The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) is a framework of languages, libraries, and tools for building enterprise-grade services and applications. It guides developers along the "golden path" of proven best practices and plenty of out-of-the-box solutions for repetitive tasks.
Use Core Data and Services (CDS) to build data models and service definitions at the conceptual level. These CDS models are used as input to the data, service, and UI layers. They are then converted into native artifacts, such as SQL database schemas, and interpreted to automatically serve requests at runtime.
In summary, CDS serves as a business-level data definition source and generates artifacts in the persistence layer. It is used to define visual aspects related to data, and these definitions (annotations) define the UI layer. And used to generate the application service layer.
We provide seamless integration with the Cloud Foundry environment on SAP Business Technology Platform. This makes it easier for you to deploy applications and use platform services.
The programming model is compatible with any development environment, but we recommend SAP Business Application Studio.
The following diagram shows the relationship between CAP, SAP Business Technology Platform, platform services, and development tools:
cds
CDS is the backbone of the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP). It provides a way to declaratively capture service definitions and data models, queries and expressions in plain (JavaScript) object notation. CDS functions can be parsed from various source languages and compiled into various target languages.
CDS models are plain JavaScript objects conforming to Core Schema Notation (CSN - Core Schema Notation), an open specification derived from JSON Schema. You can easily create or interpret these models, which can facilitate extension by third-party contributions. Models are processed dynamically at runtime and can also be created dynamically.
The CAP Java SDK supports the development of SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) applications in Java. While SAP Business Application Studio provides excellent support for developing CAP Java applications, you can also use the tool of your choice for local development, such as Eclipse.
The CAP Java SDK supports lean application design through its modular architecture, which means you can select the features you need and add them to your application dependencies as needed.
It enables local development with support for in-memory or file-based SQLite databases. At the same time, the CAP Java SDK supports switching to a production environment, such as using SAP HANA as the database, simply by switching the application deployment configuration.