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Use

You must define the following for a table field in the ABAP Dictionary:

  • Field name - The field name can have a maximum of 16 places and can contain letters, digits and underscores. The field name must begin with a letter.
  • Key flag - Determines whether the field belongs to the table key.
  • Initial Value Indicator - Set this indicator if a field must have an initial value.
    Note

    When you create a table, all the fields in it are automatically assigned initial values (NOT NULL) irrespective of the value of the Initial Value indicator in the ABAP Dictionary. The same happens when you convert a table. It is only when you create or add new fields that they are not automatically assigned initial values (for performance reasons during update of the table). An exception to this is key fields, which are always given initial values.

    • Fields in the database can be set to initial values where this indicator is not set.
    • To determine whether a field on the database is defined as NOT NULL, you can check the corresponding table by choosing Utilities → Database Object → Display.

    The initial value depends on the data type of the field. For more information, see Overview of initial values for the external data types in the F1 help.

  • Field type - Data type of the field in the ABAP Dictionary.
  • Field length - Determines the number of valid places in the field.
  • Decimal places - The number of places after the decimal point, specifying numeric data types.
  • Short description - Short text describing the meaning of the field.

You can also include the fields of a structure in the table.

Features

You can assign the data type , length and short text in different ways:

  • You can directly assign to the field a data type, a field length (and, if necessary, decimal places) and a short text in the table definition.
  • You can assign a data element to the field. The data type, field length (and decimal places) are determined from the domain of the data element. The short description of the data element is assigned to the field as a short text.

Other assignment options are:

  • Check table:

    An input check for the field can be defined with a foreign key . This input check appears on all the screens in which the field is used.

  • Search help assignment:

    A search help can be assigned to a field. This search help defines the input help flow on all the screens in which the field is used.

  • Reference field and reference table :

    You must specify the table field in which the corresponding unit of measure or currency can be found for fields containing quantities (data type QUAN) or currency amounts (data type CURR).

See also:

Creating Tables