Raptor21 SAP RFC for Python

Typed access to SAP tables from Python, over the RFC_READ_TABLE family.

The Python port of Raptor21.SAP.RFC, beside its JVM and Node siblings. The wire behaviour is the .NET library's, deliberately: everything measured there against live systems is recorded as conformance fixtures, and this runtime's suite asserts the same envelopes, the same response parses and the same OPTIONS splits, byte for byte. SAP archived its own pyrfc connector in 2024; this library needs no SAP SDK at all — the transport is the system's generic SOAP RFC endpoint, spoken through urllib.

import datetime
from raptor21_sap_rfc import SapClient, SapDestination
from sap.kna1 import Kna1

sap = SapClient.connect(SapDestination(
    name="S4",
    base_url="https://s4.example.com:44300",
    user="READER",
    password=password,
    client="100",
))

customers = (
    sap.query(Kna1.ENTITY)
    .where(Kna1.Columns.LAND1.eq("TR") & Kna1.Columns.ERDAT.ge(datetime.date(2024, 1, 1)))
    .select(Kna1.Columns.KUNNR, Kna1.Columns.NAME1, Kna1.Columns.ORT01)
    .take(5)
    .list()
)

where is sent as SAP's OPTIONS clause and select as its field list, so filtering and projection happen in SAP rather than after the rows arrive. A condition SAP cannot answer correctly is refused while the query is built, never silently: a filter on a column whose conversion exit depends on the system's own customising raises instead of returning confident, wrong rows. For large reads, for row in query.stream(): pages with the measured ROWCOUNT rules.

How values are represented

• DEC, CURR, QUAN — decimal.Decimal. Exact at any width, which is the whole point; a float would misread the wide ones. Currency scaling — a stored yen 10.00 really being ¥1000 — shifts the exponent, exactly.
• INT1 through INT8 — int. Arbitrary precision; nineteen digits are just an int.
• DATS, TIMS — datetime.date / datetime.time, None for never-set. SAP's end-of-day 240000 reads as END_OF_DAY (time.max) and renders back as 240000, so it round-trips.
• Timestamps — timezone-aware datetime.datetime in UTC. One honest cost, stated rather than hidden: datetime holds microseconds and the long form holds seven fractional digits, so the last digit is truncated on read; row.get_raw still hands over the stored text unconverted.
• RAW — bytes.

Getting the classes

Kna1 above is generated. The scaffolder ships with the .NET package and gained a Python target:

dotnet <package>/tools/net10.0/Raptor21.SAP.RFC.Tool.dll scaffold \
    --tables KNA1,TVKO --target python --out sap

One scaffolder for every language on purpose. The Data Dictionary pipeline — one round trip per table, conversion exits, reference fields, the domain test that tells a timestamp from a quantity — lives once, and each language is only a renderer at the end of it. The generated file is ordinary source: read it, review it, commit it.

No .NET on the machine? The same tool ships as a native, self-contained binary (~7 MB) on each release of the .NET repository — raptor21-sap-rfc-tool-<platform> under releases; download the one for your platform and run it directly with the same arguments, no runtime required.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer. No dependencies: the transport is urllib, the values are decimal and datetime.
• A SAP system whose SOAP RFC endpoint (/sap/bc/soap/rfc) is reachable, and a user with S_RFC authorisation for the table-reading function modules.

Building

set PYTHONPATH=src        # or: export PYTHONPATH=src
python -m unittest discover -s tests

python scripts/sync_conformance.py refreshes the conformance snapshot from a sibling Raptor21.SAP.RFC checkout; the suite fails when the sibling is present and the snapshot is stale.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE.

Raptor21 SAP RFC is an independent, community-developed library. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by SAP SE. SAP, SAP S/4HANA and ABAP are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. This library is designed for use with SAP software and is not an SAP product.