions of this vie is that you can navigate through it like a web page, using the breadcrumbs and hyperlinks in the text.

Console

With ABAP development, you probably will use the Console view only when developing the cloud systems, or when developing the class if you want to test the output in addition to the unit tests. It is also useful during Eclipse plugin development, but this process is described in the next chapters.

To use the console with ABAP, you need to implement the MAIN method of the IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN interface, and use the OUT object to put values into the console. IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN has been available since NetWeaver 7.51 and can be also used on on-premise systems. Listing 2-3 shows a sample code for a class that outputs data to the Console view. When you copy it to the Eclipse editor and run it using the F9 button, it will display the output shown in Figure 2-32.

CLASS zcl_console_app DEFINITION

  PUBLIC

  FINAL

  CREATE PUBLIC .

  PUBLIC SECTION.

    INTERFACES if_oo_adt_classrun .

ENDCLASS.

CLASS zcl_console_app IMPLEMENTATION.

  METHOD if_oo_adt_classrun~main.

    out->write_text( 'This is the first line'  ).

    out->write_text( 'This is the second line'  ).

    out->write_text( 'This is the third line'  ).

  ENDMETHOD.

ENDCLASS.

Listing 2-3

Sample Console Application in ABAP Using IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN

ABAP Element Info

This is one of my favorite views, although you can get the same information directly from the editor using the F2 key on any ABAP object. What makes me like it so much? Well, I like to get rid of unnecessary steps when coding and debugging and I also like to have all the information available directly. This view enables me to have direct information about selected objects.

Of course I use it with the Link with Editor function enabled; that is why whenever I put the cursor on a function module, method, variable, constant, table, structure, data element, or any other ABAP object, I see the details and description of that object.

The details can be the method or function signature, including ABAP doc comments, or simply the components of the structure. If long text documentation is available, you can also navigate to it from this view, as shown in Figure 2-33.

In the case of structures or dictionary tables, you will see all the components and their type and description, as shown in Figure 2-34. Of course, each ABAP object type will show information that relates to its type. So with classes, for example, you will see methods and attributes.

In addition to the displayed information, you can navigate through the elements of the view to get more detailed information about that part of the object.

ABAP Type Hierarchy

When you are wondering what the whole hierarchy of a class is, there is no better view than ABAP Type Hierarchy. You can learn from this view the clear information about the classes that are super-classes to yours, or you can see where your class is inherited from.

Type hierarchy shows your object with the super-classes and with subclasses on the same view. It also shows all interfaces that your object uses directly or by inheritance. Figure 2-35 shows how it will be displayed; class ZCL_FALV inherits the CL_GUI_ALV_GRID class, which has its own superclass CL_GUI_ALV_GRID_BASE. Additionally, below the ZCL_FALV class, you can see all of its subclasses, including local classes in reports.

When you choose to see only the Supertype hierarchy , then as shown in Figure 2-36, you will see your class at the top of the tree. Each lower level represents a superclass of the upper level. You can also see all the inherited interfaces.

The last way to display data in this view is by Subtype hierarchy , which will display only subclasses of the checked class. This behavior is presented in Figure 2-37, where you see all the subclasses of ZCL_FALV.

ABAP Unit

ABAP developers finally started to recognize the added value that Test Driven Development (TDD) and unit tests bring to the development and maintenance processes. The OpenSAP course titled “Writing Testable Code for ABAP¹” helped introduce unit tests to many thousands of ABAP developers, so it is important to know how to run unit tests in the Eclipse environment.

Once you select an object or package that contains test classes, you will see the results of the test in this view. You will be able to see how many tests were successful, how many failed, and how many were not executed. You can also see all test methods in this view and you can navigate to the source of the test by double-clicking. To show you the results of the unit tests, I ran the checks for package $ABAP2XLSX, which is my local package for the abap2xlsx² project. This package contained 30 test methods, but only 18 were executed. As you can see in Figure 2-38, in one of the test classes LCL_TEST of the ZCL_EXCEL_READER_HUGE_FILE class, no risk level information was given, which is why the execution of all 12 test methods were not completed and its state was set to warning.

When test methods fail, their icon will turn red and the status bar in this view, which in Figure 2-38 was yellow, will turn red. You will have to correct the part of code that’s checked by the test method or update the test method itself. Once you fix it, you can use the context menu of the view to rerun the selected tests.

