What is ABAP?

Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP) is SAP’s own programming language. All business applications and a part of the Basis System are written in ABAP.


ABAP stores all metadata in the ABAP Dictionary, which supports business data types.

The database is accessed through ABAP usually using OPEN SQL, which means program development is independent of the database system used in the system.


ABAP supports the simple and effective creation of graphical user interfaces. ABAP objects can also be used for object-oriented programming.

The separation of text elements such as list headers, texts for input fields, and so on, allows ABAP to support multiple languages.