1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019 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 1.2.0 to 1.3.0:
9 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
11 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
12 rarely printed on paper.
14 * pspp-convert: New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search
15 for an encrypted file's password.
17 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
19 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
21 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
22 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
24 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
25 one or more plots are requested.
27 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
28 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
30 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
31 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
32 from the cluster centre to the active file.
34 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
36 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
37 a filter was set has been fixed.
39 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
42 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
44 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
45 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
50 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
54 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
56 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
58 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
62 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
64 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
66 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
67 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
69 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
70 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
72 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
74 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
75 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
77 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
79 * Translation updates.
81 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
83 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
84 regression through the origin.
86 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
88 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
90 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
92 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
94 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
97 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
98 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
100 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
102 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
103 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
106 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
108 * Graphical user interface changes:
110 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
112 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
114 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
116 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
118 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
120 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
122 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
124 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
127 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
130 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
131 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
132 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
134 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
135 Now it can paste multiple variables.
137 * Bug fixes, including the following:
139 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
140 type variable as group variable.
142 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
143 superimposed with the currently selected one.
145 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
148 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
150 * Bug fixes, including the following:
152 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
155 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
158 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
160 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
162 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
163 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
164 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
165 as to produce better separated clusters.
167 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
169 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
171 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
172 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
174 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
176 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
177 somewhat different look and feel.
179 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
181 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
182 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
184 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
185 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
186 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
187 and will generate syntax accordingly.
189 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
190 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
191 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
198 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
200 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
202 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
204 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
206 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
207 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
208 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
209 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
211 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
213 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
214 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
217 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
218 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
219 default and only supported behavior.
221 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
224 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
225 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
226 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
228 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
231 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
233 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
235 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
237 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
238 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
239 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
240 format is not supported.
242 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
245 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
246 when an empty dataset was presented.
248 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
249 scatterplots and histograms.
251 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
252 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
253 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
254 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
256 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
258 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
260 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
262 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
263 introduced in 0.8.2.)
265 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
266 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
269 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
270 subcommand has been corrected.
272 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
275 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
278 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
280 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
282 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
283 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
284 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
286 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
287 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
289 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
290 by the current FILTER settings.
292 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
294 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
295 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
297 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
300 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
301 encoding to be selected.
303 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
305 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
306 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
308 * System file related improvements:
310 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
311 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
314 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
315 character encoding of string data in the system file.
317 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
318 truncation (bug #41863).
320 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
321 read successfully (bug #41475).
323 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
325 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
326 of fully saturated primaries.
328 * Support for new system file variants:
330 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
331 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
332 files. (The older format is still supported.)
334 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
335 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
336 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
337 do not directly read or write this format.
339 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
340 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
342 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
343 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
344 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
345 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
347 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
348 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
349 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
350 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
354 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
356 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
362 * Changes to existing commands:
364 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
365 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
367 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
369 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
371 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
372 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
373 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
375 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
379 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
381 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
384 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
387 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
393 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
400 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
404 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
408 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
410 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
412 * Changes to existing commands:
414 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
416 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
418 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
420 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
421 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
422 applied to the included file.
424 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
426 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
428 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
431 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
434 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
436 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
437 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
438 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
440 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
441 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
443 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
446 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
449 * Other language changes:
451 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
452 extension, which is no longer supported.
454 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
455 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
456 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
457 expressed as U'1D11E'.
459 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
461 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
462 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
463 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
464 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
466 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
468 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
470 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
473 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
474 see different parts of a large data file.
476 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
477 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
478 clicking on an icon will open the file.
480 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
481 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
485 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
486 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
487 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
488 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
490 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
491 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
492 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
495 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
496 characters, including double-width characters and combining
499 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
501 - The HTML output is much improved.
503 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
504 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
505 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
506 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
507 of their intended syntax mode.
509 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
512 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
513 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
514 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
515 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
516 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
517 one the system file uses.
519 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
522 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
523 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
524 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
526 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
529 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
531 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
535 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
537 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
539 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
540 translationproject.org.
542 * Statistical bug fixes:
544 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
547 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
548 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
549 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
551 * Build fixes and changes:
553 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
555 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
556 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
558 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
560 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
562 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
563 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
564 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
567 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
569 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
571 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
572 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
573 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
576 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
578 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
579 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
581 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
583 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
584 with spaces as expected.
586 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
587 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
588 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
590 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
592 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
594 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
595 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
596 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
597 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
599 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
600 that does not exist (bug #24569).
602 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
605 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
607 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
609 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
611 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
612 instead of the current directory, to better match user
615 - Some data editor fixes.
