Input versus display formats

Depending on the format, the display of values in 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 displays only the defined number of decimal places and 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 date 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 the general format dd-mmm-yy are displayed with dashes as delimiters and three-letter 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 century range for dates with two-digit years is determined by your Options settings (from the Edit menu, choose Options, and then 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. Internally, times are stored as a number of seconds that represents a time interval. For example, 10:00:00 is stored internally as 36000, which is 60 (seconds per minute) x 60 (minutes per hour) x 10 (hours).