WebSphere Adapter for SAP Software

Operations and verbs of BAPI business objects

BAPI business objects support operations and verbs. The operation of a BAPI business object specifies the BAPI call to execute in the SAP system for that object. The BAPI method determines the operation associated with it. The verb of a BAPI business object specifies the state of the object.

Supported operations

Operations of a business object are invoked by the client component that makes calls to SAP through the adapter. The SAP JCo APIs are used to make the call to the SAP system.

The following table defines operations that the adapter supports.
Note: The definitions listed in the table are the expected uses for the operations. The action taken in the SAP application is based on the meaning of the BAPI itself.
Table 1. Supported operations: BAPI business objects
Operation Definition
After-Image Create Creates a new entity in SAP that matches the data and structure of the input business object. The business object returned by this operation reflects the newly created entity in SAP.
After-Image Update with Delete A special form of the UpdateWithDelete operation that provides better performance. It always requires a ChangeSummary, which is expected to include information about business object-level creations and deletions. This enables the adapter to perform operations without the overhead of retrieving the existing entities from SAP and doing comparisons, because the ChangeSummary indicates what needs to be done. If the ChangeSummary is empty, the adapter does not take any action on the request.
Retrieve Rebuilds the complete business-object hierarchy. The adapter ensures that the returned hierarchical business object exactly matches the database state of the application entity. Non-key values can be used as criteria.

Accepts either an after-image or business object. The comparison in either case is by equality only.

The request business object might contain any of the following:

  • A top-level business object but no child objects, even though the business object definition includes children
  • A business object that contains the top-level business object and some of its defined children
  • A complete hierarchical business object containing all child business objects

Retrieve is intended to return a single, unique business object that meets user-defined criteria. The requirement for performing the retrieve operation is totally dependent on the BAPI. Whatever the BAPI deems as “required” is what allows the retrieve to be successful.

After-Image Delete Removes an existing entity from SAP and any contained child entities. Note that SAP has the concept of a logical delete, whereby the record is marked as deleted but the entity still exists. This is done in some cases to maintain database integrity because the entity “deleted” is referenced in other entities. Therefore, After-Image Delete behavior depends on the BAPI call.

For an operation that is not supported or does not match the verb in the business graph, the adapter logs the appropriate error and produces a ResourceException.

Supported verbs

The following table lists the verbs that the adapter supports for BAPI business objects.

Table 2. Supported verbs: BAPI business objects
Verb Definition
Create The top-level business object and all contained children have been created, if this is an inbound event, or should be created in SAP, if this is an outbound request.
UpdateWithDelete The top-level business object has been or should be modified; this may include addition or deletion of children as well.
Delete The top-level business object and any contained children have been or should be deleted.

For verbs that are not supported, the adapter produces a ResourceException error.


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Last updated: Mon 30 Oct 2006 03:34:55

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