ABAP Keyword Documentation → ABAP - Reference → Declarations → Declaration Statements → Data Types and Data Objects → Types and Objects - Overview → Details of Special Data Types or Data Objects → Reference Types
Data References
Data references can point to any data objects or to their parts (components, rows of internal tables,
or sections determined by offset and length specifications). The static type of their reference variables
is either the predefined generic type data or any non-generic data type.
Data reference variables can be used in the statement
CREATE DATA to generate data objects dynamically. The statement
GET REFERENCE and the reference operator
REF can be used to write references to existing data objects in data
reference variables. When internal tables are processed, most statements have the addition REFERENCE INTO, to set references to table rows.
The dereferencing operator -> is used to access the data object to which
a data reference points. If the static type of the data reference variable is not generic, the expression
dref-> can be specified at any operand position. For data reference variables
with a generic static type, only the statement
ASSIGN dref ->* TO <fs> can be used to assign the data object (to which the data reference points) to a field symbol.
Data references can be heap references or stack references.
Other versions: 7.31 | 7.40 | 7.54