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TomCenens
Active Contributor
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Introduction

Hello SDN Community

I received a mail in response to my blog on How to find valuable information on the internet and I decided to share it with everyone as some might have the same question or want more information.

The question was how can I find SAP notes based on ABAP coding and can you give an example? I wrote in the blog mentioned above that it is possible but not everyone uses it or knows it exists.

Example

After doing some research I managed to find an example to use in this blog.

I will be using an ABAP shortdump as an example on how you can find relevant SAP notes using coding line(s).

Finding the line of coding where the issue occurred

Transaction ST22 overview - list of selected runtime errors

Picture 1.1

You can see the shortdump which will be used in the example in picture 1.1, I left out the App.Server and User Name by modifying the picture and they are not relevant for the example.

To go into the details of the dump, double-click on the error in the column "Name of runtime error". In case of the example, you have to double-click on "CALL FUNCTION ACCEPT FAILED".

Picture 1.2

Once you are in the details of the dump, double-click on the "Source Code Extract" button in the left pane under "ABAP developer view" (see picture 1.2).

Picture 1.3

This will place your cursor in the right pane on the part of the details where the coding is mentioned where the issue occurred (see picture 1.3).

Picture 1.4

To find the exact line of coding scroll down until you see the part where the Line column is >>>> (see picture 1.4).

The line where the application dumped and the line we will use is call 'RfcImport' id 'Type' field type.

This doesn't mean that you can only search on the line that dumped, you can also try searching on previous lines or several lines. By trying out some combinations you will get a good idea what to expect as result list when you search for relevant SAP notes.

Finding the relevant SAP notes using the line of coding as keywords

Picture 1.5

Now we will check which SAP notes we can find. Start by logging onto SAP Service Marketplace notes quicklink and entering the line as keywords to be used (see picture 1.5).

Picture 1.6

This gives the list of SAP notes of picture 1.6 as result.

The list is ordered by default on ranking score, this means the most relevant SAP notes should be on top of the list. So we start by reading the content of SAP note 1490407. You should now check that the prerequisites match the SAP system you have the issue on.

If the prerequisites are met, you should check solution, in this case, the solution is a kernel update, so if the prerequisite matches, you should be on a kernel release lower than the release levels stated in the solution (SP Patch Level section). You can check the kernel level of your SAP system through the upper menu System - Status and clicking on the arrow icon on the bottom. Then you compare the Kernel release and Sup. Pkg lvl. with the SAP note SP Patch Level Section.

ABAP coding filter

Picture 2.1

The results shown in picture 1.6 are found in the text of the SAP respective SAP notes. To only display SAP notes which contain a certain coding line in the correction instructions you can use the dropdown for filter "Search Range" in the notes search screen (see picture 2.1).

Automated Note Search

I saw a blog earlier this week announcing a tool (free of charge) to automatically find relevant SAP notes for a shortdump by reproducing the shortdump. I recommend you take a look at the Automated Note Search and Customer Code Detection to check out what the tool can do.

Conclusion

When can it be useful to search SAP notes using ABAP code line keywords or ABAP coding filter? I wouldn't recommend that you start your initial search for a suitable SAP note using the coding line where the shortdump occurred. It's better to use the shortdump description and program name or other keywords that are recommended in the short dump details. However if you have a hard time retrieving the appropriate SAP note, you can give it a shot. Perhaps you can locate the SAP note faster using the code line search.

A good reason to search for code lines in correction instructions of SAP notes if you have to implement a SAP note through transaction snote but the implementation gives many errors (red lights) that the coding doesn't match at all to apply the correction instructions of the SAP note you need to implement. In this case it can be useful to use a code search to find the SAP notes that are missing and which cause your implementation to contain coding mismatches (red lights when implementing through transaction snote).

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