If you use the context menu to rerun the tests, you will see that there are some additional options: Rerun with Coverage and Rerun with Profiling. Rerun with Coverage runs the tests again and opens a new view called ABAP Coverage, which displays information about the percentage of the code that is covered with unit tests. You can read more about the ABAP Coverage view in the next section of this chapter.

Rerun with Profiling is useful when your tests are taking a long time and you want to determine what could be corrected to get better performance. When you use this option, after completing the tests run, Eclipse will open a new view called ABAP Trace Requests, on which you will find the request for your test methods. ABAP Trace Requests and linked ABAP Trace views are described in more detail in the next sections.

ABAP Coverage

Full or partial coverage of the unit tests can be one of your goals during development in ABAP. The ABAP Coverage view gives you an opportunity to check the current status of the coverage as well as to identify which statements are not covered with the tests.

As a result, the standard run of the ABAP unit tests will be done. Additionally, you will notice detailed information in the ABAP Coverage view about each part of the development, for both global and local parts. Figure 2-39 shows the result of the Coverage run. Here you can see the methods of the ZCL_EXCEL_COMMON class, coverage with the progress bar, and detailed information about what was covered and what was missed by the checks statements. Using the More button, you can switch to show the branch and procedure coverage.

But that is not all that the ABAP Coverage view can give you. Directly after the coverage run, your code in the editor will be highlighted depending on the selected coverage type (statement, branch, procedure). The covered code will be highlighted in green, and code that’s not covered is in red. Figure 2-40 shows this highlighting, where only the CATCH statement is so far left without test coverage. When you do not want to see the highlighting, you can switch it off by closing the ABAP Coverage view or by clicking the Hide Highlighting button on the view toolbar.

ATC Problems

Among other things, the ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) helps developers follow company rules and find performance issues inside the code. Depending on the system configuration, you may be forced to use it, but even if the ATC findings are not blocking you from releasing your transports, it is still good to run it in order to correct your code according to best practices.

After you run ATC, the ATC Problems view will be shown automatically. After the ATC run is finished (it can take some time), you will be notified about all findings. There are three types of findings: error, warning, and information. They correspond to the priority 1, 2, and 3.

Besides the finding type, you will also see the finding message, the check group, the place where the finding was recognized, and information about the exemption status. After selecting the message, you will also see the detailed text of the message, where you can often find the pragmas or pseudo-comments that you can use to hide the finding, or the information about how you can change your code to fulfill the rule.

Figure 2-41 shows the default ATC Problems grouping, which is by priority. Using the View menu, you can change the grouping to object or check.

If you double-click the finding, you can navigate to the place of the finding, which helps you more easily correct the code. Once you’re done, you can use the context menu and the Recheck function to rerun the ATC and see the updated results.

If you are working on a S/4HANA custom code adaptation project, you may find a very helpful functionality in the context menu, called Recommended Quick Fix. This function calls the wizard to help you adjust the findings to the state in which they will no longer stop you from using your code on S/4HANA system.

Another very important option on the context menu is to ask for an exemption. To do so, you just select the Request Exemption function. The exemption wizard will open, as shown on the left side of Figure 2-42. You will then be able to select the scope of the exemption.

The next step is to select the approver and give justification for the exemption. You can indicate if you want to be notified after the exemption status changes.

ATC Result Browser

When you want to come back to an earlier ATC check, you can use the ATC Result Browser view. It will show you the ATC checks for your user (Local Check Runs), as well as the results of Central Check Runs if you have access to the central ATC system. Information is presented in the form of a tree, as shown in Figure 2-43.

This view is useful when you want to come back to earlier results of an ATC because you were interrupted when solving the findings and additional ATC runs might take a long time in your environment.

Being able to view central ATC runs is also helpful when you are responsible for the code quality at your company or during an S/4HANA conversion project, as this can give you overall information about code quality.

When you double-click the run (local or central), details about all the findings for the run are displayed in this view.

Data Preview

As a developer, you will occasionally need to look at database entries. When you are using SAP GUI, you run transaction SE16 or SE16N for that. But in Eclipse, there is no point in launching these transactions, as we have Data Preview view.

To run Data Preview view, you must have the database table, database view, or CDS view opened in your editor and then press the F8 button. The other option is to use the Project Explorers context menu. You do this by selecting any of these objects and choosing Open With ➤ Data Preview. By using one of these two ways to open Data Preview, you will see a new tab with 100 entries from the selected object.

