1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 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 1.4.1 to 1.5.2:
9 * PSPP can now write its results directly to a TeX source file.
11 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
13 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
14 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
16 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
17 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
18 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
20 * The html output driver has a new option "bare".
22 * New features in pspp-output:
24 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
26 - New get-table-look command.
28 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
32 * Translation updates.
34 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
36 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
38 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
40 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
41 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
42 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
44 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
45 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
46 which is surprising to some users.
48 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
49 use to save the contents of its output editor:
51 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
53 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
55 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
56 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
57 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
60 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
61 invalid syntax has been fixed.
63 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
65 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
66 rarely printed on paper.
68 * pspp-convert improvements:
70 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
71 encrypted file's password.
73 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
75 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
76 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
79 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
81 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
83 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
84 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
86 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
87 one or more plots are requested.
89 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
90 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
92 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
93 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
94 from the cluster centre to the active file.
96 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
98 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
101 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
103 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
104 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
107 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
112 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
116 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
118 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
120 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
124 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
126 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
128 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
129 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
131 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
132 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
134 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
136 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
137 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
139 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
141 * Translation updates.
143 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
145 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
146 regression through the origin.
148 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
150 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
152 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
154 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
156 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
159 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
160 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
162 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
164 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
165 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
168 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
170 * Graphical user interface changes:
172 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
174 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
176 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
178 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
180 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
182 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
184 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
186 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
189 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
192 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
193 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
194 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
196 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
197 Now it can paste multiple variables.
199 * Bug fixes, including the following:
201 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
202 type variable as group variable.
204 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
205 superimposed with the currently selected one.
207 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
210 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
212 * Bug fixes, including the following:
214 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
217 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
220 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
222 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
224 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
225 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
226 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
227 as to produce better separated clusters.
229 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
231 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
233 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
234 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
236 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
238 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
239 somewhat different look and feel.
241 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
243 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
244 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
246 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
247 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
248 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
249 and will generate syntax accordingly.
251 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
252 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
253 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
260 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
262 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
264 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
266 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
268 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
269 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
270 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
271 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
273 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
275 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
276 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
279 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
280 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
281 default and only supported behavior.
283 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
286 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
287 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
288 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
290 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
293 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
295 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
297 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
299 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
300 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
301 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
302 format is not supported.
304 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
307 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
308 when an empty dataset was presented.
310 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
311 scatterplots and histograms.
313 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
314 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
315 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
316 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
318 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
320 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
322 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
324 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
325 introduced in 0.8.2.)
327 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
328 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
331 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
332 subcommand has been corrected.
334 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
337 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
340 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
342 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
344 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
345 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
346 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
348 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
349 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
351 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
352 by the current FILTER settings.
354 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
356 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
357 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
359 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
362 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
363 encoding to be selected.
365 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
367 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
368 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
370 * System file related improvements:
372 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
373 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
376 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
377 character encoding of string data in the system file.
379 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
380 truncation (bug #41863).
382 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
383 read successfully (bug #41475).
385 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
387 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
388 of fully saturated primaries.
390 * Support for new system file variants:
392 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
393 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
394 files. (The older format is still supported.)
396 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
397 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
398 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
399 do not directly read or write this format.
401 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
402 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
404 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
405 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
406 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
407 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
409 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
410 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
411 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
412 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
416 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
418 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
424 * Changes to existing commands:
426 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
427 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
429 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
431 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
433 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
434 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
435 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
437 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
441 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
443 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
446 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
449 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
455 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
462 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
466 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
470 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
472 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
474 * Changes to existing commands:
476 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
478 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
480 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
482 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
483 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
484 applied to the included file.
486 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
488 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
490 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
493 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
496 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
498 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
499 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
500 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
502 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
503 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
505 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
508 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
511 * Other language changes:
513 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
514 extension, which is no longer supported.
516 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
517 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
518 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
519 expressed as U'1D11E'.
521 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
523 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
524 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
525 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
526 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
528 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
530 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
532 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
535 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
536 see different parts of a large data file.
538 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
539 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
540 clicking on an icon will open the file.
542 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
543 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
547 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
548 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
549 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
550 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
552 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
553 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
554 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
557 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
558 characters, including double-width characters and combining
561 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
563 - The HTML output is much improved.
565 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
566 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
567 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
568 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
569 of their intended syntax mode.
571 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
574 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
575 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
576 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
577 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
578 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
579 one the system file uses.
581 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
584 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
585 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
586 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
588 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
591 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
593 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
597 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
599 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
601 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
602 translationproject.org.
604 * Statistical bug fixes:
606 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
609 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
610 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
611 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
613 * Build fixes and changes:
615 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
617 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
618 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
620 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
622 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
624 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
625 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
626 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
629 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
631 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
633 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
634 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
635 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
638 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
640 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
641 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
643 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
645 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
646 with spaces as expected.
