New ABAP for HANA features in SAP NW 7.4 SP5

With the newly released AS ABAP 7.4 SP5 we have deepened the interplay between the ABAP and SAP HANA and enhanced the capabilities of the ABAP for HANA development. Following the code to data paradigm we have focused on enabling you to innovate faster and better with ABAP for HANA.

So what is inside this release for ABAP on HANA developers?

Performance Worklist Tool

The SQL Performance Worklist (Transaction: SWLT) allows you to correlate SQL runtime data with ABAP code analysis to plan optimizations using results from the new SQLMonitor and CodeInspector.

CDS Viewbuilding

CDS Viewbuilding is drastically improving the existing viewbuilding mechanisms in ABAP. It offers a broad variety of features you maybe know of the SQL92 Standard like all kind of join consitions, support of union, expressions, associations and much more. And also important we will continue to extended the feature set in the upcoming releases. CDS viewbuilding is completely syntax based and the design time with syntax checks, code completion and many more features is directly integrated in the ABAP Development Tools.

Extended OpenSQL

Open SQL has been enhanced with new features, especially a lot of limitations have been removed, the JOIN functionality has been enhances as have been arithmetical and string expressions. Moreover, a new Open SQL syntax has been presented with incorporates e.g. the escaping of host variables, comma separation of the field list and so on and so forth.

ABAP managed Database Procedures (AMDP)

AMDPs enables you to create database procedures directly in ABAP using e.g. SQL Script and to seamlessly integrate it in modern ABAP development. An AMDP can be implemented using an ABAP method. Curious how this look like ? Here we go:

As you can see in the picture above the choice if the method is classical ABAP or SQL Script is in the method implementation and not in the definition. Making it possible to redefine an existing method implemented in ABAP with SQL script and the other way around.

The Lifecycle-Management of an AMDP is exactly the same as any other ABAP method. The ABAP server will take completely care for the deployment and activation of the procedure on the database.