Note that the standard edit control used by XTREE does not have the sophistication to accept decimal points or minus signs without accepting other non-numeric digits, so adding "." or "-" to the # type effectively allows any character to be entered (like S or #S). However, the explicit use of the decimal point or minus sign in the cformat string makes the intent more clear, and since the implementation may be upgraded later, is therefore recommended when applicable. Also see the advanced coldef option Mask for further control over the formatting of the field.