Table
Types
Use
You use a table type to describe the structure and functional attributes of an internal table in ABAP. In ABAP programs you can reference a table type TTYP defined in the ABAP Dictionary with the command DATA <inttab> TYPE TTYP. You create an internal table <inttab> in the program with the attributes defined for TTYP in the ABAP Dictionary.
A table type is defined by:
● its line type that defines the structure and data type attributes of a line of the internal table
● the options for managing and accessing the data (access mode) in the internal table
● the primary key (see key definition and key category) and the secondary keys (optional) of the internal table. For more information, see Secondary Keys for Table Types.
The row type is defined by directly entering the data type, length and number of decimal places or by referencing a data element, structured type (structure, table or view) or other table type. The row type can also be a reference type. You can see an example of row types in the figure below.
Table type TABTYPE shown in the graphic can be used with the statement DATA <name> TYPE TABTYPE in ABAP programs to define an internal table <name>.
A local type <name> that takes on the attributes of type TABTYPE can be defined in the program with TYPES <name> TYPE TABTYPE.
A special case of table types are the ranges table types.
See also: