1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.3.0:
9 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
10 invalid syntax has been fixed.
12 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
14 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
15 rarely printed on paper.
19 - New support to decrypt encrypted viewer (SPV) files. The
20 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
21 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
24 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
25 encrypted file's password.
27 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
29 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
31 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
32 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
34 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
35 one or more plots are requested.
37 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
38 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
40 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
41 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
42 from the cluster centre to the active file.
44 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
46 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
47 a filter was set has been fixed.
49 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
52 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
54 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
55 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
60 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
64 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
66 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
68 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
72 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
74 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
76 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
77 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
79 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
80 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
82 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
84 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
85 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
87 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
89 * Translation updates.
91 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
93 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
94 regression through the origin.
96 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
98 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
100 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
102 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
104 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
107 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
108 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
110 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
112 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
113 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
116 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
118 * Graphical user interface changes:
120 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
122 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
124 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
126 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
128 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
130 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
132 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
134 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
137 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
140 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
141 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
142 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
144 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
145 Now it can paste multiple variables.
147 * Bug fixes, including the following:
149 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
150 type variable as group variable.
152 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
153 superimposed with the currently selected one.
155 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
158 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
160 * Bug fixes, including the following:
162 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
165 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
168 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
170 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
172 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
173 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
174 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
175 as to produce better separated clusters.
177 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
179 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
181 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
182 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
184 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
186 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
187 somewhat different look and feel.
189 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
191 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
192 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
194 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
195 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
196 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
197 and will generate syntax accordingly.
199 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
200 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
201 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
208 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
210 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
212 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
214 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
216 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
217 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
218 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
219 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
221 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
223 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
224 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
227 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
228 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
229 default and only supported behavior.
231 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
234 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
235 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
236 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
238 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
241 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
243 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
245 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
247 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
248 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
249 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
250 format is not supported.
252 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
255 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
256 when an empty dataset was presented.
258 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
259 scatterplots and histograms.
261 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
262 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
263 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
264 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
266 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
268 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
270 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
272 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
273 introduced in 0.8.2.)
275 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
276 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
279 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
280 subcommand has been corrected.
282 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
285 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
288 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
290 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
292 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
293 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
294 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
296 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
297 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
299 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
300 by the current FILTER settings.
302 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
304 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
305 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
307 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
310 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
311 encoding to be selected.
313 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
315 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
316 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
318 * System file related improvements:
320 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
321 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
324 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
325 character encoding of string data in the system file.
327 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
328 truncation (bug #41863).
330 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
331 read successfully (bug #41475).
333 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
335 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
336 of fully saturated primaries.
338 * Support for new system file variants:
340 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
341 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
342 files. (The older format is still supported.)
344 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
345 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
346 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
347 do not directly read or write this format.
349 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
350 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
352 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
353 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
354 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
355 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
357 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
358 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
359 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
360 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
364 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
366 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
372 * Changes to existing commands:
374 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
375 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
377 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
379 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
381 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
382 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
383 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
385 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
389 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
391 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
394 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
397 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
403 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
410 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
414 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
418 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
420 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
422 * Changes to existing commands:
424 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
426 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
428 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
430 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
431 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
432 applied to the included file.
434 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
436 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
438 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
441 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
444 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
446 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
447 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
448 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
450 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
451 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
453 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
456 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
459 * Other language changes:
461 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
462 extension, which is no longer supported.
464 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
465 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
466 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
467 expressed as U'1D11E'.
469 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
471 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
472 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
473 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
474 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
476 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
478 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
480 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
483 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
484 see different parts of a large data file.
486 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
487 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
488 clicking on an icon will open the file.
490 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
491 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
495 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
496 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
497 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
498 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
500 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
501 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
502 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
505 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
506 characters, including double-width characters and combining
509 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
511 - The HTML output is much improved.
513 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
514 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
515 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
516 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
517 of their intended syntax mode.
519 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
522 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
523 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
524 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
525 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
526 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
527 one the system file uses.
529 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
532 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
533 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
534 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
536 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
539 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
541 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
545 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
547 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
549 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
550 translationproject.org.
552 * Statistical bug fixes:
554 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
557 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
558 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
559 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
561 * Build fixes and changes:
563 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
565 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
566 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
568 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
570 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
572 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
573 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
574 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
577 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
579 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
581 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
582 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
583 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
586 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
588 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
589 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
591 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
593 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
594 with spaces as expected.
596 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
597 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
598 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
600 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
602 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
604 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
605 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
606 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
607 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
609 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
610 that does not exist (bug #24569).
