Reading ABAP code?

[Former Member]

All,

What would be a quick way to learn to read (understand a little bit) ABAP code?

I don't need to program, just to understand what it is about. Get a general idea.

Is there such a way (document)?

Regards.

[ThomasZloch]

If the program in question has a proper documentation, you should be fine. If not, then chase down the developer and get him to create one, with a nice management summary.

Thomas

[Lukas_Weigelt]

with a nice management summary.

you...you monster!

[amy_king]

Hi Frank,

The fastest method would be to sit with a willing ABAP developer and have her/him walk you through a piece of code, explaining it as you go. If you can't find a willing ABAPer and are brave, I'd say pick a program (a nice z-report to start maybe) and, as you read, access the keyword documentation for any statement by placing your cursor on the desired keyword and pressing the F1 (Help) button to access the keyword documentation. There you can read about each keyword, its purpose and syntax. With either approach, it will be helpful if you have some kind of programming background in another language.

Cheers,

Amy

[Former Member]

Thank you all.

I have a book (about 2500 pages) that didn't help me much.

Going through some statements will probably do the trick.

I did some macro-programming in Lotus spreadsheet (created sort of a WM system; at the end it was 1 big macro of around 3000 lines, so I am not completely unfamiliar with the logic.

Regards,

Frank

[Former Member]

Hi Frank,

    ABAP will be more or less similar to normal english so if you go through once or twice you ll surely get a better understanding of the program.

Thanks,

Umashankar

[Sijin_Chandran]

Hi Frank ,

If you are already with a SAP's Function Area ( MM , FI , SD ...... ) , then you can first note down almost all the frequently used tables for maintaining the Transaction data as well as Master data meant for your respective Functional Area(s).

You can sit with a willing ABAP developer and can see all the tables into which data are hit while you do a successful transaction.

After learning about basics of tables and data organisation then you can see with the basics of syntaxes  such a work area , internal tables ( for temporary data storage ) their mode of declarations. And after that you can learn with different processing operations over them and eventually move on.

Debug ZREPORTS. Debug debug and more debug .

Me and my SD colleague shared their individual field knowledge like this only.

Else if you are planning to become a ABAP developer , must say there is no easy way .

Good luck.