node-rfc

Asynchronous, non-blocking SAP NetWeaver RFC SDK client bindings for Node.js, providing convenient ABAP business logic consumption from Node.js.

Key features

Based on N-API standard
Stateless and stateful connections (multiple function calls in the same ABAP session (same context))
Async/await, promise and callback API
ECMAScript, TypeScript
Sequential and parallel calls, using one or more clients
Automatic conversion between NodeJS and ABAP datatypes
Direct and managed connections (connection pool)
Throughput monitoring: number of calls, bytes sent/received, application/total time; SAP NWRFC SDK >= 7.53 required
Usage examples & code-snippets: SAP-samples/node-rfc-samples

Content

Supported Platforms
Requirements
Download and installation
Getting started
Usage
- Authentication
- sapnwrfc.ini
- Client
- Connection Pool
- Throughput
API
- Connection Pool
- Client
- Throughput
Troubleshooting
More resource and info about SAP Connectors and RFC communication
Code of Conduct
Contributing
License

Supported platforms

Current and active nodejs LTS releases
The node-rfc connector can be built from source on all platforms supported both by SAP NW RFC SDK and by nodejs
Pre-built binaries are provided for active nodejs LTS releases, for 64 bit Windows 10, macOS 10.15 and Centos 7 based docker container

Other platforms and frameworks:

SAP Cloud Platform, AWS Lambdas, heroku ...
- Create SAP feature request for Security Services category of the SAP Cloud Platform – Platform Foundation
Electron
- Feature request: #144
- Experimental work: SAP-samples/node-rfc-samples/frameworks/electron-quick-start
NW.js
- Feature request: #144
- SAP-samples/node-rfc-samples/frameworks/nwjs-quick-start
Node-RED
- Feature requests: #161 and #148
- Experimental work: PaulWieland/node-red-contrib-saprfc
Sails JS

Requirements

All platforms

SAP NW RFC SDK C++ binaries must be downloaded (SAP partner or customer account required) and locally installed. Check installation instructions and SAP NW RFC SDK section on SAP Support Portal. Using the latest version is reccomended as SAP NW RFC SDK is fully backwards compatible, supporting all NetWeaver systems, from today S4, down to R/3 release 4.6C.
Build toolchain requires CMake
Build from source on older Linux systems, may require uchar.h file, attached to SAP OSS Note 2573953, to be copied to SAP NW RFC SDK include directory.

Linux

Build toolchain is based on Centos 7 with devtools-8, following the standard NodeJS build toolchain
Docker container: SAP/fundamental-tools/docker

Windows

Visual C++ Redistributable is required for runtime. The version is given in SAP Note 2573790 - Installation, Support and Availability of the SAP NetWeaver RFC Library 7.50
Build toolchain requires Microsoft C++ Build Tools, the latest version reccomended

macOS

Remote paths must be set in SAP NWRFC SDK for macOS: documentation
When the node-rfc is started for the first time, the popups come-up for each NWRFC SDK library, to confirm it should be opened. If SDK is installed in admin folder, the node-rfc app shall be that first time started with admin privileges, eg. sudo -E

Download and Installation

More info: Installation

❗ The build from source requires NodeJS release with minimum N-API version given in package.json property "napi_versions": NodeJS/N-API version matrix.

After the SAP NW RFC SDK is installed on your system, the node-rfc can be installed from npm:

npm install node-rfc

Alternatively, when the node-rfc package is not provided for your platform for example, you can build the package from source:

git clone --single-branch https://github.com/SAP/node-rfc.git
cd node-rfc
npm install
npm run addon # rebuild native addon
npm run ts    # rebuild typescript wrapper

Getting started

See Usage and API, also SAP NWRFC SDK 7.50 Programming Guide

In order to call remote enabled ABAP function module, we need to create a node-rfc client instance with valid logon credentials, connect to SAP ABAP NetWeaver system and then invoke a remote enabled ABAP function module from nodejs. Async example below shows basic principles and you can check the documentationand unit tests for more examles.

Add your ABAP system destintion to sapnwrfc.ini file in your working directory:

DEST=MME
USER=demo
PASSWD=welcome
ASHOST=myhost
SYSNR=00
CLIENT=620
LANG=EN

Connection parameters are documented in sapnwrfc.ini file, located in the SAP NWRFC SDK demo folder. Check also section 4.1.2 Using sapnwrfc.ini of SAP NWRFC SDK 7.50 Programming Guide

Call the ABAP RFM. When in doubt about RFM parameters' structure try abap call CLI tool of SAP/fundamental-tools

Direct client

const noderfc = require("node-rfc");

const client = new noderfc.Client({ dest: "MME" });

(async () => {
    try {
        // unlike the connection acquired from pool,
        // the direct client connection is initially closed
        await client.open();

        // invoke ABAP function module, passing structure and table parameters

        // ABAP structure
        const abap_structure = {
            RFCINT4: 345,
            RFCFLOAT: 1.23456789,
            RFCCHAR4: "ABCD",
            RFCDATE: "20180625", // ABAP date format
            // or RFCDATE: new Date('2018-06-25'), // as JavaScript Date object, with clientOption "date"
        };
        // ABAP table
        let abap_table = [abap_structure];

        const result = await client.call("STFC_STRUCTURE", {
            IMPORTSTRUCT: abap_structure,
            RFCTABLE: abap_table,
        });

        // check the result
        console.log(result);
    } catch (err) {
        // connection and invocation errors
        console.error(err);
    }
})();

Managed client

const noderfc = require("node-rfc");

const pool = new noderfc.Pool({ connectionParameters: { dest: "MME" } });

(async () => {
    try {
        // get a client connection instance
        const client = await pool.acquire();

        // invoke ABAP function module, passing structure and table parameters

        // ABAP structure
        const abap_structure = {
            RFCINT4: 345,
            RFCFLOAT: 1.23456789,
            RFCCHAR4: "ABCD",
            RFCDATE: "20180625", // ABAP date format
            // or RFCDATE: new Date('2018-06-25'), // as JavaScript Date object, with clientOption "date"
        };
        // ABAP table
        let abap_table = [abap_structure];

        const result = await client.call("STFC_STRUCTURE", {
            IMPORTSTRUCT: abap_structure,
            RFCTABLE: abap_table,
        });

        // check the result
        console.log(result);
    } catch (err) {
        // connection and invocation errors
        console.error(err);
    }
})();

Finally, the connection is closed automatically when the instance is deleted by the garbage collector or by explicitly calling the client.close() method of the direct client, or client.release() or pool.release() for the managed client.

More resource and info about ABAP Connectors and RFC Communication

Highly reccomended series of three insightful articles about RFC communication and SAP NW RFC Library, published in the SAP Professional Journal (SPJ):

and more:

SAP NWRFC SDK 7.50 Programming Guide
ABAP Connectors
SAP NWRFC SDK
node-addon-api

Known Issues

NAPI Type checks nodejs/node-addon-api/#265

How to obtain support

If you encounter an issue or have a feature request, you can create a ticket.

Check out the SCN Forum (search for "node-rfc") and stackoverflow (use the tag "node-rfc"), to discuss code-related problems and questions.

Contributing

We appreciate contributions from the community to node-rfc! See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details on our philosophy around extending this module.

arifwidianto08 / node-rfc