648 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
649 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
650 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
652 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
654 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
656 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
657 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
658 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
659 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
661 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
662 that does not exist (bug #24569).
664 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
667 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
669 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
671 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
673 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
674 instead of the current directory, to better match user
677 - Some data editor fixes.
681 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
683 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
685 * Statistical bug fixes:
687 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
688 regression output (bug #23567).
690 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
692 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
694 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
696 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
698 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
700 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
701 disk accesses on modern machines.
705 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
708 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
711 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
712 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
715 * Build fixes and changes:
717 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
718 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
720 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
723 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
724 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
726 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
727 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
729 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
731 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
733 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
734 found them too poor to be useful.
736 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
738 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
739 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
741 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
742 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
743 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
744 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
747 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
750 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
754 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
755 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
756 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
758 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
759 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
760 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
762 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
763 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
765 Statistical procedure changes:
767 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
768 via least-squares estimation.
770 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
771 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
773 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
776 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
777 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
779 User interface changes:
781 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
782 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
784 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
787 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
788 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
789 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
792 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
793 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
794 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
795 executed as if `+' had been specified.
797 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
798 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
799 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
801 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
802 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
803 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
804 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
809 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
810 manual for a full description of the available options.
812 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
813 "make install" will do this for you.
815 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
816 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
818 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
819 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
820 Previously, by default output was written only to file
821 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
822 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
827 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
828 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
829 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
830 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
832 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
833 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
834 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
838 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
839 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
840 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
841 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
842 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
844 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
845 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
848 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
849 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
850 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
851 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
853 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
854 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
855 longer needed, or supported.
857 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
858 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
859 no longer needed, or supported.
863 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
864 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
865 is no longer needed, or supported.
867 Command language changes:
869 * The following commands are new:
871 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
872 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
873 types of foreign data.
875 - CD, to change the current directory.
877 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
879 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
882 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
884 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
886 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
889 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
891 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
893 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
895 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
897 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
900 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
902 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
903 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
904 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
906 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
907 re-implemented in a later release:
909 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
915 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
916 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
917 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
919 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
920 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
922 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
924 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
925 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
926 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
927 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
930 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
931 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
932 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
934 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
935 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
936 reassigned to new files.
938 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
939 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
940 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
941 documentation on those particular commands.
945 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
946 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
947 format of these files.
949 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
950 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
951 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
952 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
955 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
956 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
957 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
958 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
959 native floating point format.
961 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
962 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
963 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
965 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
966 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
968 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
969 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
970 subcommands has been added.
972 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
973 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
974 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
977 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
978 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
980 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
981 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
982 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
986 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
987 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
990 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
991 have been extensively revised and improved.
993 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
996 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
998 Changes in build dependencies:
1000 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1003 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1004 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1005 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1007 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1009 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1011 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1013 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1021 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1022 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1025 * T-TEST (re-written).
1027 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1028 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1031 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1032 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1033 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1034 third-party software.
1036 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1038 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1041 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1043 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1044 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1045 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1047 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1048 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1050 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1051 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1053 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1054 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1055 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1058 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1059 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1062 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1065 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1068 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1069 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1070 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1072 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1074 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1076 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1079 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1080 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1083 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1084 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1086 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1090 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1093 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1094 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1096 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1097 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1099 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1102 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1105 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1108 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1109 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1110 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1112 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1114 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1116 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1120 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1122 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1126 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1127 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1129 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1131 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1133 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1137 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1139 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1141 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1142 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1144 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1145 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1147 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1148 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1149 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1150 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1152 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1153 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1154 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1156 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1157 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1158 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1160 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1161 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1162 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1165 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1166 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1169 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1170 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1172 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1173 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1174 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1176 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1177 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1178 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1180 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1181 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1182 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1185 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1186 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1189 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1190 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1192 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1195 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1196 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1197 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1199 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1200 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1204 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1205 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1207 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1208 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1209 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1211 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1213 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1217 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1219 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1221 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1222 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1224 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1226 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1227 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1229 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1230 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1232 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1233 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1236 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1237 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1242 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1243 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1244 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1246 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1250 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1252 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1253 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1256 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1257 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1258 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1260 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1262 Procedures now implemented:
1263 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1265 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1268 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1269 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1280 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1281 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1284 New command-line features:
1285 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1286 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1287 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1288 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1289 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1291 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1293 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1295 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1297 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1298 reinstall your `devices' file.
1300 New output driver for HTML.
1302 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1304 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1306 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1307 * PSPP system file format
1308 * PSPP portable file format
1309 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1312 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1313 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1315 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1317 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1318 versions, please see ONEWS.
1320 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1321 Copyright information:
1323 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1324 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1325 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1326 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1328 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1329 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1330 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1334 version-control: never