I gave you a short overview about our idea to provide a software development kit (SDK) for ABAP development tools (ADT) in the
lab preview about the SDK, half a year ago.
The first version of the SDK for ADT is available for SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP 7.4 (support package 2), now. Therefore, I would like to give you a brief overview about the content of this first version of the SDK.
Connect Eclipse to an ABAP system
In the first version of the SDK, we put the focus on making the resource framework of ADT available. The resource framework allows the creation of RESTful services (REpresentational State Transfer, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer). This means, the ABAP backend defines its resources (i.e., entities) that can be addressed via unique resource identifiers (URIs). The ABAP backend exposes these resources at their corresponding URIs and the Eclipse frontend consumes them (like a web browser).
The SDK for ADT allows you to
- connect from Eclipse to the ABAP system
- define your own resources in the ABAP backend and
- consume these resources via appropriate APIs in Eclipse.
This enables you to reuse the connection to the ABAP system for an ABAP project and communicate in Eclipse with the ABAP backend in a standardized way.
You find a tutorial about implementing your own resources and consuming them in the
how-to guide about the SDK.
Further client APIs
Beside the APIs for the resource framework, the fist version of the SDK also some further APIs in the Eclipse client.
The APIs of the SDK for ADT allows you (for example) to
- navigate to an ABAP development object and open the corresponding editor
- search for development objects
- set additional markers for ABAP development objects (like errors and warnings)
All released APIs are documented via javadoc which can be downloaded
here.
Again, it's up to you
I am sure you have already some ideas how you would like to use the SDK. Try to realize your ideas by using the SDK. As already mentioned, the
how-to guide might be a good document to get started.
