{"id":1407,"date":"2011-07-30T16:19:02","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T14:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/?p=1407"},"modified":"2011-07-30T16:28:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T14:28:30","slug":"book-review-discover-abap-kuhnhauser-sap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/book-review-discover-abap-kuhnhauser-sap","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Discover ABAP"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been working with SAP BW for some years now and ABAP<\/strong> coding has always been a pain in the ass for me. Fact is, also within BW you can\u2019t really get around without any ABAP knowledge. It is used to enhance data extractors, to transform the data within the BW data model (with the start, field, end and expert routines in transformations) and to create variables to make dynamic selections in queries, DTP’s and InfoPackages.<\/p>\n

So most of the time I just looked at some pieces of existing code, copied it, searched Google or SAP Help, tweaked it a bit so it eventually did what I wanted it to do, and went on. Just like I managed to do this with html, php and other coding languages for the last 15 years. If things got too complex I turned to a ABAP-consultant who normally managed to solve these problems in a few minutes doing some magic tricks that always seem simple when you read the code afterwards.<\/p>\n

Now I found this book Discover ABAP<\/a> <\/strong>by Karl-Heinz K\u00fchnhauser ($39,95<\/a>) which promises to give you a 101 course on the ABAP basics for us n00bs, so I decided to try it. Although this book is on the market for a few years already I still want to acknowledge it here.<\/p>\n

This book is easy to read, gives many many examples, explains every concept in details and keeps things simple to understand. K\u00fchnhauser demonstrates how to get the data from tables, use variables, transform or modify values, make calculations with them, use internal tables and how to set up logical expressions. Furthermore the Function Modules are discussed and the book shows how you can use them in your code.<\/p>\n

I think that over 70% of the book’s text consist of examples or explaining them (line by line!!) which is very important for newcomers. All features of the ABAP editor are explained and it shows you how to really use the Debugger.<\/p>\n

Since I only want to use ABAP in the BW domain (no, I don’t have any<\/strong> ambition to be a ABAP programmer someday!) I could fast-read\/skip most of the sections on the data dictionary, creating database tables and building selection screens. But I think still 80%+ of the book was useful for me.<\/p>\n

The only thing I miss in this book is the follow up advice on where to go next if you want to learn more. But if you are curious about the basics of ABAP you should check<\/a> out this book for sure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found this book Discover ABAP by Karl-Heinz K\u00fchnhauser ($39,95) which promises to give you a 101 course on the ABAP basics for us n00bs, so I decided to try it. Although this book is on the market for a few years already I still want to acknowledge it here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,4],"tags":[138,16],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-sap","tag-abap","tag-sap-press"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Discover-ABAP.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pKaa2-mH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1851,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/book-review-sap-netweaver-bw-and-sap-businessobjects-the-comprehensive-guide","url_meta":{"origin":1407,"position":0},"title":"Book review: SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects – The Comprehensive Guide","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"September 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's have a look at another SAP BI book that SAP Press released this year. They are on a great streak and later this year we can expect even more releases from them on HANA, Web Intelligence, ABAP for BW, SAP BusinessObjects Administration and Security. But, let's go back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sapbwbocomprehensiveguide.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1676,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/sap-bw-create-a-fixed-length-file-with-open-hub-destination","url_meta":{"origin":1407,"position":1},"title":"SAP BW: Create a fixed length file with Open Hub Destination","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"March 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"At my current project we are using SAP BW and its Open Hub Destination (Open Hub) object to create a number of flat file interfaces to export data from SAP BW to other systems. An Open Hub creates a comma separated value (CSV) file which can be placed on a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge sharing"","block_context":{"text":"Knowledge sharing","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/knowledge-sharing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/oh1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/oh1.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/oh1.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2393,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/ebook-bonanza-get-sap-businessobjects-dashboards-4-0-cookbook-for-only-5","url_meta":{"origin":1407,"position":2},"title":"eBook Bonanza: Get SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook for only $5","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"December 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Just like last year Packt Publishing\u00a0is having an\u00a0eBook Bonanza. The coming two weeks you can get any of their eBooks for only $5! So this is a good time to pick up\u00a0the\u00a0SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook\u00a0if you haven't done that already! Packt Publishing also has some other interesting (SAP) BI\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/books"},"img":{"alt_text":"hanaplusdashboards","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hanaplusdashboards.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1902,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/getting-ready-for-sap-design-studio-zen-with-codecademy","url_meta":{"origin":1407,"position":3},"title":"Getting ready for SAP Design Studio with Codecademy","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"October 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Word got out that SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio (formerly named as ZEN) will be generally available next month! This week (9 October 2012) SAP is doing a Design Studio 1.0 Product roadmap webinar to explain this early GA and show us the future milestones of this product. If you're unfamiliar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge sharing"","block_context":{"text":"Knowledge sharing","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/knowledge-sharing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/braceyourselveszen.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/braceyourselveszen.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/braceyourselveszen.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2011,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/get-sap-businessobjects-dashboards-4-0-cookbook-for-only-5e4","url_meta":{"origin":1407,"position":4},"title":"Get SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook for only $5\/\u20ac4","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"December 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Packt Publishing is having a holiday ebook sale this week. 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The last one I attended was Las Vegas 2019, which feels like another era: SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SAP Analytics Cloud"","block_context":{"text":"SAP Analytics Cloud","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/sap-analytics-cloud"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/TechEdCat2.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1413,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions\/1413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}