1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.10.3:
11 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
13 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
16 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
19 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
20 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
21 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
23 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
24 Now it can paste multiple variables.
26 * Bug fixes, including the following:
28 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
29 type variable as group variable.
31 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
32 superimposed with the currently selected one.
34 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
37 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
39 * Bug fixes, including the following:
41 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
44 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
47 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
49 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
51 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
52 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
53 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
54 as to produce better separated clusters.
56 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
58 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
60 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
61 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
63 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
65 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
66 somewhat different look and feel.
68 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
70 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
71 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
73 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
74 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
75 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
76 and will generate syntax accordingly.
78 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
79 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
80 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
87 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
89 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
91 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
93 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
95 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
96 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
97 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
98 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
100 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
102 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
103 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
106 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
107 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
108 default and only supported behavior.
110 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
113 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
114 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
115 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
117 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
120 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
122 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
124 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
126 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
127 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
128 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
129 format is not supported.
131 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
134 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
135 when an empty dataset was presented.
137 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
138 scatterplots and histograms.
140 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
141 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
142 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
143 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
145 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
147 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
149 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
151 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
152 introduced in 0.8.2.)
154 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
155 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
158 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
159 subcommand has been corrected.
161 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
164 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
167 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
169 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
171 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
172 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
173 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
175 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
176 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
178 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
179 by the current FILTER settings.
181 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
183 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
184 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
186 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
189 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
190 encoding to be selected.
192 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
194 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
195 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
197 * System file related improvements:
199 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
200 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
203 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
204 character encoding of string data in the system file.
206 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
207 truncation (bug #41863).
209 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
210 read successfully (bug #41475).
212 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
214 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
215 of fully saturated primaries.
217 * Support for new system file variants:
219 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
220 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
221 files. (The older format is still supported.)
223 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
224 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
225 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
226 do not directly read or write this format.
228 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
229 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
231 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
232 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
233 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
234 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
236 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
237 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
238 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
239 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
243 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
245 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
251 * Changes to existing commands:
253 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
254 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
256 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
258 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
260 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
261 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
262 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
264 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
268 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
270 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
273 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
276 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
282 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
289 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
293 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
297 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
299 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
301 * Changes to existing commands:
303 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
305 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
307 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
309 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
310 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
311 applied to the included file.
313 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
315 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
317 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
320 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
323 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
325 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
326 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
327 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
329 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
330 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
332 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
335 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
338 * Other language changes:
340 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
341 extension, which is no longer supported.
343 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
344 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
345 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
346 expressed as U'1D11E'.
348 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
350 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
351 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
352 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
353 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
355 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
357 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
359 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
362 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
363 see different parts of a large data file.
365 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
366 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
367 clicking on an icon will open the file.
369 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
370 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
374 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
375 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
376 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
377 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
379 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
380 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
381 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
384 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
385 characters, including double-width characters and combining
388 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
390 - The HTML output is much improved.
392 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
393 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
394 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
395 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
396 of their intended syntax mode.
398 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
401 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
402 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
403 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
404 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
405 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
406 one the system file uses.
408 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
411 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
412 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
413 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
415 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
418 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
420 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
424 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
426 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
428 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
429 translationproject.org.
431 * Statistical bug fixes:
433 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
436 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
437 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
438 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
440 * Build fixes and changes:
442 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
444 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
445 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
447 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
449 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
451 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
452 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
453 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
456 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
458 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
460 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
461 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
462 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
465 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
467 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
468 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
470 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
472 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
473 with spaces as expected.
475 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
476 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
477 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
479 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
481 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
483 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
484 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
485 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
486 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
488 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
489 that does not exist (bug #24569).
491 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
494 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
496 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
498 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
500 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
501 instead of the current directory, to better match user
504 - Some data editor fixes.
508 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
510 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
512 * Statistical bug fixes:
514 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
515 regression output (bug #23567).
517 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
519 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
521 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
523 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
525 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
527 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
528 disk accesses on modern machines.
532 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
535 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
538 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
539 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
542 * Build fixes and changes:
544 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
545 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
547 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
550 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
551 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
553 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
554 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
556 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
558 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
560 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
561 found them too poor to be useful.
