Built-in elementary data types and complex data types

ABAP contains a range of built-in elementary data types: Character (text), Numerical character (number string), Date, Time Integer, Floating point number, Packed number, and HeX code). Some of these data types are fully types (D, T, I, F), others (C, N, P, X) are generic, in the sense that you must provide further type information (length, for type p also the number of decimal places) when you create the data object (DATA).

In addition to the elementary data types C and X, which always refer to a fixed-length memory area (to be specified when the data objects are created), there are two corresponding data types with dynamic memory management. Their length is automatically adjusted to the requirements of the data object to be stored. These types are character strings (STRING and) byte sequences (XSTRING).

In addition to the elementary data types, ABAP provides two options to create complex data types:

• By combining components of any type to form a structure (record).

• By using a line of any type to form an internal table.

You can use structures and internal tables to create both complex data types and directly to create complex data objects.