To use the ALV, your program must work with instances of the ALV classes. For this, you require pointers to the objects (instances) that are generated and administered in the memory of the program. You manage these pointers in your ABAP program using reference variables.

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You use the DATA statement to define the reference variable in your program and assign a name for your reference variable. Use TYPE REF TO <class_name> to specify the type of the reference variable. Specify the name of a class after TYPE REF TO. The reference variable can then contain pointers to instances of this class.

 

The classes for the ALV Object Model are global, which means they were created with the Class Builder. They are globally visible.