Code Exchange Consumer
- Find a Project which interests you in the Code Exchange Project List.
- The Projects ABAP code is mostly provided as SAPlink Nuggets. Read the SAPlink User Documentation on how to install SAPlink and such a Nugget.
- Install always the most recent SAPlink and SAPlink-plugins version (Daily build)
- Get familiar with the project and use it for your purpose
- Activate the E-Mail notifications on the main page of the project to get notifications for new discussion posts
- Check out the Expert View to see what open issues exist
- Choose one to fix or create a new issue that you've faced and you want to fix
Getting a Contributor
You've found an issue that you've like to fix. Great. So what do you need to know and install to contribute a patch? SAP Code Exchange uses a SubVersion Code Repository to manage code revisions. ZAKE is the tool which helps to automate the process of SVN checkout and commit.
- Setup your subversion username and password as described in the Blog: Code Exchange How-To: accessing the code repository of a project
- Read the document ZAKE_SVN to get the background how ZAKE_SVN helps you to automate the Checkout/Checkin process to the subversion repository
- Read and follow the ZAKE Installation Guide
- The ABAP Code Exchange projects that use ZAKE provide a report to do the checkout, update, installation, export, build and commit of the code from and to the SVN Repository. In the abap2xlsx Project the report is called ZAKE_SVN_A2X and can be downloaded here as a SAPlink Slinkee.
- Install the report using SAPlink
- Copy the report to your own name i.e. ZAKE_SVN_A2X_GW (My Initials)
- Adjust the report to your needs regarding the directories for the checkout
- Run the report to checkout or update the latest sources from the repository
- Run the report to install the latest version from the Slinkees
- Make your changes to the ABAP Codding
- Adjust the report to fill the table with objects only with the ones you've changed
- Run the report to export the Slinkees to your local hard disk
- Check the export folder in the Windows Explorer. When you have TortoiseSVN installed you will the the changed files marked with a red flag.
- A good habit is also to use the diff tool to see what was actually changed in the freshly exported Sinkees. If you see a lot of changes in the meta data then you probably don't have the latest version of SAPlink installed.
- Commit the code to the repository. Provide a comment which describes your changes. You can add in your comment also the issue number. When you add a # in front of the Issue your commit comment will be linked to the Issue. When you write "fixed #123" the Issue No. 123 will be set to fixed. But in most cases you want others to test your change and then you can wirte "ready to test #123" which will set the Issue No. 123 to the status test. If you don't have commit access to the repository you can create a patch (Video showing how to create a patch using TortoiseSVN) file using TortoiseSVN and add this patch as an attachment to the issue. The project commiters will then check the patch and submit it to the repository.