Display Value always 0 (zero).

No matter what value I place in $node_field[0]['value'] the result is always 0 (zero).

Initially i did this: $node_field[0]['value'] = $node->field_position_pta[0]['nid']; field_position_pta is a node reference.
I then did this: $display = $node_field_item['value'].

Thinking i may have coded incorrectly i tried the following:

$node_field[0]['value'] = '25';
$node_field[0]['value'] = "25";

$node_field[0]['value'] = 25;

each and every time the result was still 0 (zero).

I then tried: $display = $node_field[0]['value']. But ended up with no value displayed at all.

I set data type to int and data length to 4.

I cleared the cache each time i changed the code.