Writing SAP-Hybris Impex with Style !

Two things that drive us, software development addicts: enthusiasm and laziness… ANONYMOUS

The idea behind the current lab.

Impex is a Sap-hybris specific language in top of SQL to import/export data .

The lack of tools make things difficult when working with Impex, in fact some available options are :

• Web console offered by SAP-hybris:
  • Pros: Syntax highlighting, validation, execution.
  • Cons : requires a running instance of hybris, going out from eclipse, risking to loose all you work if the browser crashes.
• Excel or similar tools that could read and format CSV file:
  • Pros: Formatting that offers higher readability
  • Cons: no syntax highlighting, no validation and execution.
• Eclipse or similar IDE:
  • Pros: you stay focus on your IDE.
  • Cons: no formatting, no syntax highlighting, no validation and execution.

And guess what, Eclipse is The most used option ! developers choose it over other options , beacause it allow them to stay more focus.

Eclipse Plugin :

To boost my productivity and to be more focus while working withe impex on Eclipse, I decided to develop an Impex Editor.The plugin should bring the hybris web console features to eclipse. Still that all what I know about eclipse plugin development is some basic notions.

Learn by example:

I believe the best way to learn new things is to start with some theory, then jump to a practical example where the real wisdom is gained.

• A good theorical Article is Introduction To Eclipse Plugin Development.
• A good practical tutorial i found interesting is : Extending the Eclipse IDE - Plug-in development - Tutorial

I took as example the sample plugin project given by eclipse to create a xml editor .

Features of the plugin :

Syntax highlighting:

The Syntax highlighting feature uses the rule based scanner class, given a set of rules, the scanner consumes the impex file and evaluates each token. If the token matches a rule, the scanner exits with the corresponding properties.

The ruleset are based on the Hybris Impex syntax documentation

Before :

After :

Preferences of the plugins :

To give the more friendly user experience,i used the Preferences API to allow customisation.

I also possible to configure the connection parameters with hybris, this connection will be used to execute and validate the impex .

Detecting hyrbis Item and attributes :

The first time eclipse run, the plugin connect to the already configured running hybris instance, calls the Rest Webservice allItems , and allAttributes (exposed by hybris) and store the information to avoid calling the web service again.

I Implemented an action to refresh the already stored data definition, the action will allo detecting newly added Items or attributes.

A challenge and a new techniques acquired :

The web services exposed by hybris requires a registered hybris account and it’s secured against Cross-site request forgery.

To make a successful call the request should pass a crsf token, it’s associated with the connected account. and it’s stored on the HTML code of a response,so i had to use the jsoup library to retrieve its value.

• Make a first to login, the call return with a JSESSIONID, I store the JSESSIONID for a further call.
• Use jsoup with the stored JSESSIONID, and get the crsf token from the html.
• Make a Rest Call to retrieve the Items and attributes definition.

The coolest feature : Autocompletion .

The auto-completion is the most liked feature, since i have stored the data deffinition, this feature was easy to implement as well .

Install the plugin :

To install the plugin , just open your eclipse , click Help > Install New Software… and enter the URL http://eljoujat.github.io/updates/.

Or :

just copy the latest release from here impex editor relases to the dropins folder under eclipse directory , restart eclipse , and enjoy :)

What next:

Other features i’m working on are :

• Validate the impex with error markers.
• Execute the impex .
• Hyperlink features to easily locate where an Item is already valued from the same impex .
• Find usage Features, find all usage for the selected definied and selected item .
• Formatting .

Code Source Repos:

The code source repo is available here

“I believe that there is always an other way to do it, and i hope that you let me know .”