1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016 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 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
9 * A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
12 * Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
15 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
17 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
18 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
19 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
20 as to produce better separated clusters.
22 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
24 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
26 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
27 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
29 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
31 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
32 somewhat different look and feel.
34 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
36 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
37 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
39 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
40 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
41 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
42 and will generate syntax accordingly.
44 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
45 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
46 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
53 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
55 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
57 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
59 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
61 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
62 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
63 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
64 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
66 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
68 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
69 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
72 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
73 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
74 default and only supported behavior.
76 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
79 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
80 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
81 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
83 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
86 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
88 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
90 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
92 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
93 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
94 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
95 format is not supported.
97 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
100 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
101 when an empty dataset was presented.
103 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
104 scatterplots and histograms.
106 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
107 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
108 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
109 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
111 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
113 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
115 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
117 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
118 introduced in 0.8.2.)
120 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
121 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
124 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
125 subcommand has been corrected.
127 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
130 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
133 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
135 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
137 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
138 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
139 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
141 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
142 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
144 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
145 by the current FILTER settings.
147 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
149 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
150 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
152 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
155 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
156 encoding to be selected.
158 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
160 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
161 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
163 * System file related improvements:
165 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
166 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
169 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
170 character encoding of string data in the system file.
172 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
173 truncation (bug #41863).
175 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
176 read successfully (bug #41475).
178 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
180 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
181 of fully saturated primaries.
183 * Support for new system file variants:
185 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
186 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
187 files. (The older format is still supported.)
189 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
190 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
191 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
192 do not directly read or write this format.
194 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
195 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
197 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
198 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
199 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
200 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
202 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
203 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
204 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
205 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
209 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
211 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
217 * Changes to existing commands:
219 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
220 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
222 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
224 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
226 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
227 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
228 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
230 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
234 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
236 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
239 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
242 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
248 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
255 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
259 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
263 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
265 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
267 * Changes to existing commands:
269 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
271 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
273 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
275 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
276 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
277 applied to the included file.
279 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
281 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
283 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
286 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
289 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
291 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
292 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
293 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
295 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
296 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
298 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
301 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
304 * Other language changes:
306 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
307 extension, which is no longer supported.
309 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
310 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
311 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
312 expressed as U'1D11E'.
314 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
316 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
317 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
318 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
319 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
321 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
323 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
325 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
328 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
329 see different parts of a large data file.
331 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
332 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
333 clicking on an icon will open the file.
335 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
336 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
340 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
341 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
342 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
343 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
345 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
346 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
347 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
350 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
351 characters, including double-width characters and combining
354 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
356 - The HTML output is much improved.
358 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
359 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
360 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
361 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
362 of their intended syntax mode.
364 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
367 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
368 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
369 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
370 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
371 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
372 one the system file uses.
374 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
377 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
378 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
379 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
381 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
384 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
386 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
390 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
392 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
394 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
395 translationproject.org.
397 * Statistical bug fixes:
399 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
402 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
403 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
404 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
406 * Build fixes and changes:
408 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
410 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
411 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
413 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
415 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
417 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
418 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
419 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
422 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
424 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
426 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
427 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
428 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
431 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
433 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
434 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
436 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
438 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
439 with spaces as expected.
441 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
442 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
443 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
445 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
447 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
449 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
450 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
451 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
452 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
454 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
455 that does not exist (bug #24569).
457 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
460 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
462 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
464 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
466 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
467 instead of the current directory, to better match user
470 - Some data editor fixes.
474 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
476 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
478 * Statistical bug fixes:
480 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
481 regression output (bug #23567).
483 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
485 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
487 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
489 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
491 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
493 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
494 disk accesses on modern machines.
498 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
501 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
504 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
505 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
508 * Build fixes and changes:
510 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
511 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
513 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
516 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
517 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
519 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
520 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
522 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
524 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
526 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
527 found them too poor to be useful.
529 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
531 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
532 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
534 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
535 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
536 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
537 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
540 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
543 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
547 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
548 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
549 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
551 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
552 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
553 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
555 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
556 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
558 Statistical procedure changes:
560 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
561 via least-squares estimation.
