Dear community, episode 17 of the German-language “We love Formulare” podcast has been released. Since the podcast is in German, there is, as always, a short summary in English here.
In this episode, Frank Engert from Softway AG and I talk about the topic of fetching data. After all, you want to use a form to output data in a visually appealing way. Basically, form processing can be divided into two phases:
- Fetch data (What should be output?)
- Output data (How should the data be output visually?)
Since our topic in this podcast was fetching data, we looked at various aspects of it. The different form technologies receive their data in different ways. Unsurprisingly, with SAPscript everything was very closely linked to the output of the data. With Smart Forms, there was a clean interface thanks to the generated function modules. This type of data transfer was also retained in Adobe Forms.
Since the topic of fetching data was a good fit, we also talked about testability. In the SAP standard, this is anything but trivial. The print programs usually get their data directly from the database tables that match the context. Sometimes this task was also directed to individual function modules. Ultimately, it is a futile undertaking to try to create testability in this environment using techniques like unit tests.
Things are different with forms that have been developed entirely in-house. Here, fetching data can be directed to one or more classes with suitable unit tests. Some of the data for unit tests can then be read from test data containers. This is a completely different, much more testable approach.
So that’s a brief overview of the content of the episode.
Enjoy listening
Michael