HIGH Effort: S — Small (hours) ABAP SQL

How to remediate: Missing FOR ALL ENTRIES guard

FOR ALL ENTRIES IN without an initial-table check returns the full table when the driver table is empty.

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What changes in S/4HANA

Performance impact is amplified on S/4HANA column-store tables.

Before and after: ABAP code example

Before (ECC) 
* ECC: no guard — full table scan when lt_orders is empty
SELECT * FROM ekpo
  INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_items)
  FOR ALL ENTRIES IN @lt_orders
  WHERE ebeln = @lt_orders-ebeln.
After (S/4HANA) 
* S/4HANA: guard prevents full table scan
IF lt_orders IS NOT INITIAL.
  SELECT ebeln, ebelp, matnr, menge, netpr
    FROM i_purchaseorderitem
    INTO TABLE @DATA(lt_items)
    FOR ALL ENTRIES IN @lt_orders
    WHERE purchaseorder = @lt_orders-ebeln.
ENDIF.

Effort estimate and common pitfalls

Effort estimate

S — Small (hours)

Estimate is per affected object. Total effort scales with the number of occurrences in your codebase. Use the A1 scan to get an object-level count before estimating the full project.

Common pitfalls

  • ! Forgetting to update all occurrences in the same program
  • ! Not running ATC after the change to confirm the finding is resolved

Related rules to check

HIGH S

SELECT * usage

SELECT * reads all columns including new S/4HANA columns, causing unexpected results and performance issues.
CRITICAL L

Native SQL (EXEC SQL)

EXEC SQL and ADBC bypass ABAP SQL layer and break on S/4HANA HANA database.
CRITICAL XL

Direct pool/cluster table access

Direct reads from BSEG, KONV, STXL and other pool/cluster tables. These tables are dissolved in S/4HANA.

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