title: Process of scanning, parsing and compiling ABAP sources?
body: <p>This is a rather technical question about the compilation process of
  ABAP code.</p>
  
  <p>I know that there are ABAP parser and scanner classes that actually
  call C kernel functions to do the real work. Then there is code completion
  functionality with a transaction that returns and prints the AST (abstract source tree) of a program as ABAP list or XML.</p>
  
  <p>Now my question is: would it be possible to 'skip' the ABAP source
  code and directly produce such an AST by other means than writing and then executing an
  ABAP program in SE80 or so, and give it to some function that compiles and
  executes it as if it had been written in and parsed from ABAP code?</p>
  
  <p>That is, can I skip scanning and parsing of sources and directly give
  an AST to the compiler? If so, in what format? ABAP lists look more
  a printing format, not like e.g. Lisp lists surrounded by parentheses.</p>