ARTICLE
Visibility of Data Objects
Data objects are always declared locally in a program. In terms of
visibility , that is, their capacity to be addressed by name, a
data object in ABAP can have local, global, or cross-program
visibility.
Locally-visible data objects are created within a
procedure
using a declarative statement, and are visible within that
procedure after the point at which they are defined. A locally-visible
object with the same name as a globally-visible object will obscure the
global object within the procedure.
Globally-visible data objects are created within a program - that
is, anywhere but in a procedure, using a declarative statement other
than TABLES , NODES , and the addition COMMON PART
of the statement DATA .
They are visible within that program after the
point at which they are defined (as long as they are not obscured in a
procedure by a local data object with the same name).
A data object has cross-program visibility if it is defined
using TABLES , NODES ,
or DATA ... COMMON PART
in a program. It is visible globally within the program from the point
at which it is defined. In this respect, it is the same as a
globally-visible object. However, the object is also placed in the
cross-program memory that is shared at runtime by all programs of
a program group
that contain a corresponding data defintion.
Documentation extract taken from SAP system, � Copyright SAP AG. All rights reserved
