In its default form, list input places several restrictions on the types of data that can be read.

• Missing data values must be specified with a period (.) for both character and numeric data.
  
  
• Although the width of a field can be greater than eight columns, both character and numeric variables have a default length of 8. Character values longer than eight characters will be truncated.
  
  
• Data must be in standard numeric or character format.
  
  
• Character values cannot contain embedded blanks.