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 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
11 * Translation updates.
13 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
15 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
17 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
19 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
20 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
21 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
23 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
24 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
25 which is surprising to some users.
27 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
28 use to save the contents of its output editor:
30 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
32 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
34 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
35 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
36 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
39 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
40 invalid syntax has been fixed.
42 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
44 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
45 rarely printed on paper.
47 * pspp-convert improvements:
49 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
50 encrypted file's password.
52 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
54 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
55 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
58 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
60 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
62 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
63 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
65 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
66 one or more plots are requested.
68 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
69 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
71 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
72 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
73 from the cluster centre to the active file.
75 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
77 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
80 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
82 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
83 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
86 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
91 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
95 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
97 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
99 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
103 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
105 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
107 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
108 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
110 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
111 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
113 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
115 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
116 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
118 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
120 * Translation updates.
122 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
124 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
125 regression through the origin.
127 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
129 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
131 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
133 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
135 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
138 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
139 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
141 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
143 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
144 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
147 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
149 * Graphical user interface changes:
151 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
153 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
155 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
157 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
159 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
161 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
163 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
165 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
168 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
171 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
172 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
173 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
175 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
176 Now it can paste multiple variables.
178 * Bug fixes, including the following:
180 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
181 type variable as group variable.
183 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
184 superimposed with the currently selected one.
186 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
189 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
191 * Bug fixes, including the following:
193 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
196 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
199 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
201 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
203 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
204 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
205 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
206 as to produce better separated clusters.
208 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
210 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
212 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
213 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
215 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
217 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
218 somewhat different look and feel.
220 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
222 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
223 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
225 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
226 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
227 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
228 and will generate syntax accordingly.
230 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
231 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
232 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
239 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
241 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
243 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
245 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
247 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
248 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
249 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
250 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
252 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
254 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
255 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
258 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
259 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
260 default and only supported behavior.
262 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
265 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
266 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
267 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
269 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
272 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
274 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
276 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
278 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
279 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
280 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
281 format is not supported.
283 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
286 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
287 when an empty dataset was presented.
289 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
290 scatterplots and histograms.
292 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
293 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
294 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
295 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
297 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
299 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
301 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
303 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
304 introduced in 0.8.2.)
306 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
307 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
310 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
311 subcommand has been corrected.
313 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
316 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
319 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
321 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
323 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
324 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
325 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
327 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
328 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
330 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
331 by the current FILTER settings.
333 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
335 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
336 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
338 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
341 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
342 encoding to be selected.
344 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
346 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
347 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
349 * System file related improvements:
351 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
352 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
355 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
356 character encoding of string data in the system file.
358 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
359 truncation (bug #41863).
361 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
362 read successfully (bug #41475).
364 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
366 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
367 of fully saturated primaries.
369 * Support for new system file variants:
371 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
372 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
373 files. (The older format is still supported.)
375 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
376 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
377 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
378 do not directly read or write this format.
380 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
381 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
383 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
384 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
385 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
386 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
388 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
389 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
390 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
391 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
395 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
397 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
403 * Changes to existing commands:
405 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
406 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
408 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
410 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
412 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
413 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
414 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
416 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
420 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
422 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
425 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
428 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
434 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
441 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
445 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
449 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
451 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
453 * Changes to existing commands:
455 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
457 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
459 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
461 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
462 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
463 applied to the included file.
465 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
467 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
469 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
472 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
475 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
477 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
478 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
479 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
481 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
482 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
484 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
487 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
490 * Other language changes:
492 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
493 extension, which is no longer supported.
495 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
496 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
497 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
498 expressed as U'1D11E'.
500 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
502 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
503 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
504 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
505 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
507 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
509 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
511 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
514 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
515 see different parts of a large data file.
517 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
518 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
519 clicking on an icon will open the file.
521 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
522 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
526 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
527 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
528 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
529 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
531 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
532 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
533 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
536 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
537 characters, including double-width characters and combining
540 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
542 - The HTML output is much improved.
544 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
545 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
546 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
547 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
548 of their intended syntax mode.
550 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
553 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
554 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
555 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
556 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
557 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
558 one the system file uses.
560 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
563 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
564 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
565 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
567 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
570 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
572 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
576 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
578 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
580 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
581 translationproject.org.
583 * Statistical bug fixes:
585 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
588 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
589 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
590 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
592 * Build fixes and changes:
594 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
596 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
597 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
599 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
601 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
603 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
604 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
605 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
608 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
610 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
612 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
613 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
614 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
617 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
619 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
620 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
622 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
624 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
625 with spaces as expected.
627 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
628 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
629 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
631 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
633 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
635 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
636 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
637 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
638 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
640 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
641 that does not exist (bug #24569).