Once it is displayed you can change the number of displayed rows up to 99,999 and adapt filters to display only data that you want to see. You can also select which columns should be displayed, check the total number of entries, open the preview of the data in another system, or export entries into local files. You can do all of this by choosing the proper button on the view toolbar, which you can see in Figure 2-44.

You can also use the context menu to set a quick filter on the selected cell or see the decomposition of the values in a selected column. For example, Figure 2-45 displays distinct values of the CARRID column.

There is one more very powerful function, which allows you to copy all displayed rows as a ABAP VALUE statement . You can do that from the context menu or you can save them in a text file using the Export button. When you are not using unit tests, you may find this function less than useful. It’s a perfect way to prepare mockup data for your test classes. As an example, Figure 2-46 shows the inline declaration of the mockup table with the SFLIGHT table entries that was created using this function.

One last option of Data Preview, which we should not forget, is calling the SQL Console view.

SQL Console

I just mentioned that you can call the SQL Console from the Data Preview, but there is also another way to call it. You right-click the project name in Project Explorer view and select the SQL Console function.

When you use the code in Listing 2-4 in the SQL Console and click the Run button, you should see similar entries on the right side of the view, as shown in Figure 2-47. On Data Preview, you can use the context menu on the displayed data in order to copy the entries as ABAP value statements. So can you use this view to prepare mockup data for your unit tests.

You can also see the historical SQL calls here, which will be cleared after you close the view. They will remain in the history of the calls, which you can check and reuse from the Down Arrow button next to Run. You can also save your current SQL statement as a favorite for future use.

Feed Reader

When you start using Eclipse and you are logged onto several systems, you will notice that from time to time, a small popup in the bottom-right corner of the Eclipse window will inform you about your recent short dumps or short dumps of objects that you have created. This information comes from the Feed Reader and can be customized according to your preferences.

Your view will look similar to the one shown in Figure 2-48. As you can see, there are three short dumps caused by me on the NPL system. When you select one of the unread notifications, the details will appear on the right side of the view.

When you click the Show in SAP GUI link, the embedded GUI screen will appear in the place of the editor and the short dump will be opened, just like you would navigate through ST22.

When you click the Show Where Terminated link, the object in which the dump occurred will be opened on the line of termination in the Eclipse ABAP editor.

I do not know how about you, but I usually know when I created a dump, so I do not need the notification from Eclipse. Fortunately, there is a way to switch off these notifications, or even completely delete the feed so they are not refreshed by Eclipse’s background jobs. To do so, simply select the feed that you want to change and right-click it to bring up the context menu. You will then have the options to delete it or to edit the feed.

When you use the Edit the Feed function on the runtime errors feeds, you can not only disable the notifications display and change the refresh interval, but you can also set these filters: user, package, package hierarchy, package owner, object owner, person responsible, object name, component, runtime error, or exception. Those filters, which you can see in Figure 2-50, are set to your username. You can create a filter combination using OR and AND logic, so you should be able to adjust this to your needs.

Nevertheless, I’m deleting those two standard feeds for runtime errors and keeping the System Messages feed, where system admins inform me about restart of the system or the next system copy.

I also activated the SAP Gateway Log and native RSS feeds to follow the SAP Community.

Activating the SAP Gateway Log is very helpful when you develop or deploy a Fiori application or oData services. Select the Down Arrow button from the view toolbar and choose Add Feed from Repository. When you do this, you will have to select the project (system) from which you want to receive the error log and select from the available feeds’ SAP Gateway Error Log. This is shown in Figure 2-51.

The next step is to configure how frequent you want to get the information about the gateway errors. I set this to one minute during the testing phase and disable it after it is on a productive system for a while.

After you set up all the preferences and click the Finish button, you will notice the SAP Gateway Error Log feed in the folder of the applicable system.

But using Feed Reader for only backend feeds would be a sin. You can also use it to read the standard RSS feeds and I do follow the SAP Community using it. If you want to do the same, you need to find the proper RSS feed link of the SAP Community website and use the Down Arrow button on the Feed Reader toolbar. But this time, choose Add Atom/RSS Feed from URL. A popup will appear where you will have to enter the proper URL, as shown in Figure 2-53. In my example, I used RSS for the ABAP Development tag of the SAP Community.³

When you set up the refresh interval and you confirm the creation of the feed, you will see it in the Native Feeds node of the Feed Reader, together with the last 20 feeds from that tag, as shown in Figure 2-54. This is one of the ways I stay in touch with all the new blog posts that are posted on the SAP Community.

