1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
10 * The CTABLES command is now implemented.
12 * FREQUENCIES now honors the LAYERED setting on SPLIT FILE.
14 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
15 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
17 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
19 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
20 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
21 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
25 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
27 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
28 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
30 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
32 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
34 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
35 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
36 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
38 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
41 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
42 contrasts tests has been corrected.
44 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
46 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
47 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
49 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
50 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
51 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
53 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
54 graphical output examples and screenshots.
56 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
61 - Perl is no longer required to build.
63 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
64 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
67 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
69 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
71 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
73 * Output improvements:
75 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
77 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
78 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
80 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
81 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
83 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
84 as a "table of contents" for the file.
86 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
88 * New features in pspp-output:
90 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
92 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
94 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
98 * Translation updates.
100 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
102 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
104 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
106 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
107 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
108 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
110 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
111 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
112 which is surprising to some users.
114 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
115 use to save the contents of its output editor:
117 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
119 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
121 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
122 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
123 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
126 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
127 invalid syntax has been fixed.
129 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
131 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
132 rarely printed on paper.
134 * pspp-convert improvements:
136 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
137 encrypted file's password.
139 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
141 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
142 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
145 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
147 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
149 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
150 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
152 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
153 one or more plots are requested.
155 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
156 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
158 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
159 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
160 from the cluster centre to the active file.
162 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
164 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
167 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
169 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
170 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
173 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
178 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
182 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
184 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
186 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
190 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
192 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
194 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
195 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
197 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
198 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
200 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
202 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
203 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
205 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
207 * Translation updates.
209 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
211 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
212 regression through the origin.
214 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
216 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
218 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
220 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
222 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
225 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
226 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
228 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
230 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
231 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
234 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
236 * Graphical user interface changes:
238 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
240 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
242 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
244 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
246 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
248 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
250 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
252 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
255 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
258 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
259 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
260 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
262 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
263 Now it can paste multiple variables.
265 * Bug fixes, including the following:
267 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
268 type variable as group variable.
270 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
271 superimposed with the currently selected one.
273 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
276 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
278 * Bug fixes, including the following:
280 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
283 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
286 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
288 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
290 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
291 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
292 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
293 as to produce better separated clusters.
295 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
297 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
299 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
300 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
302 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
304 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
305 somewhat different look and feel.
307 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
309 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
310 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
312 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
313 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
314 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
315 and will generate syntax accordingly.
317 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
318 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
319 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
326 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
328 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
330 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
332 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
334 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
335 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
336 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
337 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
339 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
341 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
342 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
345 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
346 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
347 default and only supported behavior.
349 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
352 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
353 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
354 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
356 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
359 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
361 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
363 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
365 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
366 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
367 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
368 format is not supported.
370 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
373 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
374 when an empty dataset was presented.
376 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
377 scatterplots and histograms.
379 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
380 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
381 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
382 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
384 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
386 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
388 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
390 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
391 introduced in 0.8.2.)
393 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
394 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
397 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
398 subcommand has been corrected.
400 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
403 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
406 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
408 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
410 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
411 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
412 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
414 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
415 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
417 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
418 by the current FILTER settings.
420 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
422 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
423 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
425 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
428 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
429 encoding to be selected.
431 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
433 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
434 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
436 * System file related improvements:
438 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
439 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
442 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
443 character encoding of string data in the system file.
445 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
446 truncation (bug #41863).
448 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
449 read successfully (bug #41475).
451 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
453 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
454 of fully saturated primaries.
456 * Support for new system file variants:
458 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
459 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
460 files. (The older format is still supported.)
462 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
463 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
464 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
465 do not directly read or write this format.
467 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
468 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
470 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
471 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
472 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
473 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
475 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
476 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
477 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
478 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
482 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
484 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
490 * Changes to existing commands:
492 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
493 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
495 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
497 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
499 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
500 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
501 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
503 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
507 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
509 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
512 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
515 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
521 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
528 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
532 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
536 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
538 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
540 * Changes to existing commands:
542 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
544 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
546 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
548 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
549 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
550 applied to the included file.
552 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
554 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
556 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
559 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
562 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
564 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
565 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
566 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
568 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
569 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
571 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
574 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
577 * Other language changes:
579 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
580 extension, which is no longer supported.
582 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
583 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
584 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
585 expressed as U'1D11E'.
587 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
589 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
590 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
591 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
592 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
594 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
596 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
598 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
601 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
602 see different parts of a large data file.
604 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
605 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
606 clicking on an icon will open the file.
608 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
609 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
613 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
614 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
615 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
616 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
618 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
619 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
620 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
623 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
624 characters, including double-width characters and combining
627 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
629 - The HTML output is much improved.
631 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
632 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
633 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
634 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
635 of their intended syntax mode.
637 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
640 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
641 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
642 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
643 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
644 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
645 one the system file uses.
647 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
650 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
651 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
652 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
654 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
657 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
659 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
663 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
665 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
667 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
668 translationproject.org.