563 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
564 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
566 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
569 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
570 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
572 User interface changes:
574 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
575 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
577 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
580 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
581 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
582 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
585 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
586 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
587 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
588 executed as if `+' had been specified.
590 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
591 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
592 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
594 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
595 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
596 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
597 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
602 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
603 manual for a full description of the available options.
605 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
606 "make install" will do this for you.
608 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
609 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
611 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
612 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
613 Previously, by default output was written only to file
614 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
615 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
620 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
621 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
622 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
623 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
625 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
626 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
627 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
631 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
632 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
633 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
634 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
635 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
637 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
638 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
641 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
642 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
643 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
644 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
646 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
647 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
648 longer needed, or supported.
650 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
651 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
652 no longer needed, or supported.
656 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
657 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
658 is no longer needed, or supported.
660 Command language changes:
662 * The following commands are new:
664 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
665 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
666 types of foreign data.
668 - CD, to change the current directory.
670 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
672 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
675 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
677 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
679 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
682 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
684 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
686 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
688 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
690 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
693 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
695 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
696 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
697 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
699 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
700 re-implemented in a later release:
702 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
708 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
709 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
710 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
712 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
713 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
715 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
717 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
718 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
719 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
720 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
723 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
724 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
725 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
727 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
728 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
729 reassigned to new files.
731 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
732 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
733 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
734 documentation on those particular commands.
738 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
739 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
740 format of these files.
742 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
743 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
744 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
745 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
748 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
749 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
750 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
751 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
752 native floating point format.
754 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
755 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
756 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
758 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
759 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
761 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
762 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
763 subcommands has been added.
765 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
766 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
767 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
770 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
771 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
773 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
774 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
775 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
779 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
780 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
783 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
784 have been extensively revised and improved.
786 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
789 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
791 Changes in build dependencies:
793 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
796 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
797 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
798 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
800 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
802 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
804 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
806 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
814 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
815 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
818 * T-TEST (re-written).
820 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
821 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
824 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
825 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
826 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
827 third-party software.
829 * SET EPOCH implemented.
831 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
834 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
836 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
837 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
838 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
840 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
841 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
843 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
844 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
846 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
847 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
848 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
851 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
852 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
855 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
858 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
861 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
862 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
863 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
865 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
867 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
869 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
872 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
873 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
876 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
877 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
879 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
883 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
886 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
887 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
889 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
890 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
892 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
895 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
898 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
901 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
902 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
903 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
905 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
907 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
909 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
913 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
915 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
919 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
920 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
922 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
924 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
926 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
930 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
932 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
934 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
935 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
937 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
938 didn't like being the last command in a file.
940 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
941 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
942 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
943 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
945 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
946 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
947 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
949 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
950 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
951 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
953 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
954 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
955 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
958 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
959 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
962 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
963 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
965 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
966 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
967 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
969 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
970 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
971 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
973 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
974 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
975 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
978 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
979 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
982 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
983 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
985 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
988 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
989 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
990 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
992 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
993 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
997 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
998 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1000 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1001 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1002 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1004 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1006 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1010 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1012 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1014 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1015 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1017 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1019 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1020 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1022 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1023 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1025 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1026 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1029 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1030 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1035 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1036 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1037 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1039 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1043 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1045 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1046 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1049 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1050 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1051 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1053 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1055 Procedures now implemented:
1056 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1058 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1061 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1062 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1073 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1074 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1077 New command-line features:
1078 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1079 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1080 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1081 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1082 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1084 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1086 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1088 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1090 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1091 reinstall your `devices' file.
1093 New output driver for HTML.
1095 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1097 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1099 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1100 * PSPP system file format
1101 * PSPP portable file format
1102 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1105 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1106 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1108 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1110 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1111 versions, please see ONEWS.
1113 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1114 Copyright information:
1116 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1117 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1118 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1119 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1121 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1122 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1123 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1127 version-control: never