The document discusses abapGit, an open source project that implements Git version control in ABAP. It was created in 2014 to address limitations in SAP's native version control. AbapGit allows developers to work with online and offline repositories, supports over 60 object types, and has been adopted by some companies like emineo to improve transparency, enable experiments, and facilitate code reviews. A live demo is then shown of using abapGit functionality like committing changes, viewing diffs, and linking a local repository to one hosted on GitHub.

1. modern ABAP development with

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whoami
 Christian Günter
 emineo AG
• based in Zürich
• ~80 employees
• IT Consulting
• Software Engineering
• SAP, Java and Webtechnologies
 @chris_guenter
 christian.guenter@emineo.ch

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Agenda
What?
Why?
How?
Live Demo

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What is git?
What is git?
 Version control system
 decentral and file based
 Created 2005 by Linus Torvalds
 Open Source
 De facto standard in non SAP software development
 Git hosting services: GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, SCP…

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What is git?
Source: OpenSAP - SAP Cloud Platform Version Control with Git by Arnaldo Cavazos

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 Git client implemented in ABAP
 Open source project
 Started in 2014 by Lars Hvam Petersen
 MIT license
 Hosted on GitHub
 http://abapgit.org
What is abapGit?
What is abapGit?

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What is abapGit?
49 Cotributors et.al.
Alexander Tsybulsky Eduardo Copat
Oliver Jägle Svitlana Shlapak
Andrei Vishnevsky Bohdan Petrushchak
Graham Robinson Gregor Wolf
Nuno Godinho Fabio Zuber
Fabian Lupa Christian Günter
Christian Tapia Sabogal Domi Bigl
Giovanni Degani Kasper Vilhelm Torp
Christian Pfaller Alex Chan
Lars Hvam Petersen Pascal
Jakub Filak Johannes Konings

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What is abapGit?
What is abapGit?
 Online and offline repositories
 ~62 000 lines of code
 Min. release 7.02
 3 000 commits
 82 supported object types (CLAS, PROG, etc.)

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What is abapGit?
Design goals of abapGit
 Easy to install
 Easy to update
 Small system footprint
 Code in the repository is readable

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Why abapGit?
Why abapGit?
 Lack of features in SAP version control
 Versions are written during transport release
 Temporary versions are deleted
 Limited control for the developer
 No easy undo mechanism
 Some objects without proper version control
e.g. Smartforms

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Why abapGit?
Why abapGit?
 Limited traceability
 What changed during the last two weeks?
 What changed since last release/transport?
 How did the code base look like three months ago?

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Why abapGit?
Why abapGit?

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Why abapGit?
Why abapGit?
 abapGit as backup
 Simplified and riskless experiments
 More transparency
 Enabler for DevOps
 Enabler for code reviews
 No substitute for SAP transport and release management
 abapGit as code archive or grave yard

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Why abapGit?
Why abapGit?
 Install and contribute to open source projects
 http://dotabap.org/ - overview of ABAP projects
 Inofficial successor of SAPLink

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How does abapGit work?
Online repository

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How does abapGit work?
Offline repository

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How does abapGit work?
Serialization and deserialization

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How does abapGit work?
Demo

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abapGit @emineo
abapGit @emineo
 Two ABAP based products
 Two SAP development teams
 01/2018: Start with abapGit in one team
 One development system each product
 BitBucket git server
 Git is default in non SAP teams

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abapGit @emineo
04/2018: Start with product development

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abapGit @emineo
Software delivery in product development

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abapGit @emineo
 Offline repositories
Custom development
 Export zip
 Commit and push with local git client
 Usually no import
 Backup
 Central ABAP knowledge database

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abapGit @emineo
 Migration of custom development
Migrations
 Zip file is exported
 Search and replace because of naming conventions
 Import Zip file in Offline repository
 Lots of repetitions – missing objects
 Objects are collected in a dummy transport request

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abapGit @emineo
 It works
Lessons learned
 KISS
 Pratice with demo repos
 Keep your packages small
 Do experiments
 Steep learning curve of git -> good online ressources

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abapGit @emineo
 Communication is important
Lessons learned
 Ongoing process of learning and improvement
 abapGit is improved steadily
 You can fix bugs yourself – and publish them
 Trust is important
 You can develop new features

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abapGit @emineo
 Develop both products with abapGit
Goals
 Optimize our git workflow – more branches?
 Use pull requests in BitBucket
 Do code reviews in BitBucket
 All ABAP development is in a git repo

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abapGit on SCP
”For code exchange, ABAP PaaS uses the well-known open
source solution abapGit (http://docs.abapgit.org).”
Source: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/09/04/sap-cloud-platform-abap-environment/
“We know that up to now, version control in ABAP is rather limited, and there is
little support for branching, merging or CI/CD (continuous integration/delivery)
tool chains. The goal is to renovate the ABAP step by step using a version
control system like Git without sacrificing the benefits of the ABAP change and
transport system.”

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abapGit @emineo
Twitter wall

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abapGit @emineo
Questions?

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abapGit @emineo
Demo -
Backup

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How does abapGit work?
.XML

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How does abapGit work?
.ABAP

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How does abapGit work?
One package (+ subpackages) = one git repository
Paket: $DSAG_DEMO

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How does abapGit work?
Repository view

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How does abapGit work?
Object changed

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How does abapGit work?
Diff

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How does abapGit work?
Stage and commit

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How does abapGit work?
Commit history

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How does abapGit work?
https://github.com/christianguenter2/DSAG_DEMO.git
DSAG_DEMO repository on GitHub

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How does abapGit work?
Commit history

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How does abapGit work?
Diff