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Concept

A data cluster is an ABAP-specific collection of data objects of any type in various transient memory media or in a special database table. Data clusters are defined and saved using the statement EXPORT and can be imported using the statement IMPORT.

A data cluster contains information about the byte order and character format (or code page) used in the import. In this way, data can be transported between systems.

Example

Saves and reconstructs an internal table using a data cluster.

               DATA: itab TYPE TABLE OF i,
      xbuffer TYPE xstring.
DO 10 TIMES.
  APPEND sy-index TO itab.
ENDDO.

EXPORT table = itab TO DATA BUFFER xbuffer.

CLEAR itab.

...

IMPORT table = itab FROM DATA BUFFER xbuffer.