Avoid Obsolete Control Flow and Procedural Forms

WarningAnti-Patterns & Bad Practices#EC NO_OBS_CONTROLRemote Enabled

Overview

Obsolete Control Flow and Procedural Statements.

ATC Finding Message: Avoid obsolete control flow (FORM, AT NEW, BREAK, DEFINE, etc.)

Rationale

Subroutines (FORM / PERFORM), macro definitions (DEFINE), hardcoded break points (BREAK-POINT / BREAK), control break statements (AT NEW, AT END, ON CHANGE OF, SUM), and SET EXTENDED CHECK belong to legacy procedural programming. They lack proper scope isolation, cause unpredictable side effects, and are completely prohibited in modern ABAP Cloud. Encapsulate all logic within methods, modern LOOP GROUP BY syntax, and unit tests.

Non-Compliant

PERFORM calculate_total USING lv_subtotal.
AT NEW order_id.
  SUM.
ENDAT.

Compliant

calculate_total( iv_subtotal = lv_subtotal ).
LOOP AT lt_orders INTO DATA(ls_order) GROUP BY ls_order-order_id ...

Configuration & Thresholds

This check can be fine-tuned directly in the ATC Check Variant Editor (CHKV) in Eclipse ADT:

Parameter Name	Data Type	Default Value	Description & Guidance
CHECK_FORM	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete PERFORM / FORM subroutine routines
CHECK_LOOP_CTL	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete control break statements (ON CHANGE OF, EXIT FROM STEP-LOOP)
CHECK_BREAK	Boolean	true	Detect unconditioned BREAK-POINT statements in non-test code
CHECK_DEFINE	Boolean	true	Detect DEFINE macro declarations
CHECK_TEST_SEAMS	Boolean	true	Detect TEST-SEAM injection blocks in production logic
CHECK_CATCH_SYSTEM	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete CATCH SYSTEM-EXCEPTIONS syntax
CHECK_SET_EXT_CHECK	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete SET EXTENDED CHECK statements
CHECK_SELECT_NO_INTO	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete SELECT without INTO statements
CHECK_EXIT_SQL	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete EXIT FROM SQL statements
CHECK_SORT_BY_FS	Boolean	true	Detect obsolete dynamic SORT BY field symbol syntax

Suppression

To suppress findings for this rule, append the pseudo-comment to the statement:

" Standard pseudo-comment:
... "#EC NO_OBS_CONTROL

" SAP CI_ prefix format:
... "#EC CI_NO_OBS_CONTROL

Related Rules

• Avoid Obsolete Arithmetic and Assignment Statements — #EC NO_OBS_ARITH
• Avoid Obsolete Declarations and Table Headers — #EC NO_OBS_DECL
• Avoid Obsolete ABAP Memory and Context Statements — #EC NO_OBS_MEMORY

Technical Details

• Native ATC Class: ZCL_SKYLINT_NO_OBS_CONTROL
• Implementation File: zcl_skylint_no_obs_control.clas.abap