Clean ABAP

Modern ABAP Coding with Clean ABAP

Among other things, developer guidelines help to standardize the style and structure of coding within projects or companies. For example, variables should be named according to the same specifications and lines should be indented according to a common pattern. This ensures that the code looks the same system-wide regardless of the developer and can therefore be read and maintained more easily.

The main advantages of a fixed developer policy are:

• Improved readability of programs thanks to standardized coding
• Improved maintainability: Faster code adaptations, even by developers who did not write the code
• Improved testability
• Easier training for new developers
• Focus on the actual functions of the coding instead of formatting
• Possibility of static code checks (e.g. ATC) or automatic adjustments (e.g. ABAP Cleaner)

The Clean ABAP Guideline

The Clean ABAP Guideline is a guideline for ABAP coding that standardizes SAP’s programming language with a modern programming style. The guideline describes what modern ABAP coding should look like in a GitHub published by SAP in 2019. Clean ABAP was developed on the basis of an SAP guideline repository, but is now to be further developed by the community as part of the open source concept.

If a company does not already use its own guidelines, the Clean ABAP Guideline can be used as a basis for future developments or even adopted in full. It can also make sense to convert old coding as part of larger projects.