SPSS Data Types
SPSS supports numeric and string data. There are several formats on top of numeric data that impact visualization, not storage. These include dates and times.
Numeric Data
Numeric data is stored as double-precision floating point. Data formats adjust the printed/ exported representation of a data point, often only truncating the value. Adjusting these data formats does not destroy precision.
Given 123.45...
General Format |
Format |
Representation |
Fw |
F8 |
123 |
Fw.d |
F8.1 |
123.4 |
Nw |
N8 |
00000123 |
Nw.d |
N8.1 |
000123.4 |
Date and Time Formats
See here for more details on date, time, and datetime data.
Format |
Representation |
DATETIME20 |
dd-MMM-yyyy hh:mm:ss |
DATETIME17 |
dd-MMM-yyyy hh:mm |
DATE11 |
dd-MMM-yyyy |
DATE9 |
dd-MMM-yy |
TIME8 |
hh:mm:ss |
TIME5 |
hh:mm |
ADATE10 |
mm/dd/yyyy |
Note that MMM appears as JAN, not 001.
String Data
String data is stored at a fixed length. This length is defined and adjusted through the format; Aw where w is the width.