ABAP Block Highlighting

[schneidermic0]

Recently, I saw some questions in this community related to the structure of your ABAP coding: "How can I navigate to the end-statement of an IF-Block?" or "Where does my current ABAP code blocks start or end?"

I would like to show you in this blog how ABAP Block Highlighting can help you to answer these questions.

What is ABAP Block Highlighting?

ABAP Block Highlighting is a nice way to highlight ABAP code blocks in the ABAP editor.

Here are some examples of ABAP Code Blocks

• CLASS ... ENDCLASS
• METHOD ... ENDMETHOD
• FORM ... ENDFORM
• IF ... ELSE ... ENDIF
• CASE ... WHEN ... ENDCASE
• LOOP ... ENDLOOP
• WHILE ... ENDWHILE
• TRY ... CATCH ... ENDTRY

"How can I navigate to the end-statement of an IF-Block?"

The highlighting of ABAP blocks is realized as Eclipse annotations. This helps you to use some Eclipse standard functionality to navigate through the various parts of the current ABAP block: Just use the buttons Next and Previous Annotation in the toolbar or the shortcuts Ctrl+. or Ctrl+,.

Ensure that you have enabled the annotation ABAP Block Highlighting as navigation target. Just click on the button's drop-down icon to reach the following selection:

BTW: You can use this navigation also for other annotations (e.g., ABAP Occurrences, Errors and/or Warnings listed by the ABAP syntax check).

"Where does my current ABAP code blocks start or end?"

In the preferences (Windows > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors > Annotations > ABAP Block Highlighting) you can also enable the option Overview ruler.

This will show you the current ABAP block also in the editor's overview ruler. This gives you a nice overview about the structure of your current ABAP block and you can also use the ruler to navigate by clicking on the marker.