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Debug Recording & Replay

⚠️ BETA FEATURE — Please report any issues.

Record a live ABAP debug session and replay it offline — forward and backward — like a DVR. No SAP connection needed during replay.

When is this useful?

  • You stepped too far and want to go back without restarting
  • You want to share a bug reproduction with a colleague
  • You need to analyse a complex execution path at your own pace

Recording a Session

Each step takes ~1–3 seconds longer than normal because the extension captures all variable data before SAP discards it.

  1. Start a debug session as usual (set breakpoints, attach to user/terminal)
  2. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) → ABAP: Start Debug Recording
  3. Step through your code normally — every step is captured
  4. Ctrl+Shift+P → ABAP: Stop Debug Recording
  5. At the prompt, choose Save (plain .abaprecord) or Compress & Save (.abaprecord.gz, ~80–95% smaller)

What is captured per step:

  • Full call stack with source references
  • All variables across all scopes (Local, Global, SY) — structures expanded, tables up to 2,000 rows
  • Source file contents for offline viewing

Replaying a Recording

  1. Ctrl+Shift+P → ABAP: Replay Debug Recording
  2. Select a .abaprecord or .abaprecord.gz file — both are handled automatically
  3. The replay session opens showing code, stack, and variables exactly as recorded

Replay controls:

Action Shortcut
Step forward (next snapshot) F7, F10, or F11
Step back (previous snapshot) Shift+F7 or Shift+F11
Jump to end F5 (Continue)
Jump to start Reverse Continue
Close session Terminate

In replay mode all three step buttons (Step Over / Into / Out) do the same thing: move to the next recorded snapshot.

You can inspect variables, expand structures, browse table rows, evaluate expressions, and hover over variables — all without a SAP connection.

Compression

Large sessions can produce files tens of MB in size. Use gzip to reduce storage and sharing size.

Command Description
ABAP: Compress Debug Recording Compress an existing .abaprecord → .abaprecord.gz
ABAP: Decompress Debug Recording Convert .abaprecord.gz back to plain JSON

After compression the extension shows the size reduction (e.g. 42 MB → 3.2 MB, 92% smaller). Both formats are fully interchangeable.

All Commands

Command Description
ABAP: Start Debug Recording Begin recording the active debug session
ABAP: Stop Debug Recording Stop and save (plain or compressed)
ABAP: Replay Debug Recording Open and replay a recording file
ABAP: Compress Debug Recording Compress an existing .abaprecord file
ABAP: Decompress Debug Recording Decompress a .abaprecord.gz file

Limitations

Limitation Detail
Table rows First 2,000 rows captured; remainder skipped (marked in replay)
Variable depth Structures/tables beyond 4 levels deep are not expanded
Source unavailable Shows [source unavailable] if caching failed during recording
No conditional breakpoints Replay only steps through what was recorded
Step speed ~1–3 seconds per step during recording (variable capture overhead)