Get Started with Your SAP ABAP Journey: Part 2

Introduction

This is the second post in this series. Here is the previous blog post: Get Started with Your SAP ABAP Journey: Introduction.

Thank you all who have read this series’s first post and have begun their journey to becoming an ABAP developer. I want to document and share my insight with you so that you do not feel alone. We will continue with the basics and gradually move up. 

Note: You can choose from different deployment options to get started with the ABAP platform: in the cloud with SAP BTP or on-premise with the Developer Edition. In this blog series, we will be focusing on the on-premise version.

In the first post, we went over the what, why, and how of ABAP and began the installation process. Now that we have installed and downloaded all of our software, it is time to get our ABAP system up and running.

This blog post also follows up with a video that walks you through the steps I will be going over.

Running Latest ABAP Platform Image

In the previous blog post, we had successfully installed Docker for Desktop and the latest version of SAP GUI. Now it is time for us to run our Docker container and define an SAP Connection in SAP GUI For Java.

Prerequisites:

•  Install the front-end component of ADT – https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#abap
• Install Docker for Desktop: Windows or Mac.
• Download the latest version of SAP GUI

Reminder: We will be doing all of our deployment in Eclipse, so you must have it installed before continuing.

Installation 

The first thing you need to do is pull the image provided on Docker to run the Developer Edition Free trial on your machine. But before you do so, make sure you have assigned enough disk space to your Docker setup. I decided not to read the setup instructions thoroughly and came across this issue myself.

The image has around 23GB of size when compressed and 62GB after decompressing. It would be frustrating to lose plenty of time downloading the image to find out that docker does not have enough disk space to unpack it.

For MAC and Windows users, you must assign the required resources:

• 4 CPUs for Docker Desktop
• 16GB for Docker Desktop
• 170GB disk for Docker Desktop

                                                                                       Desktop Docker

To be able to pull the image, you must log in via Docker Desktop at first, and then you can run the command:

docker pull store/saplabs/abaptrial:1909

Run Command in Terminal

To run the command, I copied the following command onto my terminal:

docker run –stop-timeout 3600 -i –name a4h -h vhcala4hci -p 3200:3200 -p 3300:3300 -p 8443:8443 -p 30213:30213 -p 50000:50000 -p 50001:50001 store/saplabs/abaptrial:1909

Terminal App

It took me about half an hour to download the image and have all the services successfully started. So, I would suggest continuing with other tasks and coming back to them. Once it has been successfully created, you should see the a4h in containers from the above command. 

Desktop Docker

If you run into any trouble with this step, refer back to the setup instructions.

Starting SAPGUI for JAVA

Personally, this was the most frustrating step for me. It required me to enter various connection strings until I was able to get one that worked. To save you frustration and time, I will provide you with the connection string that allowed me to log into the SAP ABAP system.

SAP GUI System Connection

In SAP GUI For Java, you need to get to the “Advanced” tab, click “Expert mode,” and enter the connection string.

If your system ID is 00, you need to enter 3200. If your system ID is 07, you need to enter 3207. In our case, the system ID is 00, so you need to enter 3200.

Since we exposed the port 3200, we need to configure IP routing to be able to reach out to the container’s IP directly. We will use this IP address < 127.0.0.1> shown above. If you exposed all the required ports, then you can use localhost as an alternative.

Using this connection string, you should be able to get connected:

conn=/H/127.0.0.1/S/3200

Important reminder:  Make sure that your container is running before setting up the connection string. The connection will fail if it is not running.

SAP GUI

Now that we have successfully connected to SAP GUI. We will be required to enter a username and password. The username is DEVELOPER with the password Ldtf5432. Once you are in the system, you have the option to create a new password and username.

Create ABAP project

We now have all of our software running, and so the next step is to launch Eclipse and create our first ABAP project.  One of the advantages of using Eclipse as the platform for the new ABAP development environment is its ability to be open towards new tools and features through the Eclipse plug-in framework.

An ABAP project represents a real system logon and offers a user-specific view of all ABAP development objects of the backend system. It contains a list of ABAP packages that can be grouped under the favorites list (Favorite Packages).

Create an ABAP Project in ABAP Development Tools:

• Walk through Video
• Interactive Tutorial

Once you have watched or done the steps in the interactive tutorial, you will see your ABAP project in your Project Explorer tab.

Eclipse Project Explorer

The specification for an ABAP project contains the following items:

• Project name
• System data – This includes specifications of the system ID, the client, and user
• Default language [EN]

Create ABAP Package

Now that we have created an ABAP project, we will be able to create an ABAP package that will enable you to structure your development objects.

Generally, you create one project for each backend connection, and then, inside that project, one package for each self-contained development unit – containing all the relevant development objects. A set of packages delivered together form a software component

Create an ABAP package

• Walk through video
• Interactive Tutorial

The video or tutorial above will help you create an ABAP package. In the screenshot below, we have successfully created an ABAP package and added it to the Favorite Packages. We can now group development objects that belong together in one package.

Favorite Packages

What’s Next: Run an ABAP Application

We went over a lot of steps in this post that I hope was helpful to you. I wanted to cover all the basics in getting started with ABAP and provide you with some insights that I believe were helpful. Now we are all set and ready to create our first ABAP application. In the next post of this series, we will create and run an ABAP Application in Eclipse.

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