Idea-Drop: Have you automated turning it off and on again? #sfw5

[#meta: I’m missing a place here, where I can quickly drop an idea or a thought. I initially thought of making this a CoffeCorner discussion, but then went for the blog-option. Do let me know your thoughts on that as well!]

Thinking out loud: It would be nice to have a “SFW5 – switch-switcher“,  quickly outline now:

Situation:
Assume I have a few addons, that are part of packages, which are assigned to switches (SFW1), which are assigned to Business Functions (SFW5).

Let’s call them

• Y_addon_1
• Y_addon_2
• Y_addon_3
• Y_addon_n

We can assume the naming package = switch  = business function for simplicity. Oh, and the Business Functions are set to be reversible!

Now I would like to have a report (or something) that does the following:

1. Take the first addone, got to sfw5
2. (assuming it is turned on:) turn it off, activate (the de-activation :-)).
3. Wait for (de)activation to finish.
4. do [some Tests]
5. go back to sfw5 and turn it on again.
6. [maybe run another test]
7. repeat with the next Business Function.

The [some Tests] part could be running eCatts, or just calling some business transactions (e.g. VA01, LT12..) -> see if they compile all right, or if they dump with a Syntax error.

The reason I want to do this, is testing/finding errors.

When writing the addon, I might have accidentally assigned some objects to another package -> so when switching off, some objects might stay on, causing syntax (or semantical?) errors – I’d like to find those.

Outlook:
Further uses might be to not only turn off-and on one by one, but also test if combinations still work fine. (There are 2^n possible combinations, where n is the number of Business-Functions).

We probably also should remember the initial switch-state (what is on, what is off), and anways be able to return to that.

So, some Questions:

• Does such a thing already exist maybe?
• …or parts of it? Is there an interface (e.g. a class), to SFW5, which I can use in ABAP (or elsewhere e.g. SCP).
• – would you see use for such a tool in your work?
• – would a good package structure (se21) including enforcement via Package Checks make it superfluous? (I’m sure it would help to not accidently assigning something to a wrong package; but the tool might still be helpful for finding bugs in different switch constellations).

let me know your thoughts!

Joachim