563 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
565 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
566 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
568 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
569 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
570 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
571 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
574 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
577 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
581 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
582 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
583 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
585 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
586 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
587 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
589 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
590 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
592 Statistical procedure changes:
594 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
595 via least-squares estimation.
597 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
598 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
600 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
603 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
604 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
606 User interface changes:
608 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
609 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
611 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
614 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
615 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
616 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
619 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
620 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
621 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
622 executed as if `+' had been specified.
624 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
625 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
626 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
628 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
629 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
630 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
631 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
636 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
637 manual for a full description of the available options.
639 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
640 "make install" will do this for you.
642 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
643 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
645 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
646 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
647 Previously, by default output was written only to file
648 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
649 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
654 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
655 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
656 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
657 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
659 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
660 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
661 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
665 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
666 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
667 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
668 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
669 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
671 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
672 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
675 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
676 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
677 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
678 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
680 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
681 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
682 longer needed, or supported.
684 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
685 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
686 no longer needed, or supported.
690 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
691 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
692 is no longer needed, or supported.
694 Command language changes:
696 * The following commands are new:
698 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
699 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
700 types of foreign data.
702 - CD, to change the current directory.
704 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
706 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
709 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
711 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
713 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
716 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
718 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
720 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
722 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
724 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
727 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
729 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
730 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
731 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
733 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
734 re-implemented in a later release:
736 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
742 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
743 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
744 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
746 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
747 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
749 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
751 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
752 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
753 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
754 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
757 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
758 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
759 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
761 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
762 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
763 reassigned to new files.
765 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
766 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
767 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
768 documentation on those particular commands.
772 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
773 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
774 format of these files.
776 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
777 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
778 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
779 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
782 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
783 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
784 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
785 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
786 native floating point format.
788 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
789 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
790 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
792 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
793 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
795 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
796 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
797 subcommands has been added.
799 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
800 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
801 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
804 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
805 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
807 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
808 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
809 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
813 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
814 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
817 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
818 have been extensively revised and improved.
820 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
823 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
825 Changes in build dependencies:
827 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
830 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
831 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
832 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
834 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
836 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
838 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
840 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
848 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
849 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
852 * T-TEST (re-written).
854 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
855 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
858 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
859 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
860 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
861 third-party software.
863 * SET EPOCH implemented.
865 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
868 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
870 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
871 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
872 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
874 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
875 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
877 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
878 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
880 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
881 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
882 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
885 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
886 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
889 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
892 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
895 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
896 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
897 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
899 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
901 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
903 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
906 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
907 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
910 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
911 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
913 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
917 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
920 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
921 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
923 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
924 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
926 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
929 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
932 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
935 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
936 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
937 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
939 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
941 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
943 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
947 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
949 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
953 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
954 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
956 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
958 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
960 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
964 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
966 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
968 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
969 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
971 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
972 didn't like being the last command in a file.
974 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
975 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
976 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
977 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
979 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
980 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
981 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
983 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
984 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
985 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
987 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
988 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
989 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
992 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
993 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
996 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
997 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
999 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1000 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1001 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1003 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1004 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1005 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1007 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1008 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1009 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1012 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1013 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1016 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1017 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1019 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1022 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1023 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1024 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1026 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1027 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1031 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1032 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1034 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1035 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1036 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1038 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1040 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1044 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1046 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1048 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1049 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1051 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1053 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1054 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1056 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1057 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1059 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1060 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1063 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1064 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1069 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1070 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1071 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1073 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1077 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1079 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1080 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1083 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1084 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1085 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1087 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1089 Procedures now implemented:
1090 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1092 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1095 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1096 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1107 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1108 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1111 New command-line features:
1112 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1113 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1114 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1115 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1116 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1118 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1120 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1122 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1124 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1125 reinstall your `devices' file.
1127 New output driver for HTML.
1129 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1131 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1133 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1134 * PSPP system file format
1135 * PSPP portable file format
1136 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1139 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1140 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1142 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1144 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1145 versions, please see ONEWS.
1147 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1148 Copyright information:
1150 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1151 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1152 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1153 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1155 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1156 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1157 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1161 version-control: never