1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Time-stamp: <2010-10-16 13:05:30 blp>
3 Copyright (C) 1996-9, 2000, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 0.7.3 to 0.7.6:
10 * NPAR TESTS now supports the /KRUSKAL-WALLIS and /RUNS subcommands.
12 * AUTORECODE now supports the /GROUP subcommand.
14 * The MRSETS command is now implemented.
16 * SAVE TRANSLATE is now implemented, with initial support for saving
17 data in comma-separated value and tab-delimited formats.
19 * The PRESERVE and RESTORE commands are now implemented.
21 * The HOST command has been updated to use more modern syntax.
23 Changes from 0.7.2 to 0.7.3:
25 * Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
26 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
27 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
30 * The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
31 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
32 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
33 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
35 Changes from 0.7.1 to 0.7.2:
37 * Updated Perl module interface.
39 * Value labels for long string variables are now supported.
41 * Missing values for long string variables are now supported.
43 Changes from 0.7.0 to 0.7.1:
45 * Added a perl module to facilitate reading and writing of pspp system
46 files from perl programs.
48 Changes from 0.6.2-pre6 to 0.7.0:
50 * Custom variable and data file attributes are now supported.
51 Commands VARIABLE ATTRIBUTE and DATAFILE ATTRIBUTE have been added
52 for setting and clear attributes. Support for attributes has also
53 been added to commands that read and write system files, such as
54 SAVE and GET, as well as to the DISPLAY command.
56 * Numererous improvements to the Graphical User Interface have
57 made. Notable improvements include:
59 - Non-Ascii characters in strings, labels and variable names are
62 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
63 see different parts of a large data file.
65 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
66 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
67 clicking on an icon will open the file.
70 * New statistical procedures:
75 NPAR TESTS now supports the WILCOXON and SIGN subcommands.
77 The CROSSTABS command has been completely re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
79 * Three new commands to combine data files have been added: MATCH FILES,
82 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
84 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2
88 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
90 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
92 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
93 translationproject.org.
95 * Statistical bug fixes:
97 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
100 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
101 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
102 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
104 * Build fixes and changes:
106 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
108 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
109 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
111 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
113 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
115 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
116 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
117 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
120 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
122 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
124 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
125 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
126 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
129 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
131 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
132 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
134 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
136 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
137 with spaces as expected.
139 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
140 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
141 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
143 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
145 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
147 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
148 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
149 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
150 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
152 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
153 that does not exist (bug #24569).
155 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
158 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
160 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
162 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
164 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
165 instead of the current directory, to better match user
168 - Some data editor fixes.
172 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
174 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
176 * Statistical bug fixes:
178 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
179 regression output (bug #23567).
181 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
183 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
185 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
187 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
189 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
191 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
192 disk accesses on modern machines.
196 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
199 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
202 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
203 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
206 * Build fixes and changes:
208 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
209 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
211 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
214 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
215 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
217 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
218 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
220 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
222 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
224 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
225 found them too poor to be useful.
227 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
229 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
230 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
232 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
233 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
234 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
235 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
238 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
241 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
245 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
246 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
247 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
249 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
250 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
251 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
253 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
254 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
256 Statistical procedure changes:
258 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
259 via least-squares estimation.
261 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
262 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
264 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
267 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
268 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
270 User interface changes:
272 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
273 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
275 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
278 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
279 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
280 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
283 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
284 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
285 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
286 executed as if `+' had been specified.
288 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
289 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
290 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
292 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
293 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
294 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
295 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
300 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
301 manual for a full description of the available options.
303 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
304 "make install" will do this for you.
306 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
307 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
309 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
310 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
311 Previously, by default output was written only to file
312 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
313 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
318 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
319 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
320 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
321 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
323 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
324 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
325 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
329 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
330 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
331 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
332 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
333 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
335 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
336 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
339 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
340 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
341 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
342 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
344 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
345 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
346 longer needed, or supported.
348 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
349 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
350 no longer needed, or supported.
354 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
355 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
356 is no longer needed, or supported.
358 Command language changes:
360 * The following commands are new:
362 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
363 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
364 types of foreign data.
366 - CD, to change the current directory.
368 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
370 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
373 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
375 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
377 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
380 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
382 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
384 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
386 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
388 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
391 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
393 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
394 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
395 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
397 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
398 re-implemented in a later release:
400 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
406 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
407 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
408 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
410 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
411 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
413 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
415 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
416 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
417 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
418 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
421 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
422 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
423 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
425 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
426 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
427 reassigned to new files.
429 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
430 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
431 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
432 documentation on those particular commands.
436 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
437 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
438 format of these files.
440 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
441 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
442 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
443 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
446 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
447 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
448 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
449 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
450 native floating point format.
452 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
453 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
454 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
456 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
457 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
459 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
460 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
461 subcommands has been added.
463 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
464 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
465 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
468 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
469 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
471 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
472 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
473 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
477 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
478 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
481 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
482 have been extensively revised and improved.
484 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
487 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
489 Changes in build dependencies:
491 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
494 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
495 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
496 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
498 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
500 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
502 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
504 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
512 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
513 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
516 * T-TEST (re-written).
518 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
519 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
522 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
523 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
524 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
525 third-party software.
527 * SET EPOCH implemented.
529 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
532 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
534 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
535 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
536 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
538 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
539 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
541 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
542 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
544 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
545 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
546 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
549 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
550 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
553 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
556 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
559 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
560 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
561 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
563 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
565 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
567 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
570 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
571 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
574 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
575 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
577 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
581 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
584 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
585 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
587 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
588 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
590 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
593 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
596 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
599 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
600 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
601 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
603 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
605 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
607 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
611 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
613 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
617 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
618 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
620 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
622 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
624 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
628 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
630 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
632 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
633 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
635 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
636 didn't like being the last command in a file.
638 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
639 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
640 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
641 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
643 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
644 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
645 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
647 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
648 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
649 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
651 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
652 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
653 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
656 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
657 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
660 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
661 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
663 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
664 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
665 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
667 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
668 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
669 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
671 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
672 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
673 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
676 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
677 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
680 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
681 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
683 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
686 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
687 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
688 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
690 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
691 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
695 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
696 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
698 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
699 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
700 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
702 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
704 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
708 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
710 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
712 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
713 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
715 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
717 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
718 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
720 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
721 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
723 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
724 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
727 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
728 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
733 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
734 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
735 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
737 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
741 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
743 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
744 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
747 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
748 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
749 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
751 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
753 Procedures now implemented:
754 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
756 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
759 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
760 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
771 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
772 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
775 New command-line features:
776 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
777 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
778 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
779 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
780 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
782 Operator LAG is now implemented.
784 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
786 Table output manager completely rewritten.
788 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
789 reinstall your `devices' file.
791 New output driver for HTML.
793 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
795 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
797 Added Texinfo documentation for:
798 * PSPP system file format
799 * PSPP portable file format
800 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
803 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
804 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
806 Changes for version 0.1.0:
808 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
809 versions, please see ONEWS.
811 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
812 Copyright information:
814 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
815 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
816 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
817 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
819 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
820 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
821 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
825 version-control: never