612 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
615 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
617 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
619 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
621 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
622 instead of the current directory, to better match user
625 - Some data editor fixes.
629 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
631 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
633 * Statistical bug fixes:
635 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
636 regression output (bug #23567).
638 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
640 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
642 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
644 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
646 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
648 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
649 disk accesses on modern machines.
653 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
656 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
659 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
660 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
663 * Build fixes and changes:
665 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
666 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
668 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
671 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
672 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
674 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
675 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
677 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
679 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
681 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
682 found them too poor to be useful.
684 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
686 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
687 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
689 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
690 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
691 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
692 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
695 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
698 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
702 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
703 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
704 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
706 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
707 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
708 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
710 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
711 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
713 Statistical procedure changes:
715 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
716 via least-squares estimation.
718 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
719 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
721 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
724 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
725 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
727 User interface changes:
729 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
730 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
732 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
735 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
736 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
737 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
740 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
741 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
742 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
743 executed as if `+' had been specified.
745 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
746 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
747 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
749 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
750 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
751 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
752 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
757 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
758 manual for a full description of the available options.
760 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
761 "make install" will do this for you.
763 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
764 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
766 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
767 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
768 Previously, by default output was written only to file
769 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
770 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
775 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
776 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
777 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
778 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
780 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
781 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
782 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
786 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
787 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
788 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
789 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
790 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
792 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
793 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
796 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
797 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
798 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
799 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
801 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
802 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
803 longer needed, or supported.
805 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
806 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
807 no longer needed, or supported.
811 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
812 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
813 is no longer needed, or supported.
815 Command language changes:
817 * The following commands are new:
819 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
820 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
821 types of foreign data.
823 - CD, to change the current directory.
825 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
827 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
830 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
832 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
834 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
837 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
839 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
841 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
843 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
845 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
848 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
850 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
851 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
852 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
854 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
855 re-implemented in a later release:
857 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
863 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
864 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
865 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
867 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
868 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
870 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
872 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
873 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
874 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
875 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
878 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
879 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
880 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
882 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
883 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
884 reassigned to new files.
886 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
887 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
888 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
889 documentation on those particular commands.
893 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
894 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
895 format of these files.
897 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
898 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
899 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
900 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
903 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
904 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
905 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
906 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
907 native floating point format.
909 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
910 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
911 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
913 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
914 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
916 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
917 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
918 subcommands has been added.
920 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
921 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
922 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
925 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
926 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
928 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
929 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
930 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
934 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
935 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
938 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
939 have been extensively revised and improved.
941 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
944 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
946 Changes in build dependencies:
948 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
951 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
952 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
953 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
955 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
957 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
959 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
961 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
969 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
970 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
973 * T-TEST (re-written).
975 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
976 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
979 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
980 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
981 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
982 third-party software.
984 * SET EPOCH implemented.
986 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
989 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
991 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
992 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
993 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
995 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
996 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
998 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
999 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1001 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1002 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1003 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1006 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1007 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1010 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1013 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1016 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1017 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1018 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1020 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1022 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1024 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1027 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1028 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1031 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1032 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1034 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1038 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1041 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1042 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1044 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1045 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1047 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1050 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1053 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1056 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1057 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1058 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1060 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1062 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1064 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1068 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1070 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1074 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1075 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1077 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1079 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1081 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1085 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1087 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1089 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1090 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1092 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1093 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1095 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1096 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1097 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1098 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1100 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1101 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1102 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1104 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1105 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1106 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1108 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1109 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1110 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1113 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1114 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1117 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1118 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1120 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1121 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1122 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1124 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1125 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1126 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1128 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1129 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1130 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1133 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1134 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1137 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1138 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1140 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1143 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1144 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1145 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1147 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1148 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1152 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1153 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1155 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1156 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1157 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1159 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1161 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1165 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1167 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1169 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1170 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1172 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1174 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1175 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1177 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1178 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1180 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1181 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1184 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1185 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1190 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1191 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1192 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1194 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1198 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1200 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1201 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1204 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1205 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1206 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1208 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1210 Procedures now implemented:
1211 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1213 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1216 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1217 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1228 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1229 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1232 New command-line features:
1233 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1234 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1235 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1236 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1237 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1239 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1241 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1243 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1245 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1246 reinstall your `devices' file.
1248 New output driver for HTML.
1250 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1252 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1254 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1255 * PSPP system file format
1256 * PSPP portable file format
1257 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1260 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1261 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1263 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1265 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1266 versions, please see ONEWS.
1268 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1269 Copyright information:
1271 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1272 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1273 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1274 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1276 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1277 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1278 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1282 version-control: never