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 1.4.2:
11 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
15 * Translation updates.
17 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
19 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
21 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
23 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
24 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
25 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
27 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
28 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
29 which is surprising to some users.
31 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
32 use to save the contents of its output editor:
34 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
36 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
38 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
39 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
40 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
43 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
44 invalid syntax has been fixed.
46 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
48 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
49 rarely printed on paper.
51 * pspp-convert improvements:
53 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
54 encrypted file's password.
56 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
58 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
59 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
62 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
64 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
66 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
67 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
69 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
70 one or more plots are requested.
72 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
73 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
75 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
76 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
77 from the cluster centre to the active file.
79 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
81 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
84 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
86 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
87 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
90 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
95 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
99 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
101 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
103 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
107 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
109 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
111 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
112 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
114 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
115 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
117 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
119 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
120 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
122 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
124 * Translation updates.
126 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
128 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
129 regression through the origin.
131 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
133 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
135 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
137 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
139 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
142 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
143 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
145 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
147 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
148 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
151 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
153 * Graphical user interface changes:
155 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
157 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
159 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
161 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
163 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
165 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
167 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
169 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
172 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
175 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
176 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
177 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
179 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
180 Now it can paste multiple variables.
182 * Bug fixes, including the following:
184 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
185 type variable as group variable.
187 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
188 superimposed with the currently selected one.
190 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
193 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
195 * Bug fixes, including the following:
197 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
200 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
203 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
205 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
207 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
208 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
209 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
210 as to produce better separated clusters.
212 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
214 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
216 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
217 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
219 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
221 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
222 somewhat different look and feel.
224 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
226 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
227 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
229 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
230 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
231 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
232 and will generate syntax accordingly.
234 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
235 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
236 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
243 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
245 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
247 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
249 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
251 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
252 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
253 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
254 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
256 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
258 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
259 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
262 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
263 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
264 default and only supported behavior.
266 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
269 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
270 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
271 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
273 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
276 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
278 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
280 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
282 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
283 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
284 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
285 format is not supported.
287 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
290 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
291 when an empty dataset was presented.
293 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
294 scatterplots and histograms.
296 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
297 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
298 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
299 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
301 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
303 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
305 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
307 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
308 introduced in 0.8.2.)
310 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
311 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
314 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
315 subcommand has been corrected.
317 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
320 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
323 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
325 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
327 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
328 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
329 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
331 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
332 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
334 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
335 by the current FILTER settings.
337 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
339 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
340 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
342 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
345 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
346 encoding to be selected.
348 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
350 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
351 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
353 * System file related improvements:
355 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
356 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
359 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
360 character encoding of string data in the system file.
362 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
363 truncation (bug #41863).
365 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
366 read successfully (bug #41475).
368 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
370 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
371 of fully saturated primaries.
373 * Support for new system file variants:
375 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
376 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
377 files. (The older format is still supported.)
379 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
380 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
381 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
382 do not directly read or write this format.
384 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
385 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
387 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
388 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
389 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
390 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
392 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
393 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
394 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
395 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
399 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
401 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
407 * Changes to existing commands:
409 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
410 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
412 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
414 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
416 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
417 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
418 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
420 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
424 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
426 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
429 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
432 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
438 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
445 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
449 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
453 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
455 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
457 * Changes to existing commands:
459 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
461 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
463 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
465 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
466 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
467 applied to the included file.
469 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
471 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
473 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
476 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
479 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
481 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
482 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
483 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
485 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
486 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
488 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
491 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
494 * Other language changes:
496 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
497 extension, which is no longer supported.
499 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
500 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
501 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
502 expressed as U'1D11E'.
504 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
506 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
507 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
508 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
509 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
511 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
513 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
515 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
518 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
519 see different parts of a large data file.
521 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
522 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
523 clicking on an icon will open the file.
525 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
526 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
530 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
531 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
532 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
533 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
535 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
536 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
537 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
540 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
541 characters, including double-width characters and combining
544 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
546 - The HTML output is much improved.
548 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
549 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
550 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
551 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
552 of their intended syntax mode.
554 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
557 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
558 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
559 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
560 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
561 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
562 one the system file uses.
564 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
567 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
568 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
569 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
571 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
574 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
576 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
580 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
582 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
584 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
585 translationproject.org.
587 * Statistical bug fixes:
589 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
592 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
593 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
594 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
596 * Build fixes and changes:
598 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
600 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
601 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
603 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
605 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
607 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
608 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
609 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
612 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
614 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
616 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
617 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
618 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
621 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
623 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
624 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
626 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
628 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
629 with spaces as expected.
631 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
632 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
633 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
635 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
637 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
639 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
640 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
641 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
642 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
644 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
645 that does not exist (bug #24569).
