ABAP Runtime Environment

SAP BASIS provides the runtime environment for the ABAP code. All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. 

In the database all ABAP code exists in two forms:

• Source Code - which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench tools
• Generated code - which is a binary code generated after activation of the source code

ABAP programs execute under the control of the runtime system, which is part of the SAP kernel

Features of the Runtime

• It is part of the SAP kernel
• Responsible for processing ABAP statements
• Controlling the flow logic of screens
• Responding/Handling to events to events
• Convert the database-independent ABAP statements (Open SQL) to database specific (Native SQL) statements