643 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
646 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
648 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
650 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
652 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
653 instead of the current directory, to better match user
656 - Some data editor fixes.
660 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
662 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
664 * Statistical bug fixes:
666 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
667 regression output (bug #23567).
669 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
671 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
673 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
675 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
677 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
679 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
680 disk accesses on modern machines.
684 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
687 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
690 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
691 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
694 * Build fixes and changes:
696 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
697 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
699 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
702 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
703 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
705 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
706 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
708 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
710 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
712 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
713 found them too poor to be useful.
715 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
717 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
718 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
720 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
721 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
722 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
723 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
726 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
729 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
733 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
734 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
735 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
737 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
738 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
739 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
741 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
742 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
744 Statistical procedure changes:
746 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
747 via least-squares estimation.
749 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
750 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
752 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
755 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
756 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
758 User interface changes:
760 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
761 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
763 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
766 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
767 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
768 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
771 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
772 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
773 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
774 executed as if `+' had been specified.
776 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
777 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
778 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
780 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
781 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
782 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
783 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
788 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
789 manual for a full description of the available options.
791 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
792 "make install" will do this for you.
794 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
795 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
797 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
798 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
799 Previously, by default output was written only to file
800 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
801 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
806 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
807 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
808 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
809 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
811 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
812 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
813 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
817 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
818 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
819 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
820 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
821 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
823 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
824 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
827 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
828 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
829 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
830 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
832 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
833 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
834 longer needed, or supported.
836 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
837 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
838 no longer needed, or supported.
842 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
843 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
844 is no longer needed, or supported.
846 Command language changes:
848 * The following commands are new:
850 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
851 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
852 types of foreign data.
854 - CD, to change the current directory.
856 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
858 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
861 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
863 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
865 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
868 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
870 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
872 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
874 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
876 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
879 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
881 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
882 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
883 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
885 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
886 re-implemented in a later release:
888 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
894 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
895 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
896 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
898 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
899 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
901 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
903 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
904 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
905 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
906 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
909 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
910 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
911 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
913 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
914 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
915 reassigned to new files.
917 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
918 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
919 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
920 documentation on those particular commands.
924 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
925 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
926 format of these files.
928 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
929 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
930 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
931 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
934 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
935 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
936 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
937 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
938 native floating point format.
940 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
941 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
942 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
944 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
945 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
947 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
948 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
949 subcommands has been added.
951 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
952 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
953 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
956 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
957 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
959 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
960 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
961 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
965 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
966 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
969 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
970 have been extensively revised and improved.
972 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
975 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
977 Changes in build dependencies:
979 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
982 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
983 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
984 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
986 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
988 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
990 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
992 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1000 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1001 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1004 * T-TEST (re-written).
1006 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1007 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1010 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1011 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1012 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1013 third-party software.
1015 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1017 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1020 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1022 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1023 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1024 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1026 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1027 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1029 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1030 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1032 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1033 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1034 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1037 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1038 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1041 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1044 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1047 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1048 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1049 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1051 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1053 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1055 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1058 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1059 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1062 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1063 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1065 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1069 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1072 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1073 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1075 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1076 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1078 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1081 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1084 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1087 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1088 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1089 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1091 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1093 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1095 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1099 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1101 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1105 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1106 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1108 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1110 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1112 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1116 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1118 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1120 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1121 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1123 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1124 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1126 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1127 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1128 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1129 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1131 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1132 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1133 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1135 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1136 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1137 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1139 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1140 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1141 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1144 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1145 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1148 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1149 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1151 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1152 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1153 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1155 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1156 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1157 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1159 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1160 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1161 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1164 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1165 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1168 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1169 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1171 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1174 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1175 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1176 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1178 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1179 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1183 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1184 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1186 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1187 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1188 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1190 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1192 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1196 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1198 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1200 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1201 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1203 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1205 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1206 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1208 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1209 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1211 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1212 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1215 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1216 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1221 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1222 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1223 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1225 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1229 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1231 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1232 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1235 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1236 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1237 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1239 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1241 Procedures now implemented:
1242 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1244 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1247 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1248 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1259 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1260 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1263 New command-line features:
1264 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1265 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1266 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1267 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1268 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1270 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1272 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1274 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1276 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1277 reinstall your `devices' file.
1279 New output driver for HTML.
1281 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1283 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1285 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1286 * PSPP system file format
1287 * PSPP portable file format
1288 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1291 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1292 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1294 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1296 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1297 versions, please see ONEWS.
1299 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1300 Copyright information:
1302 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1303 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1304 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1305 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1307 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1308 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1309 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1313 version-control: never