Create a CAP-Based Application

1. Open a command line window.

2. Navigate to your tutorial root directory.

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   cd <tutorial root directory>
   

3. Switch to your project root folder.

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   cd cpapp
   

4. Create an initial CAP project by executing the command cds init.

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   cds init
   

5. Open the project in VS Code.

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   code .
   

   The project looks like this in VS Code:

   

6. In VS Code choose Terminal → New Terminal from its menu.

   A new terminal opens in the lower right part of the VS Code screen.

7. In the VS Code terminal, run the following command.

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   npm install
   

8. In the VS Code terminal, start a CAP server.

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   cds watch
   

   In case you get the error: cds : File <npmIstallDirectory>\cds.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system. after you run cds watch

   You can run the command:

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   Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope CurrentUser
   

   This will change the script execution policy for your user to Bypass directly from the VS Code terminal. To learn more about execution policies, see About Execution Policies.

   The CAP server serves all the CAP sources from your project. It also “watches” all the files in your projects and conveniently restarts whenever you save a file. Changes you have made will immediately be served without you having to do anything.

   The screen now looks like this:

   

   The CAP server tells you that there is no model yet that it can serve. You add one in the next step.

1. Open the Finder on Mac or the Explorer on Windows and navigate to the tutorial directory created in tutorial Prepare Your Development Environment for CAP.

2. Open the folder templates and keep it open as you copy a number of files from there. For this part of the tutorial and others, it’s probably best if you place it next to your VS Code instance.

   

   Alternatively, you can open it as a second folder in your VS Code project: File → Add Folder to Workspace….

3. Copy the file schema.cds from templates/create-cap-application/db to the db folder of your app.

   This is the code:

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   namespace sap.ui.riskmanagement;
   using { managed } from '@sap/cds/common';
     entity Risks : managed {
       key ID      : UUID  @(Core.Computed : true);
       title       : String(100);
       prio        : String(5);
       descr       : String;
       miti        : Association to Mitigations;
       impact      : Integer;
       criticality : Integer;
     }
     entity Mitigations : managed {
       key ID       : UUID  @(Core.Computed : true);
       description  : String;
       owner        : String;
       timeline     : String;
       risks        : Association to many Risks on risks.miti = $self;
     }
   

   It creates two entities in the namespace sap.ui.riskmanagement: Risks and Mitigations. Each of them has a key called ID and several other properties. A Risk has a Mitigation and, therefore, the property miti has an association to exactly one Mitigation. A Mitigation in turn can be used for many Risks, so it has a “to many” association. The key is automatically filled by the CAP server, which is exposed to the user of the service with the annotation @(Core.Computed : true).

   Notice how the CAP server reacted to dropping the file. It now tells you that it has a model but there are no service definitions yet and, thus, it still can’t serve anything. Next, you add a service definition.

4. Copy the file risk-service.cds from templates/create-cap-application/srv to the srv folder of your app.

   The content of the file looks like this:

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   using { sap.ui.riskmanagement as my } from '../db/schema';
   @path: 'service/risk'
   service RiskService {
     entity Risks as projection on my.Risks;
       annotate Risks with @odata.draft.enabled;
     entity Mitigations as projection on my.Mitigations;
       annotate Mitigations with @odata.draft.enabled;
   }
   

   It creates a new service RiskService in the namespace sap.ui.riskmanagement. This service exposes two entities: Risks and Mitigations, which are exposing the entities of the database schema you’ve created in the step before.

   If you again look at the terminal, you see that the CAP server has noticed the new file and now tells us that it serves something under http://localhost:4004.

5. In your browser open the link http://localhost:4004.

   

   You may have to stop the CAP server with Ctrl + C and restart it with the cds watch command.

6. Choose the $metadata link.

   You see the OData metadata document of your new service. So, with just the two files for the database schema and the service exposure you added to your project, you have already got a running OData service! You might wonder why the service itself is called risk even though in the file it’s called RiskService. This is a convention in CAP, the service suffix is subtracted from the name.

   If you now choose the Risks link, you only get this:

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   {
       @odata.context: "$metadata#Risks",
       value: [ ]
   }
   

   So, there’s no data yet. This is because so far, your model doesn’t contain any data. You add some now.

7. Copy the folder data from templates/create-cap-application/db to the db folder of your app. If VS Code asks you whether to copy the folder, confirm.

   You have now added two comma-separated value (CSV) files that contain local data for both the Risks and the Mitigations entities. A quick look into the sap.ui.riskmanagement-Risks.csv (the name consists of your namespace and the name of your database entity from the schema.cds file) file shows data like this:

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   ID;createdAt;createdBy;title;prio;descr;miti_id;impact
   20466922-7d57-4e76-b14c-e53fd97dcb11;2021-04-27;max.mustermann@muster.com;CFR non-compliance;Fred Fish;3;Recent restructuring might violate CFR code 71;20466921-7d57-4e76-b14c-e53fd97dcb11;10000
   ...
   

   The first line contains all the properties from your Risks entity. While the other ones are straight forward, consider the miti_id property. In your entity, you only have a miti property, so where does it come from? miti is an association to Mitigations, as Mitigations could have several key properties, the association on the database needs to point to all of these, therefore the CAP server creates a property <AssociationProperty>_<AssociatedEntityKey> for each key.

   As always, the CAP server has noticed the change.

   You may have to stop the CAP server with Ctrl + C and restart it with the cds watch command.

8. Revisit the Risks entity http://localhost:4004/service/risk/Risks in your browser. You now see the data exposed.

   

   The Risks entity looks different?

   When you revisit the Risks entity, you might see something like this instead of the nicely-formatted output above.
   

   

   
   However, this doesn’t mean you have made a mistake in the tutorial. Rather, this is the correct output without any formatting. If you’d like to see a formatted output in your browser, you can add a plugin to your browser. Here are a few exemplary JSON formatters for different browsers:

   • Chrome
   • Microsoft Edge
   • Safari

And that’s it. You now have a full blown OData service, which complies to the OData standard and supports the respective queries without having to code anything but the data model and exposing the service itself.

The service is completely exposed without any authentication or authorization check. You extend the service later in the tutorial Implement Roles and Authorization Checks In CAP with such checks.

The result of this tutorial can be found in the create-cap-application branch.