Business Application Programming Interface

business, application, programming (BAPI) /bap'ee/ A set of

methods provided by an SAP business object.

Release 4.0 of SAP AG's R/3 system supports

object-oriented programming via an interface defined in

terms of objects and methods called BAPIs. For example if

a material object provides a function to check availability,

the corresponding SAP business object type "Material" might

provide a BAPI called "Material.CheckAvailability".

The definitions of SAP business objects and their BAPIs are

kept in an SAP business object repository. SAP provide

classes and libraries to enable a programming team to

build SAP applications that use business objects and BAPIs.

Supported environments include COM and Java.

The Open BAPI Network.

gives background information and lists objects and BAPIs.

(2002-08-30)