User Guide

82
Chapter 5
by E or D with an optional sign, or by the sign alone—for example, 123, 1.23E2,
1.23D2, 1.23E+2, and even 1.23+2.
Date. Anume
ric variable whose values are displayed in one of several calendar-date
or clock-time formats. Select a format from the list. You can enter dates with slashes,
hyphens, periods, commas, or blank spaces as delimiters. The century range for
two-digit y
ear values is determined by your Options settings (from the Edit menu,
choose
Options and click the Data tab).
Custom currency. A numeric variable whose values are displayed in one of the
custom cur
rency formats that you have defined in the Currency tab of the Options
dialog box. Defined custom currency characters cannot be used in data entry but are
displayed in the Data Editor.
String. Va
lues of a string variable are not numeric and therefore are not used in
calculations. They can contain any characters up to the defined length. Uppercase and
lowercase letters are considered distinct.Alsoknownasanalphanumericvariable.
To Define
Variable Type
E Click th
ebuttonintheType cell for the variable that you want to define.
E Select t
he data type in the Variable Type dialog box.
Input versus Display Formats
Depending on the format, the display of values in the Data view may differ from the
actual value as entered and stored internally. Following are some general guidelines:
 For numeric, comma, and dot formats, you can enter values with any number of
decimal positions (up to 16), and the entire value is stored internally. The Data
view dis
plays only the defined number of decimal places, and it rounds values
with more decimals. However, the complete value is used in all computations.
 For string variables, all values are right-padded to the maximum width. For a
string variable with a maximum width of three, a value of No is stored internally
as
'No '
and is not equivalent to 'No'.
 For dat
e formats, you can use slashes, dashes, spaces, commas, or periods as
delimiters between day, month, and year values, and you can enter numbers,
three-letter abbreviations, or complete names for month values. Dates of