Description

The basic idea behind the RAP Generator is to ease the life of the developer since it helps you to create most of the boiler plate coding that is needed to implement a RAP business object using the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP) so that you as a developer can start more quickly to implement the business logic.
Though there is an ADT-based generator available for SAP BTP, ABAP environment and for on premise and public cloud systems as of SAP S/4HANA 2022 this generator offers some additional features, and especially supports multiple nodes whereas the ADT-based generator only supports one table. In addition, this generator also supports SAP S/4HANA 2021.

RAP generates RAP
Technically the RAP Generator consists out of a RAP business object ZDMO_R_RAPG_ProjectTP that is used to generate other RAP business objects.
The RAP Generator works similar like the well known Key user tools in SAP S/4HANA and uses a Fiori Elements UI. The Fiori Elements UI can be started from within ADT by opening the service binding ZDMO_UI_RAPG_PROJECT_O2. There you have to double-click on the entitiy Project which starts the Fiori Elements UI without the need to install any additional tool.

The SAP Fiori elements preview based UI provides value helps for the data that has to be entered and it provides validations and determinations that provide the heavy lifting of specifying which table field is used for which purpose (for example, a field called local_last_changed_at or a field based on the data element abp_locinst_lastchange_tstmpl will be proposed by the RAP Generator to be used as the etag of an entity).

Once the repository objects are generated, the UI offers an ADT link that lets you conveniently navigate back into ADT to continue to work on your objects.

What's New

• The RAP Generator uses a new UI where the basic project data is entered in the beginning, so that there is no need to use side effects.
• The RAP Generator lets you edit the aliases for the properties of entities of your RAP business object. As a default the RAP Generator proposes aliases in CamelCase format that are derived from the underlying ABAP field names. (e.g. SalesOrder when the ABAP field is SALES_ORDER).
• The objects that have been generated by the RAP Generator can now be safely deleted. This allows you to regenerate the repository objects in case you redo the generation in case there was a typo in the parameters that you provided.
• The generation process is logged in a specific entity of the RAP Generator BO that shows the progress of the generation or deletion alongside with detailed responses of the generation / deletion process.
• You can copy a RAP Generator project.

Requirements

This sample code does currently work in:

• SAP BTP, ABAP environment
• SAP S/4HANA, ABAP environment
• SAP S/4HANA 2022
• SAP S/4HANA 2021

How to Guides

• How to create a managed RAP BO based on tables with UUID based key fields.

Download and Installation

How to Install the RAP Generator

SAP BTP ABAP Environment and SAP S/4HANA Cloud ABAP Environment

1. Create a package 'ZDMO_RAP_GENERATOR'.
2. Link this package with the URL of the RAP Generator repository https://github.com/SAP-samples/cloud-abap-rap.
3. Use the branch abap-environment.
4. Pull changes.
5. Use mass activation to activate the objects that have been imported in step 3.
6. Run the class zdmo_cl_rap_generator_setup. This class generates the following objects:
   • Application job catalog entries:
     • ZDMO_RAP_GEN_CATALOG_ENTRY
     • ZDMO_RAP_DEL_CATALOG_ENTRY
   • Application job templates:
     • ZDMO_RAP_GEN_JOB_TEMPLATE
     • ZDMO_RAP_DEL_JOB_TEMPLATE
   • Service binding ZDMO_UI_RAPG_PROJECT_O2
7. Publish the service binding ZDMO_UI_RAPG_PROJECT_O2.
8. Open both IAM Apps:
   • ZDMO_RAP_DEL_CATALOG_ENTRY_SAJC: switch to the tab Services and choose Publish Locally button
   • ZDMO_RAP_GEN_CATALOG_ENTRY_SAJC: switch to the tab Services and choose Publish Locally button

SAP S/4HANA 2021 or 2022

1. Create a package 'TEST_RAP_GENERATOR'.
2. Start the report ZABAPGIT_STANDALONE. You might have to download the source code of this open source tool.
3. Create an an online repository with the package and with the URL of the RAP Generator repo https://github.com/SAP-samples/cloud-abap-rap or create an offline repository and download the source code as a ZIP file from https://github.com/SAP-samples/cloud-abap-rap. Make sure that you use the appropriate branch on-prem-2022 or on-prem-2021.
4. Pull changes.
5. Use mass activation to activate the objects that have been imported in step 3.
6. Run the class zdmo_cl_rap_generator_setup. This class generates the following objects:
   • Application job catalog entries:
     • ZDMO_RAP_GEN_CATALOG_ENTRY
     • ZDMO_RAP_DEL_CATALOG_ENTRY
   • Application job templates:
     • ZDMO_RAP_GEN_JOB_TEMPLATE
     • ZDMO_RAP_DEL_JOB_TEMPLATE
   • Service binding ZDMO_UI_RAPG_PROJECT_O2(in on-premise or private cloud systems the service binding will automatically be published as well)

Known Issues

The sample code is provided "as-is".

Known issues are listed here: Issues

SAP BTP ABAP Environment, SAP S/4HANA ABAP environment and on premise releases

• When refreshing the UI of the object page of an active instance you get the error message :

  Number of specified key properties does not match number of key properties of type 'com.sap.gateway.srvd.zdmo_rapg_project01.v0001.ProjectType'; expected number of key properties '2'

  The issue is currently being investigated.

  Workaround:

  You have to start the SAP Fiori Elements preview again and navigate to the project again.

• The application job that has to be used to generate the repository object cannot be started immediately in SAP BTP, ABAP environment. Instead we have to wait for the background job scheduler to start the job, which can take up to one minute. This is behavior will be fixed in a future release once an proper background processing framework becomes available.

on_premise_2021

• When using the RAP Generator in on-premise systems, you have to make sure that the latest SAPUI5 libraries are installed. If you don’t have the latest version of the SAPUI5 libraries installed you will get no dialogue when choosing the New Project button in the RAP Generator. If the latest SAPUI5 libraries cannot be installed, you can use an implicit enhancement in method get_sapui5core_resources_url( ) of class CL_ADT_ODATAV4_FEAP as described in the following blog post.

How to Obtain Support

If you have problems or questions, you can post them in the SAP Community using either the primary tag or "ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model".

Contributing

You can add proposals for enhancements as issues.

License

Copyright (c) 2023 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. This file is licensed under the Apache Software License, version 2.0 except as noted otherwise in the LICENSE file.