In certain situations, data declarations can be performed inline.

LOOP AT lt_sflight INTO DATA(ls_sflight).
    WRITE ls_sflight-carrid.
ENDLOOP.

DATA begda TYPE sy-datum.

DATA: begda TYPE sy-datum,
      endda TYPE sy-datum.

When using an inline data declaration inside of a SELECT...ENDSELECT block or SELECT SINGLE statement, the @ character must be used as an escape character for the DATA(lv_cityto) expression. Once the escape character has been used, all further host variables must also be escaped (as is the case with lv_carrid below).

DATA lv_carrid TYPE s_carr_id VALUE 'LH'.
SELECT SINGLE cityto FROM spfli
       INTO @DATA(lv_cityto)
       WHERE carrid = @lv_carrid
       AND   connid = 2402.
WRITE: / lv_cityto.

Outputs BERLIN.

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