SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Release 740, ©Copyright 2014 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
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.