Do we have pointers in abap?

Question

Hi experts,
do we have pointers in abap as in C or C++.
my requirements is something like..
i have dynamic data i have to store that in an internal table's field , which is also decided at runtime.
all the suggestions are welcome.
Thanks,
Ashish

Answer 1

Hi Ashish,
Field symbols are similar to dereferenced pointers in C (that is, pointers to which the content operator * is applied). However, the only real equivalent of pointers in ABAP, that is, variables that contain a memory address (reference) and that can be used without the contents operator, are reference variables in ABAP Objects. (For more information, see Data References).
All operations programmed with field symbols are applied to the field assigned to it. For example, a MOVE statement between two field symbols moves the contents of the field assigned to the first field symbol to the field assigned to the second field symbol. The field symbols themselves point to the same fields after the MOVE statement as they did before.
You can create field symbols either without or with type specifications. If you do not specify a type, the field symbol inherits all of the technical attributes of the field assigned to it. If you do specify a type, the system checks the compatibility of the field symbol and the field you are assigning to it during the ASSIGN statement.
Field symbols provide greater flexibility when you address data objects:
If you want to process sections of fields, you can specify the offset and length of the field dynamically.
You can assign one field symbol to another, which allows you to address parts of fields.
Assignments to field symbols may extend beyond field boundaries. This allows you to address regular sequences of fields in memory efficiently.
You can also force a field symbol to take different technical attributes from those of the field assigned to it.
The flexibility of field symbols provides elegant solutions to certain problems. On the other hand, it does mean that errors can easily occur. Since fields are not assigned to field symbols until runtime, the effectiveness of syntax and security checks is very limited for operations involving field symbols. This can lead to runtime errors or incorrect data assignments.
While runtime errors indicate an obvious problem, incorrect data assignments are dangerous because they can be very difficult to detect. For this reason, you should only use field symbols if you cannot achieve the same result using other ABAP statements.
Before you can work with a field symbol, you must assign a data object to it. If you attach a structure to a field symbol, you assign a data object to it in the declaration. Untyped field symbols point to the predefined data object SPACE once the program starts. SPACE has type C and length 1. Typed field symbols do not point to any field before a data object is assigned to them.
During a program, you can assign data objects to field symbols at any time. You can also assign a series of different data objects to the same field symbol during a program.
To assign a data object to a field symbol, use the ASSIGN statement. The ASSIGN statement has several variants and parameters.
check this link for detailed description..
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_bw31/helpdata/en/fc/eb38c8358411d1829f0000e829fbfe/frameset.htm
regards,
Manikandan R