Introduction to ABAP: Datatypes, Operators & Editor – Tutorial

ABAP stands for – Advanced Business Application Programming.It is a programming language for developing applications for the SAP R/3 system.

The latest version of ABAP is called ABAP Objects and supports object-oriented programming. SAP will run applications written using ABAP/4, the earlier ABAP version, as well as applications using ABAP Objects.

Without further adieu , lets dive into ABAP.

Note, this tutorial will not go into extensive details on ABAP language constructs (which become very boring to read ) but quickly introduce key concepts to get you started so you can focus your attention on more important topics.

Data Types

Syntax to declare a variable in ABAP –

DATA Variable_Name Type Variable_Type

Example:

DATA employee_number Type I.

The following is a list of Data Types supported by ABAP

Data Type Initial field length Valid field length Initial value Meaning
Numeric types
I 4 4 0 Integer (whole number)
F 8 8 0 Floating point number
P 8 1 – 16 0 Packed number
Character types
C 1 1 – 65535 ‘ … ‘ Text field(alphanumeric characters)
D 8 8 ‘00000000’ Date field(Format: YYYYMMDD)
N 1 1 – 65535 ‘0 … 0’ Numeric text field(numeric characters)
T 6 6 ‘000000’ Time field(format: HHMMSS)
Hexadecimal type
X 1 1 – 65535 X’0 … 0′ Hexadecimal field

Processing Data Assigning Values

a=16.

move 16 to a.

write a to b.

– Arithmetic Operations

compute a = a*100.

Control Statements

Following control statements can be used – – If … EndIf Loop

if [not] exp [ and / or [not] exp ].
........
[elseif exp.
.......]
[else.
.......]
Endif.

– Case statement

Case variable.
when value1.
.........
when value2.
.........
[ when others.
.........]
Endcase.
Do.

-While loop

While <logical expression>.
.....
.....
Endwhile.

– Do loop

Do <n> times.
.....
.....
Enddo.

Logical Operator

A list of logical operators

  • GE or >=
  • GT or >
  • LE or <=
  • LT or <
  • EQ or =
  • NE or <>

ABAP/4 Editor

Finally , here is where you will spent most of your time as a developer creating / modifying programs. Transaction SE38

ABAP/4 Editor