1. Select the object class Structure in the initial screen of the ABAP Dictionary, enter the structure name and choose Create.

The maintenance screen for structures appears.

2. Enter an explanatory short text in the field Short text.

Carry out the following steps for all the fields you want to include in the structure.

You can include structures as substructures instead of individual fields. The procedure here is described in Including substructures.

3. Enter a name for the structure field in the column Field name.

If you want to include the structure in a transparent table as a substructure, the field name may not have more than 16 places.

4. Enter the name of the type whose attributes should be used in the field in the field Type name. Any type (data element, structured type or table type) can be entered here.

You can also define fields by directly specifying the data type and length. Choose Edit ® Direct type entry. Values can now be entered in fields Type, Length, DecPlaces and Short text.

You can combine fields with direct type definitions and fields specified by a type reference as required.

You can switch by to entering type references with Edit ® Type reference.

5. The reference field and reference table must be specified for fields of type CURR (currency amount) and QUAN (quantity).

You can make these entries by scrolling to the right and entering these values in the fields Ref. table and Ref. field.

6. Now maintain the foreign keys of the structure.

Proceed as when maintaining the foreign keys of a table (see Creating Foreign Keys).

7. Save your entries once you have defined all the fields of the structure.

You are asked to assign the structure a development class.

8. Activate the structure with Structure ® Activate.

You can create information about using the structure with Goto ® Documentation. This documentation is also output when the structure is printed.

You can assign the structure a search help. This search help is offered on all the screen fields referring to this structure field when the input help (F4 help) is called (see Attaching Search Helps to Table Fields). Choose Goto ® Search help.

A dialog box appears. Enter the search help name and choose Continue. The system automatically makes a proposal for the assignment of the search help parameters to structure fields. An attempt is made to assign a structure field with the same domain to a search help parameter. If there is no such field, the assignment is open.

You can change the system proposal (except for the search field, that is the field to which the search help was assigned) by assigning a structure field with the same data type and same field length to a search help parameter.

The activation type defines whether the structure can be activated directly from the ABAP Dictionary, or whether the runtime object of the structure must first be generated with a C program. It is only important to define an activation type for structures of the runtime environment.

Choose Extras ® Activation type. A dialog box appears in which you can enter the required activation type.