619 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
621 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
623 * Statistical bug fixes:
625 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
626 regression output (bug #23567).
628 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
630 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
632 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
634 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
636 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
638 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
639 disk accesses on modern machines.
643 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
646 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
649 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
650 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
653 * Build fixes and changes:
655 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
656 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
658 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
661 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
662 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
664 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
665 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
667 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
669 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
671 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
672 found them too poor to be useful.
674 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
676 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
677 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
679 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
680 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
681 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
682 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
685 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
688 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
692 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
693 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
694 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
696 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
697 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
698 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
700 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
701 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
703 Statistical procedure changes:
705 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
706 via least-squares estimation.
708 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
709 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
711 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
714 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
715 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
717 User interface changes:
719 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
720 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
722 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
725 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
726 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
727 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
730 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
731 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
732 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
733 executed as if `+' had been specified.
735 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
736 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
737 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
739 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
740 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
741 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
742 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
747 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
748 manual for a full description of the available options.
750 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
751 "make install" will do this for you.
753 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
754 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
756 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
757 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
758 Previously, by default output was written only to file
759 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
760 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
765 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
766 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
767 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
768 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
770 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
771 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
772 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
776 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
777 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
778 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
779 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
780 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
782 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
783 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
786 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
787 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
788 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
789 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
791 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
792 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
793 longer needed, or supported.
795 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
796 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
797 no longer needed, or supported.
801 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
802 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
803 is no longer needed, or supported.
805 Command language changes:
807 * The following commands are new:
809 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
810 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
811 types of foreign data.
813 - CD, to change the current directory.
815 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
817 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
820 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
822 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
824 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
827 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
829 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
831 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
833 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
835 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
838 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
840 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
841 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
842 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
844 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
845 re-implemented in a later release:
847 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
853 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
854 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
855 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
857 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
858 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
860 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
862 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
863 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
864 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
865 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
868 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
869 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
870 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
872 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
873 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
874 reassigned to new files.
876 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
877 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
878 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
879 documentation on those particular commands.
883 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
884 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
885 format of these files.
887 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
888 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
889 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
890 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
893 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
894 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
895 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
896 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
897 native floating point format.
899 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
900 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
901 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
903 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
904 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
906 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
907 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
908 subcommands has been added.
910 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
911 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
912 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
915 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
916 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
918 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
919 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
920 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
924 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
925 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
928 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
929 have been extensively revised and improved.
931 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
934 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
936 Changes in build dependencies:
938 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
941 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
942 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
943 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
945 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
947 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
949 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
951 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
959 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
960 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
963 * T-TEST (re-written).
965 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
966 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
969 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
970 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
971 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
972 third-party software.
974 * SET EPOCH implemented.
976 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
979 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
981 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
982 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
983 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
985 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
986 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
988 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
989 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
991 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
992 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
993 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
996 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
997 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1000 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1003 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1006 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1007 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1008 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1010 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1012 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1014 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1017 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1018 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1021 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1022 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1024 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1028 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1031 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1032 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1034 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1035 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1037 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1040 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1043 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1046 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1047 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1048 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1050 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1052 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1054 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1058 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1060 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1064 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1065 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1067 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1069 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1071 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1075 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1077 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1079 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1080 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1082 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1083 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1085 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1086 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1087 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1088 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1090 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1091 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1092 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1094 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1095 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1096 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1098 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1099 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1100 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1103 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1104 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1107 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1108 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1110 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1111 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1112 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1114 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1115 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1116 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1118 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1119 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1120 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1123 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1124 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1127 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1128 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1130 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1133 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1134 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1135 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1137 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1138 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1142 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1143 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1145 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1146 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1147 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1149 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1151 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1155 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1157 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1159 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1160 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1162 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1164 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1165 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1167 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1168 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1170 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1171 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1174 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1175 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1180 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1181 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1182 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1184 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1188 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1190 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1191 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1194 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1195 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1196 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1198 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1200 Procedures now implemented:
1201 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1203 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1206 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1207 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1218 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1219 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1222 New command-line features:
1223 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1224 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1225 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1226 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1227 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1229 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1231 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1233 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1235 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1236 reinstall your `devices' file.
1238 New output driver for HTML.
1240 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1242 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1244 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1245 * PSPP system file format
1246 * PSPP portable file format
1247 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1250 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1251 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1253 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1255 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1256 versions, please see ONEWS.
1258 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1259 Copyright information:
1261 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1262 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1263 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1264 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1266 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1267 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1268 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1272 version-control: never