ABAP-Active-Record

Inspired by the Ruby on Rails Active Record, I started to work on an idea to replicate the concept of Active Record in SAPUI5.

Motivation

Imagine that you need to retreive some records for a given sales order type from VBAK. Later in the program you need to retrieve a set of materials from MARA table. Then some company code details from T001 table. Then deliveries from LIKP table. If you are using SAP Gateway, you need to create a service for each one of those requests.

In order to avoid to create a new SAP Gateway service for simple retrieval records from SAP tables, the ABAP Active Record give direct access into the SAP tables in a very simple way.

It's not the objective of this project replace all programing at back-end, but avoid create new service for the "incidental" table access.

How It Works

As example, suppose you need to retrieve all records from SFLIGHT table for Lufthansa (LH) and connection 2402:

First, in SAPUI5 code create ABAP Active Record object:

var oARModel = new abapActiveRecord.ARModel();

Then, retrieve a data set (JSON) from ABAP Stack, choosing table, fields and filter

var oFlightsTable = oARModel.aarGetEntitySet('SFLIGHT', ["CARRID", "CONNID", "FLDATE", "PRICE"], {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402"});

Repeat the same procedure for any other SAP table (SPFLI, MAKT, BKPF, T001W etc.). No auto-generate code is necessary. Just call proper methods with proper parameters.

CRUD Methods

It's also allowed to execute all CRUD methods, even in the standard tables.

Note: It's easy to block update commands in the SAP Gateway class implementation.

Create

Create a record at table SFLIGHT:

oARModel.aarCreate('SFLIGHT', {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402", fldate: "20160119", price: "500.00"});

Read (set of records)

Retrieve a set of records:

var oFlightsTable = oARModel.aarGetEntitySet('SFLIGHT', ["CARRID", "CONNID", "FLDATE", "PRICE"], {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402"});

The JSON model will be like bellow:

oFlightsTable.getProperty('/')

"{"SFLIGHT":[{"CARRID":"LH","CONNID":"00002402","FLDATE":"08/21/1997","PRICE":"555,00"}, ... ]}"

Read Simple Value

Read a single value from a specific record at table SFLIGHT (select single):

var value = oARModel.aarGetSingleValue("SFLIGHT", "PRICE", {
								carrid: sap.ui.getCore().byId("carrid").getValue(), 
								connid: sap.ui.getCore().byId("connid").getValue(), 
								fldate: sap.ui.getCore().byId("fldate").getValue()
							});

Value of PRICE: "500.00".

Update

Update a record in table SFLIGHT:

oARModel.aarUpdate("SFLIGHT", {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402", fldate: "20160119", price: "350.00"});

New value of PRICE: "350.00".

Delete

Delete a record in table SFLIGHT:

oARModel.aarDelete('SFLIGHT', {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402", fldate: "20160119"});

Under the Hood

SAP Gateway

It's only necessary to create one generic service at SAP Gateway that will respond all requests for any table!

There are two entity types: request and result, with their entity sets.

• request is responsible to receive all information about database operation, like table name, fields to be selected and filter conditions.
• result is responsible to process all information entered using resquest calls and execute desired operation.

The whole transation is executed using batch processing.

var oFlightsTable = oARModel.aarGetEntitySet('SFLIGHT', ["CARRID", "CONNID", "FLDATE", "PRICE"], {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402"});

For example, for the aarGetEntitySet method call above, it's necessary follow requests:

• first request (POST method) call to pass operation and SAP Table name;
• 4 request (PUT method) calls to pass all 4 fields to be retrieved;
• 2 request (PUT method) calls to pass 2 filter conditions and
• last result (GET method) call to retrieve all information from database selection.

It's necessary 8 requests in total for this example called in the same transaction (batch).

Here is the return of result entity set method:

<model>SFLIGHT</model>
<field>CARRID</field>
<value>LH</value>
<model>SFLIGHT</model>
<field>CONNID</field>
<value>2402</value>
<model>SFLIGHT</model>
<field>FLDATE</field>
<value>08/21/1997</value>
...

SAPUI5

In the SAPUI5 side, class sap.ui.model.odata.ODataModel was extended to implemented methods for basic CRUD operations and return data in JSON format.

Here is the JSON Model returned by aarGetEntitySet method call above:

{"SFLIGHT":[
{"CARRID":"LH","CONNID":"00002402","FLDATE":"08/21/1997","PRICE":"555,00"},
{"CARRID":"LH","CONNID":"00002402","FLDATE":"08/22/1997","PRICE":"590,00"},
{"CARRID":"LH","CONNID":"00002402","FLDATE":"08/25/1997","PRICE":"490,00"},
{"CARRID":"LH","CONNID":"00002402","FLDATE":"08/30/1997","PRICE":"485,00"}
]}

ABAP

Here is the list of methods implemented in ABAP in order to process database retrieval:

• REQUESTSET_CREATE_ENTITY

Called in the begginig of all transactions. It's responsible to define the table name and operation.

• REQUESTSET_UPDATE_ENTITY

Receive all parameters to build dynamic database operation.

• RESULTSET_CREATE_ENTITY

Used in aarCreate method (PUT) and execute INSERT SQL command.

• RESULTSET_DELETE_ENTITY

Used in aarDelete method (DELETE) and execute DELETE SQL command.

• RESULTSET_GET_ENTITY

Used in aarGetSingleValue method (GET) and execute SELECT SINGLE SQL command.

• RESULTSET_GET_ENTITYSET

Used in aarGetEntitySet method (GET) and execute SELECT SQL command.

• RESULTSET_UPDATE_ENTITY

Used in aarUpdate method (PUT) and execute UPDATE SQL command.

Sequence Calls

Just as an example, here is the sequence of calls necessary to retrieve a set of records for SFLIGHT table:

var oFlightsTable = oARModel.aarGetEntitySet('SFLIGHT', ["CARRID", "CONNID", "FLDATE", "PRICE"], {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402"});

1. Call REQUESTSET_CREATE_ENTITY to start the proceesing and define some parameters.
2. For each field in the list (i.e. ["CARRID", "CONNID", "FLDATE", "PRICE"]) call REQUESTSET_UPDATE_ENTITY and store all store it in a internal table.
3. For each property in the object (i.e. {carrid: "LH", connid: "2402"}) call REQUESTSET_UPDATE_ENTITY and store all filters to be used in WHERE clause in a internal table.
4. At the end of processing, call RESULTSET_GET_ENTITYSET to execute a dynamic SELECT command and return the entityset with a list of all fields.
5. On the SAPUI5 side, ARModel class provide all services, include to translate the format returned from result entity type to JSON format.

Installation

You can find installation instructions in this guide.

Feedback

It's not ready to be used in production, but just to give an idea and receive feedback from the community.

For questions/comments/bugs/feature requests/wishes please create an issue.

Next Steps

Depending on community feedback, here is a list of new features to be implemented:

• Redesign batch calls to decrease size of payloads.
• Improve error handling.
• Users guide.
• Unit Tests
• Allow ranges.
• Allow joins.
• Allow selects in different servers (via RFC).
• Return in OData format.
• Allow more complex WHERE conditions.