Class Builder Tutorial

Presented By-
Amit Singh & Sylendra Prasad
 How to work with Class Builder (SE24)

• Goto transaction SE24.

• Give a name and press create. A pop up window appears asking for
selecting class or interface.

• Select class and press continue button,

• Now another pop up comes asking for short description ,
instantiation ( like Public, Private, Abstract and Protected ) and type
of the class (normal ABAP Class, Persistent Class or Exception
class) . Select the appropriate class type.

• If you don’t want to create any subclass of this class , then check
the checkbox named “Final”.
• Now you will get the class builder screen.

• There are a lot of options like Methods, Attributes, Events, friends,

Interfaces,Constructor,Class Constructor etc.
 Defining attributes
• Goto attributes tab. Specify the attribute name , level ( Instance or
Static) , visibility, associated type, description , initial value etc.

• Usually attributes are defined in the private section of the class so

that only methods of the class can manipulate them.
 Defining methods
• Click on methods tab.
• Give a method name, level (Instance or Static), visibility (Public ,
protected or private ) and description.
• If you are using parameters to import or export data from main program, click on
parameters button and specify the appropriate parameters.

• Constructor is a special method which is automatically called whenever an instance

of the class is created. It can be added to the set of methods by clicking on the
Constructor button.
• Class Constructor is the static version of Constructor and can be
included in the methods list by clicking “Class Constructor” in the
toolbar.
 Implementing the methods
• Double click on any method name and you will get an editor to
perform the coding.

• Provide the coding within METHOD….ENDMETHOD.

 Creating interfaces
• Goto transaction SE24.
• Give name and click on create and select interface radio button and
give a short description.

• As in the class , you can define methods, attributes, events,

interfaces within interface.

• After activating the interface, you can link the methods in the class
by giving the interface name in the Interfaces tab.
• On saving, automatically all the methods in the interface will be added to the
Methods tab in the class. Provide the coding for the methods as explained
previously.
 Defining Events
• In the events tab, give the event description like name , level
(Instance or Static), Visibility (public, protected, private) and short
description.

• Events can be handled by methods either in the same class or in a

different class.
 Handling events in the same class
• Define a method in the Methods tab and activate the class now.
• Click on the detailed view icon .
• Check the “Event handler for “ checkbox and fill the class and the
required event.

• Now a link icon appears in “Method type” column like this.

• If in the event definition, any parameters are defined, they will have
to be copied to the parameter interface of the event handler method.

• So go to the Parameter interface of the method by clicking on

Parameter button.

• Copy the parameters of the event by clicking on the following icon.

• Linking of Event and the method can be made complete by using
the statement SET HANDLER.

• User defined events are raised by using the statement

RAISE EVENT <event_name>.

• In the above example, while processing HANDLE_DOUBLE_CLICK

, we raise the event my_event and it will be handled by the method
handle_user_def.
 Handling events of standard class
• Suppose you want to handle double click event in ALV grid, you can
create a custom class and create a method to handle the event.
• Click on the detailed view icon .

• Check the “Event handler for “ checkbox and fill the class and the
required event.
• Now a link icon appears in “Method type” column like this.

• Now you can provide the implementation of the event handler

method by double clicking the method name.
 Defining Friend classes
• If a class wants to access the protected and private components of
another class, then the former can be made a “friend” of the latter.
• Goto Friends tab in Class Builder and specify the friend class.

• Let us create a private attribute for the class so that it can be

accessed by friend function.
• Now create a friend class which has a method to access the private
attribute of the previous class.

• Now you can provide the implementation of the method showing the
way in which the private attribute is accessed.
 How to create sub classes (Inheritance)

• In properties of the class, specify the super class.

• On saving the subclass, the public and protected components of

the super class will automatically be added to the corresponding list.
 Redefining superclass methods
• Place the cursor on the method to be redefined and click on the
Redefine Icon
• You can redefine the default superclass implementation in the editor
like this.
• In the above code,
CALL METHOD super->handle_double_click is used to execute the
super class implementation, before performing subclass
implementation.
• In the main program, the subclass objects are instantiated and
redefined methods can be called.

• When the above program is executed, initially control goes to

subclass’s redefined method handle_double_click. Then the
superclass implementation is done and control comes back to
perform subclass implementation.
 Creating persistent classes
• Global classes, as such are persistent, but their instances need not
be. Usually the data, after program execution, is lost.
• If the data is to be stored permanently ( persistently) , they need to
be stored in a database. Persistent object concept was introduced
with this idea in mind.
• To create persistent objects, Go to SE24 and select persistent
class.
• The class name should start with ZCL_( for eg: ZCL_AMIT_PERST)
• Now automatically, various components are generated in Methods
( like handle_exception, get, init, set, invalidate) , events , friends
tab.
• In addition, a class agent starting with ZCA_ ( ZCA_AMIT_PERST)
and a base class ( ZCB_AMIT_PERST), which is the super class of
agent class, are also generated. This agent class not only manages
the instances of persistent classes, but also performs the actual
database accesses.
• The base class (ZCB_AMIT_PERST) can also be viewed in the
friends tab of the created class.

• Now you can map the database to the created class by clicking on
the ‘Persistence’ button in the toolbar.
• A pop up appears asking for database table/structure
• Now you will get all the table fields in the bottom-most section.

• Now you can double click on any of the table fields. You can edit the
field properties and now when you click on ‘up arrow’ close to the
description to update it in the persistent class.
• When you click Save and click on ‘Back’ button, new
GET_<field_name> ( for read-only fields ) and SET_<field_name>
( for other fields ) are generated in the Methods tab.

• Now activate the class and the agent class.

• Now in the main program, you need to define a reference variable of
the agent class, filling it with reference from the static attribute
AGENT.
• Now create the new instance of persistence class using the method
of base class CREATE_PERSISTENT. If an object already exists,
you can raise the exception CX_OS_OBJECT_EXISTING by using
try catch statements.
• Fields which are not read-only can be set by using
SET_<field_name> statements.
• Now the updates can be made permanent by using COMMIT
WORK statement.
• After creation of persistent objects, they can be loaded into main
program using the method GET_PERSISTENT passing the key
values in the parameter interface.
• Data from specific fields can be obtained by the statement
GET_<field_name>.
 Inheriting Standard SAP Classes
• Standard classes can be extended by creating their subclasses.
Thank You