Data conversion for pasted values in the data editor

If the defined variable types of the source and target cells are not the same, the Data Editor attempts to convert the value. If no conversion is possible, the system-missing value is inserted in the target cell.

Converting numeric or date into string. Numeric (for example, numeric, dollar, dot, or comma) and date formats are converted to strings if they are pasted into a string variable cell. The string value is the numeric value as displayed in the cell. For example, for a dollar format variable, the displayed dollar sign becomes part of the string value. Values that exceed the defined string variable width are truncated.

Converting string into numeric or date. String values that contain acceptable characters for the numeric or date format of the target cell are converted to the equivalent numeric or date value. For example, a string value of 25/12/91 is converted to a valid date if the format type of the target cell is one of the day-month-year formats, but the value is converted to system-missing if the format type of the target cell is one of the month-day-year formats.

Converting date into numeric. Date and time values are converted to a number of seconds if the target cell is one of the numeric formats (for example, numeric, dollar, dot, or comma). Because dates are stored internally as the number of seconds since October 14, 1582, converting dates to numeric values can yield some extremely large numbers. For example, the date 10/29/91 is converted to a numeric value of 12,908,073,600.

Converting numeric into date or time. Numeric values are converted to dates or times if the value represents a number of seconds that can produce a valid date or time. For dates, numeric values that are less than 86,400 are converted to the system-missing value.