647 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
650 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
652 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
654 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
656 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
657 instead of the current directory, to better match user
660 - Some data editor fixes.
664 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
666 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
668 * Statistical bug fixes:
670 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
671 regression output (bug #23567).
673 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
675 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
677 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
679 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
681 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
683 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
684 disk accesses on modern machines.
688 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
691 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
694 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
695 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
698 * Build fixes and changes:
700 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
701 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
703 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
706 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
707 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
709 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
710 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
712 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
714 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
716 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
717 found them too poor to be useful.
719 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
721 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
722 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
724 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
725 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
726 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
727 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
730 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
733 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
737 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
738 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
739 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
741 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
742 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
743 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
745 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
746 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
748 Statistical procedure changes:
750 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
751 via least-squares estimation.
753 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
754 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
756 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
759 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
760 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
762 User interface changes:
764 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
765 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
767 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
770 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
771 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
772 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
775 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
776 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
777 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
778 executed as if `+' had been specified.
780 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
781 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
782 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
784 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
785 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
786 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
787 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
792 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
793 manual for a full description of the available options.
795 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
796 "make install" will do this for you.
798 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
799 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
801 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
802 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
803 Previously, by default output was written only to file
804 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
805 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
810 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
811 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
812 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
813 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
815 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
816 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
817 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
821 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
822 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
823 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
824 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
825 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
827 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
828 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
831 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
832 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
833 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
834 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
836 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
837 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
838 longer needed, or supported.
840 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
841 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
842 no longer needed, or supported.
846 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
847 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
848 is no longer needed, or supported.
850 Command language changes:
852 * The following commands are new:
854 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
855 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
856 types of foreign data.
858 - CD, to change the current directory.
860 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
862 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
865 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
867 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
869 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
872 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
874 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
876 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
878 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
880 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
883 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
885 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
886 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
887 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
889 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
890 re-implemented in a later release:
892 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
898 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
899 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
900 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
902 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
903 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
905 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
907 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
908 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
909 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
910 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
913 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
914 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
915 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
917 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
918 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
919 reassigned to new files.
921 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
922 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
923 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
924 documentation on those particular commands.
928 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
929 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
930 format of these files.
932 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
933 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
934 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
935 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
938 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
939 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
940 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
941 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
942 native floating point format.
944 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
945 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
946 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
948 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
949 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
951 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
952 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
953 subcommands has been added.
955 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
956 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
957 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
960 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
961 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
963 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
964 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
965 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
969 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
970 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
973 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
974 have been extensively revised and improved.
976 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
979 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
981 Changes in build dependencies:
983 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
986 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
987 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
988 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
990 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
992 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
994 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
996 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1004 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1005 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1008 * T-TEST (re-written).
1010 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1011 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1014 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1015 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1016 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1017 third-party software.
1019 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1021 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1024 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1026 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1027 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1028 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1030 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1031 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1033 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1034 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1036 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1037 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1038 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1041 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1042 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1045 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1048 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1051 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1052 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1053 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1055 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1057 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1059 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1062 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1063 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1066 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1067 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1069 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1073 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1076 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1077 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1079 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1080 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1082 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1085 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1088 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1091 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1092 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1093 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1095 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1097 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1099 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1103 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1105 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1109 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1110 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1112 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1114 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1116 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1120 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1122 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1124 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1125 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1127 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1128 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1130 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1131 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1132 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1133 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1135 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1136 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1137 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1139 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1140 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1141 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1143 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1144 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1145 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1148 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1149 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1152 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1153 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1155 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1156 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1157 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1159 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1160 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1161 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1163 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1164 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1165 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1168 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1169 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1172 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1173 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1175 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1178 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1179 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1180 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1182 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1183 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1187 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1188 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1190 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1191 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1192 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1194 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1196 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1200 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1202 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1204 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1205 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1207 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1209 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1210 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1212 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1213 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1215 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1216 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1219 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1220 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1225 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1226 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1227 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1229 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1233 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1235 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1236 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1239 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1240 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1241 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1243 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1245 Procedures now implemented:
1246 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1248 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1251 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1252 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1263 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1264 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1267 New command-line features:
1268 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1269 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1270 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1271 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1272 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1274 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1276 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1278 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1280 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1281 reinstall your `devices' file.
1283 New output driver for HTML.
1285 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1287 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1289 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1290 * PSPP system file format
1291 * PSPP portable file format
1292 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1295 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1296 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1298 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1300 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1301 versions, please see ONEWS.
1303 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1304 Copyright information:
1306 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1307 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1308 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1309 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1311 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1312 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1313 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1317 version-control: never