Different types of variables may be declared with special options.
DATA: lv_string TYPE string, " standard declaration
lv_char TYPE c, " declares a character variable of length 1
lv_char5(5) TYPE c, " declares a character variable of length 5
l_packed TYPE p LENGTH 10 DECIMALS 5 VALUE '1234567890.123456789'. " evaluates to 1,234,567,890.12346