Data Types

Setting a Column's Data Type

When you first create a dataset, the data entry form looks like this:

Notice the 'type' row. Each datacolumn has a ‘type’, which in this case is unknown. When you type some data into the column, Plot-O-Matic does its best to detect the type of data that you are entering. If you enter something like 12:30 or April 17, 2004, Plot-O-Matic will detect that you have entered a date and a time.

The data types supported are numbers, times, dates and date/times. If you float your mouse over the type, you can ask Plot-O-Matic to re-detect the data type.

Once a column's type is known, Plot-O-Matic will let you know if you enter data of the wrong type by putting a red outline around the offending cell and making the type text red:

Constraints on Graphing Date/Time Data

There are some constraints on how you use this. You can’t plot different data types on the same axis or set the axis type to log for non-numeric data type. If you do, you will get an error like:

Type conflict - You have mixed data types on the y1 axis.

Type conflict - You have tried to plot time data on a log axis (on axis y1)

Formats

Here is a list of the formats supported:

Numeric

Integers	1, 45034 and -32
Decimal numbers	1.3, -45232.323 and 0.00023
Exponential notation	1.3E23, -0.33E-32

You can also use a comma instead of a period for the decimal separator

Dates

yyyy/mm/dd yyyy-mm-dd	1999/03/21 1945-11-23
dd/mm/yyyy dd-mm-yyyy	21/03/1999 23-11-1945
mmm dd, yyyy	Mar 14, 1945 or February 12, 1999

Times

hh:mm	12:23, 9:45 AM, 3:30 PM
hh:mm:ss	12:23:54, 9:45:32 AM

Date/Time

Any combination of the Date and Time formats above, with date first and then time.

1999/03/21 9:45 AM

May 12, 2003 18:45:00

23-10-1994 10:32