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ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model

(RAP)
What is RAP?
The ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (in short RAP) defines the architecture
for efficient end-to-end development of intrinsically SAP HANA-optimized OData services
(such as Fiori apps) in SAP BTP ABAP Environment or Application Server ABAP. It supports
the development of all types of Fiori applications as well as publishing Web APIs. It is
based on technologies and frameworks such as Core Data Services (CDS) for defining
semantically rich data models and a service model infrastructure for creating OData
services with bindings to an OData protocol and ABAP-based application services for
custom logic and SAPUI5-based user interfaces – as shown in the figure below.

RAP Big Picture

Provide a programming model…

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As a strategic long-term solution for ABAP development

For the efficient development of
SAP Fiori apps and Web APIs,
from scratch or by integrating legacy code
Offering an end-to-end development experience with
High development efficiency
Standardized development flow
Best practices and development guides
Focus on business logic, rather than technical aspects
Native testability, documentability, and supportability
Code pushdown to SAP HANA
Comfortable support for stateless and stateful environments
Supporting the product qualities
User experience: SAP Fiori and SAP HANA
Cloud: scalability
Out-of-the-box extensibility and verticalization
Flexibility: break-outs for nonstandardized implementations

Developer Ressorces
A good starting point is the Getting Started blog, and the TechEd2020 DEV260 session
Build SAP Fiori Apps with the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model, see also the
related DEV260.pdf overview.

Concepts
The ABAP RESTful Programming Model has unified the development of OData
services with ABAP. It is based on three pillars that facilitate your development:

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Pillar Description

The approach to integrate all implementation tasks in one development

environment optimizes the development flow and offers an end-to-end
Tools
experience in one tool environment. New development artifacts support
the application developer to develop in a standardized way.

The ABAP language has been aligned and extended to support the
development with the ABAP RESTful Programming Model, together with
Language CDS. The application developer uses typed APIs for standard
implementation tasks and benefits from auto-completion, element
information, and static code checks.

Powerful frameworks represent another important pillar of the ABAP

RESTful Programming Model. They assume standard implementation
Frameworks
tasks with options for the application developer to use dedicated code
exits for application-specific business logic.

Runtime
The following diagram provides a runtime perspective of the ABAP RESTful
Programming Model. Runtime objects are necessary components to run an
application. This runtime stack is illustrated in a top-down approach. An OData client
sends a request, which is then passed to the generic runtime frameworks. These
frameworks prepare a consumable request for ABAP code and dispatch it to the
relevant business logic component. The request is executed by the business object
(BO) when data is modified or by the query if data is only read from the data source.

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RAP Runtime

Data Model and Behavior

Data Model
The data model comprises the description of the different entities involved in a
business scenario, for example travel and booking, and their relationships, for
example the parent-child relationship between travel and booking. The ABAP RESTful
Programming Model uses CDS to define and organize the data model. CDS provides
a framework for defining and consuming semantic data models. These data models
have a physical representation in the database in the form of database views which
are automatically created based on a CDS data model. Every real-world entity is

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represented by one CDS entity. View building capabilities allow you to define
application-specific characteristics in the data model. That means, CDS entities are
the fundamental building blocks for your application. When using the CDS entity for a
data selection, the data access is executed by the SQL-view, which is defined in the
CDS entity.

Depending on the use case, data models support transactional access or query
access to the database. Thus, data models are used in business objects or queries
respectively.

The following diagram gives you an overview of the data model that is used in the
development guides of this documentation. Every block refers to one database table
view and the respective CDS entity. The blue boxes represent a Travel business
object, with its child entities Booking and Booking Supplement. The white boxes
represent the entities that are not part of the business object, but support with value
helps or text associations. For read-only access to the database, that is simple data
retrieval, the data model is used for the query.

RAP Data Model

PlantUML

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RESTful ABAP F l i g h t D e m o D a t a M o d e l

1N
Agency Travel

N 1
1 N N1
Flight Booking Customer

1 N
N1 1N
Connection Booking Supplement Supplement Supplement Text

N N

1 1

Airport Carrier

Main business entitites

Secondary business entities

Customer

Booking Travel

Flight Agency

Main business entitites

Secondary business entities

Behavior
The behavior describes what can be done with the data model, for example if the
data can be updated.

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In transactional scenarios, the business object behavior defines which operations

and what characteristics belong to a business object. For read-only scenarios, the
behavior of the data model is defined by the query capabilities, for example if the
data is filterable.

Query
A query is the connecting interface for read-only access to the database in OData
services. It is used for list reports or analytical reports to process data.

As the non-transactional counterpart of a business object, it consists of a data

model, generic and modeled query capabilities and a runtime. This threefold division
is known from the BO concept. However, a query provides only read access to the
database. Its runtime never modifies data, but only executes structured data retrieval,
for example for filtering.

