*SPSS syntax example by www.spss-tutorials.com.
*Approach 1: don't convert string to numeric.
data list free/id(a4).
begin data
1 2 3 4 10 243 5427
end data.
*Increase length of string so left padded numbers will fit into it.
alter type id(a10).
*Keep adding a leading zero to values until they contain 10 characters.
loop.
compute id = concat('0',rtrim(id)).
end loop if char.length(id) = 10.
execute.
*Done with approach 1.
*Approach 2: convert string to numeric.
data list free/id(a4).
begin data
1 2 3 4 10 243 5427
end data.
*Convert to numeric.
alter type id(f4).
*Check whether no system missings occur due to ALTER TYPE.
descriptives id.
*Show numbers with leading zeroes.
formats id(n10).
*Done with approach 2.