When you double-click a native feed entry, you will be moved to the SAP Community website and this particular blog post.

Quick Assist

In most cases, I do not use the Quick Assist view. I use Quick Assist on the ABAP editor directly, but if you have to work on legacy code, you may want to have it active all the time.

This view shows the quick fixes that are available for your code when you place the cursor on a line, as shown in Figure 2-55. You would get the same list of proposals by using the Ctrl+1 shortcut on the code, but then you have to call it on demand.

Once you select the proposal that you want to accept, it will be applied to your code. In some cases, a popup will appear before the change in order to confirm all changes that will be applied in the current object and all that are affected. This is very visible, especially when refactoring the public class attributes or methods that are used in several places in your SAP environment.

The proposals that come from the ABAP backend can differ between the SAP NetWeaver versions, but all of the systems should contain several basic functions like renaming, changing visibility, pulling up or down, extraction of methods, and extraction of literals and constants. Quick Assist is covered in more detail in later chapters.

Relation Explorer

When your system is at least on NetWeaver version 7.54 or you are using SAP CP ABAP Environment 1908 or higher, you can use the Relation Explorer to get an overview of relations between the objects. The relations are displayed as a tree and grouped by the type of the related objects, which you can see in Figure 2-56.

You can open the object in Relation Explorer in a few different ways:

• By using the Alt+Shift+W shortcut in the editor

• By using the editor context menu Show In ➤ Relation Explorer

• By selecting the object using the Other Object view toolbar button

• By linking the Relation Explorer with the active editor

• By using the History List button on the view toolbar, to use previously used objects

Each context displays different relation types; they can be selected from the toolbar menu using the Other Context button. You will not have to remember which of the contexts you can use for which object, because the list of the contexts are limited only to the ones that you can use.

ABAP Communication Log

You will not likely run into this view until you want to create your own plugin for Eclipse that communicates with the ABAP backend. This view displays information about communication between Eclipse and your SAP instance.

The log is not collected automatically, but you can manually launch it with the Start Logging button on the view toolbar. Once you activate it and start using the ABAP editor or other views that are fetching data from the backend, you will notice a HTTP session appearing, as shown in Figure 2-57. In addition to the request message, you can see information such as the status of the call, elapsed time, server time, and request and response size.

When you double-click the HTTP session line, you will access the details of the call, which include the request, response, stack trace on Eclipse side, and destination properties. Details of a sample call are shown in Figure 2-58. This should be your first place to check if something is wrong with the communication between your plugin and the backend.

If this fails, use the View menu or toolbar button to activate ABAP tracing for the HTTP calls. While activated, it will generate trace requests and collect the trace information in the system. You can use ABAP Traces view to read the trace information.

Even if everything is going correctly with your calls, you can test the behavior of Eclipse when only a slow connection to the system is available. To do so, use the Snail button on the view toolbar and select one of the preconfigured delays, or set up your own custom delays for the calls. This might help you determine if you want to do your HTTP call synchronously or asynchronously.

ABAP Trace Requests

Every ABAP developer has to check the performance of the code, but sometimes you are not able to repeat the steps the user took on the production system. In this case, you need to activate tracing in order to get detailed information about the runtime of the code.

The ABAP Trace Requests view was prepared to create and manage tracings, especially when you cannot run profiling directly on an object. To create a new request, simply click the Create Trace Request button and the wizard for trace scheduling will open, as shown in Figure 2-59.

When you choose the proper scope, you will need to select the object type from the following:

• Report

• Transaction

• Function module

• Area constructor

• Any (which you will be able to use, for example, for class tracing)

After object type selection, you will have to choose which object you want to trace, for which user and client, and on which server. If you want to run tracing for any user, just leave the user field empty. Additionally, you need to choose for how long the tracing will be active and after how many catches of the trace will the system stop collecting them. It is also important to set a proper name for the tracing, especially if you run lots of traces at the same time.

There are six trace parameter groups that you can use to customize your trace request. They are presented in Figure 2-60. They allow you to set the aggregation type, ABAP statements scope, time of the trace start, its maximum size and execution time, or AMDP tracing with HANA-based systems. Most of these settings should be familiar from the SAT transaction, which is used for profiling in SAP GUI.

