Data Types

Data types are a subtree of the ABAP type hierarchy. Data types are only type descriptions. Data types do not have any attached memory for storing working data, but they may require space for administration information. A data type characterizes the technical properties of all data objects that have this type. In ABAP, data objects occur as attributes of data objects, but they can also be defined as stand-alone data types.

The definition of stand-alone data types is based on a set of predefined data types. Stand-alone data types can either be defined internally in the program using the statement TYPES in the global declaration section of a program, in the declaration section of a class, locally in procedures, or for all programs in the ABAP Dictionary. Data types in the ABAP Dictionary are either created directly as repository objects or in a type group.

Predefined and self-defined data types can be used to generate data objects and for typing. For the latter in particular, predefined generic data types are available. A generic data type is a data type that does not determined all the properties of a data object. Generic data types can only be used for typing formal parameters and field symbols.

Data types can be divided into elementary, reference, and complex types.

• Elementary types are 'atomic' in the sense that they are not composed of other types. They are further classified into elementary types of fixed length and of variable length.
  

• There are eight predefined elementary data types of fixed length in ABAP. There are four character-type types: text fields (c), numeric text fields (n), date fields (d), and time fields (t). There are three numeric types: Integer (i), floating point numbers (f), and packed numbers (p). Byte-like type: Byte fields (x). The data types c, n, x, and p are generic in terms of length. p is also generic in terms of the number of decimal places.
  

• There are two predefined elementary data types of variable length in ABAP. There is one character-type type: text string (string), and one byte-liker type: byte string (xstring).
  

• Reference types describe data objects that contain references to other objects (data objects and instances of classes), which are known as reference variables. There are no predefined reference types in ABAP. A reference type must either be defined in the ABAP program or in the ABAP Dictionary. Reference types form a hierarchy, which represents the hierarchy of the objects to which the references can point.
  

• Complex data types are composed of other types. They enable the administration and processing of semantically related datasets under one name. A data object of a complex type can be accessed overall or by component. With the exception of the structure sy, there are no predefined complex data types in ABAP. A complex type must either be defined in the ABAP program or in the ABAP Dictionary. There are two types of complex data type:
  

• A structured type is a sequence of any elementary reference or complex data types. Structures are used for grouping together work areas that logically belong together.
  

• Table types consist of a sequence of any number of lines of the same data type. Table types are characterized by a row type, which can be any elementary data type, a reference data type, or a complex data type. They are also characterized by the table type, which defines how tables can be accessed, and by a table key, which is used to identify the table rows.