ABAP Data Types and Constants

January 2, 2011 v ABAP Tutorial 28

Data Type describes the technical characteristics of a Variable of that type. Data type is just the blue print of a variable.

Predefined ABAP Types

Data Type Description Default Length Default Value
C Character 1 ‘ ‘
N Numeric 1 0
D Date 8 00000000
T Time 6 000000
X Hexa Decimal 1 X’0′
I Integer 4 0
P Packed 8 0
F Float 8 0

User defined data types
Use TYPES keyword to define the data types.

TYPES: name(10) TYPE c,
       length   TYPE p DECIMALS 2,
       counter  TYPE i,
       id(5)    TYPE n.

Structured data types

Structured data type is grouping of several simple data types under one name.

Use the keywords BEGIN OF and END OF to create a structured data type.

TYPES: BEGIN OF student,
        id(5)     TYPE n,
        name(10)  TYPE c,
        dob       TYPE d,
        place(10) TYPE c,
        END OF student.

Constants

Constants are used to store a value under a name. We must specify the value when we declare a constant and the value cannot be changed later in the program.

Use CONSTANTS keyword to declare a constant.

CONSTANTS: pi  TYPE p DECIMALS 2 VALUE '3.14',
           yes TYPE c VALUE 'X'.

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  12. its really easy to understand things from here for newbie Abaper but If the output of given user defined data types also shown here,it will be a great help as i am not able to understand the structured data type ,how it look like.

  18. Your blog is very nice. I have gone through the entire material. Really appreciating your effort. I would like to add one small point to this tutorial. While declaring constants it is not mandatory to specify the value and the value can be changed during our program. At any point of time it contains one value.

  23. X Hexa Decimal 1 X’0′
    I checked in ABAP and found that a Hexadecimal variable was able to store 2 hex characters.
    For example,
    TYPES: HexValue type X.
    DATA: value type HexValue.

    value = ‘FF’.
    WRITE value.

    It is printing ‘FF’. So does that mean the length of a Hexadecimal variable is 2?

  24. Additional Info :
    Difference between float and packed.
    packed – rounds the decimal value to the next whole integer.
    89.88 becomes 90.

    float – holds the exact value assigned to it.
    89.88 remains 8.9879999999999995E+1

  25. can u elaborate more aout user defined data types ,
    coz as per java we array structures union as userdefined data types,
    so in ABAP do we have similar data types

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