ABAP_to_the_Future

Making Programs Flexible
B
Example
The point should now be clear: hard-coding is bad. Now consider an example that
shows how to fix this problem. As bizarre as it sounds, you’re going to create a
customizing table of customizing entries. Say that you have five different categories
of monsters. The categories are pretty much the same all over the world, but
the customizing values in each country’s SAP system ar e different. You need a
table to say what data element you’re talking about and what possible categories
can apply to that data element.
In Figure B.1, you can see how you assign values to a data element. You could also
have other values, like for an extra scary monster or gigantic monster. The underlying
database table would look like Figure B.2.
Figure B.1 Adding a Meaningful Value for a Data Element
Figure B.2 Database Table for Linking Meaningful Values to Data Elements
The next step is to store the exact values each country is using to describe the
same sort of monster. As you can see in Figure B.3, each country has chosen a
different four-digit code to describe the same thing, and each of those codes is
meaningless, in that it’s impossible to guess that ZZT5 represents a standard
monster. However, a program specific ation would say something like “When
you encounter a standard monster, do such and such,” as opposed to “When
you encounter a ZZT5, do such and such,” so you want to see the former
approach in your code.
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