Release 7.40, SP08 of Application ABAP in SAP Netweaver is another bundled release that comes with a new kernel. While 7.40, SP02 was delivered with kernel release 740 and 7.40, SP05 with kernel release 741, 7.40, SP08 is based on kernel 742. When upgrading your 740 application server to 7.40, SP08 you have to use kernel 742 and by this you will get the following enhancements of the ABAP language in a fully downward compatible way.
Expressions
- Predicative method call IF meth( ) and a new boolean function xsdbool for logical expressions
- Iterative expressions FOR ... UNTIL|WHILE in constructor expressions, new constructor expression REDUCE especially for FOR
- Addition BASE for start values of constructor expressions
Internal Tables
Database Access
- Inline declarations, enhanced SQL expressions and new position of INTO clause in Open SQL
- Parameter views, new built-in functions and view extensions in ABAP CDS
- Tabular changing parameters, class based exceptions and specialized BAdIs in AMDP
Furthermore, you can make interface methods optional now. As always, you find all ABAP News in the ABAP Keyword Documentation, that was updated in the SAP Help Portal. The updated version contains a new reference documentation for the ABAP Dictionary. The next bundled release with new ABAP features (I know some niceties already) will be 7.40, SP12 presumably.
