User Guide

83
Data Editor
the general format dd-mmm-yy are displayed with dashes as delimiters and
three-lett
er abbreviations for the month. Dates of the general format dd/mm/yy
and mm/dd/yy are displayed with slashes for delimiters and numbers for the
month. Internally, dates are stored as the number of seconds from October 14,
1582. The ce
ntury range for dates with two-digit years is determined by your
Options settings (from the Edit menu, choose
Options and click the Data tab).
 For time formats, you can use colons, periods, or spaces as delimiters between
hours, minutes, and seconds. Times are displayed with colons as delimiters.
Internall
y, times are stored as the number of seconds from October 14, 1582.
Variable Labels
You can assign descriptive variable labels up to 256 characters long (128 characters
in double
-byte languages), and variable labels can contain spaces and reserved
characters not allowed in variable names.
To Specify Variable Labels
E Make the Data Editor the active window.
E Double-click a variable name at the top of the column in the Data view or click the
Variable
View
tab.
E Enter th
e descriptive variable label in the Label cell for the variable.
Value Labels
You can assign descriptive value labels for each value of a variable. This is
particu
larly useful if your data file uses numeric codes to represent non-numeric
categories (for example, codes of 1 and 2 for male and female).
 Value labels can be up to 60 characters long.
 Value labels are not available for long string variables (string variables longer
than8ch
aracters).