670 * Statistical bug fixes:
672 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
675 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
676 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
677 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
679 * Build fixes and changes:
681 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
683 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
684 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
686 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
688 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
690 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
691 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
692 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
695 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
697 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
699 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
700 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
701 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
704 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
706 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
707 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
709 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
711 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
712 with spaces as expected.
714 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
715 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
716 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
718 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
720 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
722 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
723 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
724 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
725 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
727 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
728 that does not exist (bug #24569).
730 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
733 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
735 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
737 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
739 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
740 instead of the current directory, to better match user
743 - Some data editor fixes.
747 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
749 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
751 * Statistical bug fixes:
753 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
754 regression output (bug #23567).
756 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
758 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
760 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
762 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
764 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
766 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
767 disk accesses on modern machines.
771 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
774 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
777 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
778 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
781 * Build fixes and changes:
783 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
784 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
786 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
789 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
790 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
792 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
793 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
795 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
797 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
799 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
800 found them too poor to be useful.
802 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
804 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
805 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
807 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
808 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
809 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
810 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
813 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
816 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
820 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
821 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
822 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
824 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
825 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
826 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
828 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
829 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
831 Statistical procedure changes:
833 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
834 via least-squares estimation.
836 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
837 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
839 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
842 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
843 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
845 User interface changes:
847 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
848 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
850 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
853 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
854 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
855 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
858 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
859 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
860 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
861 executed as if `+' had been specified.
863 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
864 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
865 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
867 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
868 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
869 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
870 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
875 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
876 manual for a full description of the available options.
878 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
879 "make install" will do this for you.
881 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
882 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
884 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
885 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
886 Previously, by default output was written only to file
887 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
888 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
893 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
894 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
895 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
896 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
898 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
899 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
900 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
904 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
905 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
906 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
907 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
908 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
910 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
911 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
914 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
915 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
916 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
917 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
919 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
920 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
921 longer needed, or supported.
923 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
924 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
925 no longer needed, or supported.
929 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
930 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
931 is no longer needed, or supported.
933 Command language changes:
935 * The following commands are new:
937 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
938 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
939 types of foreign data.
941 - CD, to change the current directory.
943 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
945 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
948 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
950 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
952 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
955 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
957 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
959 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
961 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
963 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
966 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
968 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
969 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
970 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
972 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
973 re-implemented in a later release:
975 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
981 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
982 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
983 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
985 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
986 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
988 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
990 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
991 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
992 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
993 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
996 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
997 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
998 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
1000 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
1001 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1002 reassigned to new files.
1004 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1005 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1006 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1007 documentation on those particular commands.
1009 Data access changes:
1011 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1012 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1013 format of these files.
1015 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1016 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1017 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1018 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1021 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1022 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1023 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1024 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1025 native floating point format.
1027 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1028 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1029 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1031 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1032 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1034 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1035 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1036 subcommands has been added.
1038 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1039 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1040 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1043 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1044 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1046 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1047 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1048 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1052 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1053 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1056 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1057 have been extensively revised and improved.
1059 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1062 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1064 Changes in build dependencies:
1066 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1069 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1070 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1071 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1073 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1075 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1077 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1079 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1087 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1088 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1091 * T-TEST (re-written).
1093 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1094 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1097 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1098 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1099 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1100 third-party software.
1102 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1104 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1107 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1109 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1110 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1111 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1113 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1114 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1116 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1117 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1119 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1120 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1121 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1124 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1125 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1128 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1131 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1134 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1135 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1136 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1138 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1140 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1142 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1145 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1146 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1149 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1150 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1152 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1156 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1159 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1160 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1162 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1163 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1165 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1168 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1171 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1174 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1175 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1176 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1178 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1180 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1182 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1186 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1188 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1192 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1193 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1195 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1197 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1199 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1203 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1205 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1207 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1208 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1210 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1211 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1213 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1214 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1215 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1216 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1218 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1219 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1220 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1222 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1223 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1224 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1226 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1227 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1228 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1231 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1232 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1235 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1236 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1238 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1239 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1240 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1242 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1243 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1244 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1246 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1247 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1248 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1251 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1252 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1255 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1256 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1258 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1261 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1262 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1263 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1265 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1266 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1270 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1271 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1273 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1274 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1275 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1277 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1279 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1283 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1285 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1287 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1288 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1290 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1292 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1293 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1295 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1296 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1298 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1299 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1302 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1303 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1308 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1309 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1310 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1312 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1316 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1318 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1319 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1322 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1323 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1324 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1326 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1328 Procedures now implemented:
1329 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1331 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1334 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1335 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1346 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1347 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1350 New command-line features:
1351 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1352 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1353 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1354 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1355 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1357 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1359 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1361 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1363 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1364 reinstall your `devices' file.
1366 New output driver for HTML.
1368 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1370 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1372 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1373 * PSPP system file format
1374 * PSPP portable file format
1375 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1378 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1379 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1381 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1383 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1384 versions, please see ONEWS.
1386 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1387 Copyright information:
1389 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1390 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1391 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1392 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1394 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1395 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1396 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1400 version-control: never