Business Object
A business object (BO) is a common term to represent a real-world artifact in
enterprise application development such as the Product, the Travel, or the
SalesOrder. In general, a business object contains several nodes such as Items and
ScheduleLines and common transactional operations such as for creating, updating
and deleting business data. An additional application-specific operation in the
SalesOrder business object might be, for example, an Approve action allowing the
user to approve the sales order. All changing operations for all application-related
business objects form the transactional behavior in an application scenario.

Business Service
The ABAP development platform can act in the roles of a service provider and a
service consumer (such as SAP Fiori UI client).

In the context of the ABAP RESTful application programming model, a business

service is a RESTful service which can be called by a consumer. It is defined by
exposing its data model together with the associated behavior. It consists of a
service definition and a service binding.

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RAP Business Services

How to Use BO Projections?

The design time artifacts to create an OData service that includes a projection layer
are the following:

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RAP BO Projections

Naming Conventions for Development Objects

Naming conventions facilitate the development. An addition to the name of
development objects conveys standardized meaning and generates consistency in
your development.

General Rules

Remember
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The general guideline for development objects is the following: [/<namespace>/]

[<prefix>]_<object_name>_[<suffix>].

Use your own namespace that is reserved for your organization.

A prefix is used for cases when there are generically different types of one
development object. Then, this prefix states the semantic difference that cannot
be conveyed through the object type. For example, a service binding can expose
an OData service for UI purposes and as a Web API. That is why, for service
bindings we introduce the prefixes UI_ and API_ to differentiate the semantics of
service bindings.
A suffix is used for additional differentiation between different types of
development objects. It helps to recognize more subtle or secondary differences
in development objects. For example, a UI service can be bound against the OData
protocol version 2 and version 4. This difference can also be manifested by
suffixing the name with _O2 or _O4.

Special Suffixes (_R, _M, _D, _U, _C)

This characters identifies the development object to belong to one specific development
guide (read-only, managed, draft, unmanaged, service consumption).

The following list provides an overview of the prefixing and suffixing guidelines on
naming specific development objects.

ABAP Dictionary Objects

Object Prefix Description Example

Database Persistent database table, that

A_ /UDINA/A_TRAVEL_D
Table contains the active data

Database
D_ Draft database table /UDINA/D_TRAVEL_D
Table

SQL views of CDS interface views

SQL View I /UDINA/ITRAVEL_U
(without underscore)

CDS Objects
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Object Prefix Description Example

CDS Entity I_ Interface view /UDINA/I_Travel_U

CDS Entity C_ Projection view /UDINA/C_Travel_Processor_M

A behavior definition has

Behavior always the same name as /UDINA/I_Travel_U
Definition the root entity of the /UDINA/C_Travel_M
business object.

A metadata extension has

the same name as the CDS
entity it relates to. If you use
Metadata /UDINA/C_TRAVEL_U
more than one metadata
Extension /UDINA/C_BOOKING_U_M2
extension for one CDS
entity, you can add a
numbered suffix

Business Services
Service Definition
Since a service definition, as a part of a business service, does not have different
types or different specifications, there is (in general) no need for a prefix or suffix to
differentiate meaning.

Example: /UDINA/TRAVEL_U

However, in use cases where no reuse of the same service definition is planned for
UI and API services, the prefix may follow the rules of the service binding.

Example: /UDINA/UI_TRAVEL_U

Service Binding
Use the suffix _O2 or _O4 concerning the used OData protocol version.

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Object Prefix Description Example

Service Service is exposed as a UI

UI_ /UDINA/UI_TRAVEL_U_O2
Binding service

Service Service is exposed as Web

API_ /UDINA/API_TRAVEL_U_O4
Binding API

Source Code Objects

Depending on the modularization of your behavior implementation, you can provide
the semantics of the coding in the name of the classes (ex. CRUD, CUD or CREATE).

Object Prefix Description Example

ABAP class that implements

Behavior
BP_ the behavior of a business /UDINA/BP_TRAVEL_U
Pool
object

Handler
LHC_ Local handler class /UDINA/LHC_TRAVEL_CREATE
Classes

Saver
LSC_ Local saver class /UDINA/LSC_TRAVEL_CUD
Classes

Required skillset
It is also helpful to have knowledge of both SAP and open technologies when
designing the overall architecture.

Skill Description

Platform SAP NetWeaver and SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment

Dev.
ABAP
Language

Database SAP HANA

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Skill Description

UI SAP Fiori Elements, SAPUI5

Dev.
ABAP CDS, Exit, BAdI, Key User Extensibility
Framework

API OData, REST, (SOAP, BAPI)

DevOps TMS, ABAP Workbench, gCTS

ABAP Workbench, ABAP Development Tools (ADT) , Business

IDE
Application Studio, VS Code)

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