SAP CDS Views: Complete Beginner's Guide

CDS (Core Data Services) is the backbone of modern SAP development. Every S/4HANA application and Fiori app uses CDS.

What is a CDS View?

A CDS view is a semantic layer on top of database tables. Instead of writing SELECT statements in ABAP, you define a structured data model.

Basic Syntax

@AbapCatalog.viewEnhancementCategory: [#NONE]

@AccessControl.authorizationCheck: #NOT_REQUIRED

@EndUserText.label: 'My First CDS View'

define view entity ZI_Material

as select from MARA as _Mara

{

key _Mara.MATNR as MaterialNumber,

_Mara.MTART as MaterialType,

_Mara.MEINS as BaseUnit

}

Use our [CDS View Generator](/tools/cds-view-generator) to generate this boilerplate automatically!

Essential Annotations

Association vs Join

In CDS, prefer **associations** over JOINs for better performance:

define view entity ZI_Material

as select from MARA as _Mara

association [0..1] to MARC as _MarcData

on $projection.MaterialNumber = _MarcData.MATNR

{

key _Mara.MATNR as MaterialNumber,

_MarcData.WERKS as Plant

}