Data Files may be created using the Data Editor or by using a spreadsheet or word processor or other software.
Files are read and saved as standard ASCII text files. These files contain only characters codes. When creating a file using software such as a word processor or spreadsheet, you must use the File|Save As... and select the option to save the files as a "*.txt" file type.
The Data Editor will use tabs, or commas, or spaces to delimit (separate) values. It will first check for tabs, then for commas, and then for spaces to create the data file.
Tabs are the most preferred method for delimiting text in a Windows environment. This allows text to be copied and pasted into Windows spreadsheets.
The program will ask if you wish to treat double tabs or commas as missing values. If you have missing values you may enter codes to flag those numbers as missing, or you may simply enter two tabs or commas in a row.
If creating a data file with another Windows software package, highlight the data in your program and select Edit|Copy. This will copy the data to the Windows Clipboard. Variables names can be copied and pasted as well. Within the Data Editor, move to the starting destination cell and select Edit|Paste. See Cutting, Copying and Pasting.
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A character uses one byte of data. Computers store information in bytes which can be a number between 0 and 255. The ASCII standard has assigned characters to values between 0 and 127 and was originally developed as a means of communication between computers and to devices such as printers.
For some examples, codes 0 through 31 are control codes, such as line feeds, formfeeds. and carriage returns. Code 32 is a space. Codes 48 through 57 are the numbers 0 through 9. Capital letters are found in the range of 65 to 90.