You can also set up default profiling parameters by using the Configure Defaults hyperlink on that screen, which is quite helpful if you are focused only on parts of the ABAP statements.

The trace request will appear on the requests list with all basic configuration information and with the number of trace executions; see Figure 2-61. The executions are not refreshed automatically when the view is open, so you need to click the Refresh button to see whether new executions took place.

In order to see the trace details, you need to open ABAP Traces view or double-click the trace request. Then the ABAP Traces view will be opened automatically, highlighting the linked traces on the view.

ABAP Traces

After a successful run, the trace will be listed on the ABAP Traces view with basic information about it, including the date and time of execution, checked object, aggregation or runtime, and size information. The columns visible in Figure 2-62 are exactly the same as in a SAT transaction. Traces created in ADT are also visible in a SAT transaction and vice versa.

You are not limited to your own traces; you can change the user filter by using the context menu on the project name and choosing the Change User Filter option.

When you double-click the trace, a new window will open with the details of the trace. This window contains two or more tabs, depending on the aggregation level of your trace. The Overview tab, which is shown in Figure 2-63, will give you general information about trace, like the time spent on ABAP, and the database and system calls.

The rest of the tabs show detailed information, just like the SAT tool does. For example, Figure 2-64 displays a condensed hit list of the ZDEMO_FALV01 program, with accumulated information about the number and runtime of the called units (methods, forms, function modules, screens, etc.).

Tasks

You have seen the Bookmarks view before, which can help you follow an unfinished task or mark some special coding. If you use bookmarks, you have to remove them manually when you finish the implementation.

The Task view is very similar to the Bookmarks view, but it allows you to indicate that the work is done. Additionally, you can store the tasks that are not related to ABAP development here. You can also set up a priority for a task, which can help you sort tasks accordingly.

You create a task linked to a development object from the editor’s vertical ruler. You right-click in the line for which the task should be created. A new window will appear; it allows you to set up a task description and priority. Looking at Figure 2-65, you can see that the link to the development object is filled and grayed out to avoid manual modifications. After clicking the Add Button, your task will appear on the list with details.

From the view, you can create tasks that are not linked to development objects. To do so, use the context menu and choose the Add Task... option. The same window as in Figure 2-65 will appear, but this time with the element, path, and location fields empty. On the list of tasks, you will see that the resource and path entries are empty and the location is set to Unknown, just like the second task in Figure 2-66.

As I mentioned, you can sort the task by priority, as well as by any other column available on the list. You can also filter the entries to show tasks that include specific text, or create a separate view with a customized filter. You should not be surprised that after double-clicking a task that’s linked to a development object, you will be moved into the linked line of the object.

Error Log

When your IDE is not acting as you expect, it may be time to look at the Error Log view, where the whole log for the IDE is displayed. The log information is collected regardless if the view is opened or not, but the view gives you the possibility to clean it, export or import the log, and view the details of the log.

Not all of the messages on this log are errors. You will also find warnings and information, which you can see in Figure 2-67. You will also see the plugin that raised the message and the date of the error.

If you want to see the details of the message, just double-click the message text. The details will be shown, including the stack trace and some session data. An example of the details you can find are shown in Figure 2-68.

You may wonder why you would need to check these details, but the answer is very easy—ADT and Eclipse are frequently updated and some of the functionality can contain bugs after an upgrade. This details view sent to the Eclipse community or SAP support can raise awareness of the issue and can speed up resolution time. It can also be helpful, when you create your own Eclipse plugin, to see where your code is failing.

Progress

Normally, you should not be concerned about the background calls that are happening in Eclipse, but if there are some issues with your IDE or one of its plugins, this view can help you figure out where the error is coming from.

Progress view shows information about the current background jobs in Eclipse. This could be checking update sites as well as calling the where-used list or the search function. The name of the process and its progress will be shown, as shown in Figure 2-69. If the process will take too long or there are too many processes waiting in the queue, it can slow down your work with Eclipse. That is why you can kill the process by using the Stop button, which can be found at the end of the progress bar. I hope you will never have to use this view.

Summary

Many views were described in this chapter. It can be difficult to remember what all of them do, but you should have an idea about what information you can get in ADT without using the SAP GUI. You can come back to this chapter whenever you see one of the views on your screen and need more information.

The next chapter focuses on the ABAP Editor and the possibilities that it gives every developer to work faster and more efficient with ABAP code.