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 0.8.5 to 0.9.0:
9 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
10 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
11 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
12 as to produce better separated clusters.
14 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
16 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
18 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
19 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
21 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
23 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
24 somewhat different look and feel.
26 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
28 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
29 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
31 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
32 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
33 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
34 and will generate syntax accordingly.
36 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
37 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
38 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
41 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
43 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
44 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
47 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
48 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
49 default and only supported behavior.
51 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
54 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
55 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
56 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
58 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
61 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
63 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
65 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
67 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
68 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
69 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
70 format is not supported.
72 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
75 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
76 when an empty dataset was presented.
78 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
79 scatterplots and histograms.
81 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
82 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
83 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
84 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
86 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
88 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
90 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
92 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
95 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
96 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
99 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
100 subcommand has been corrected.
102 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
105 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
108 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
110 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
112 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
113 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
114 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
116 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
117 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
119 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
120 by the current FILTER settings.
122 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
124 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
125 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
127 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
130 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
131 encoding to be selected.
133 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
135 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
136 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
138 * System file related improvements:
140 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
141 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
144 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
145 character encoding of string data in the system file.
147 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
148 truncation (bug #41863).
150 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
151 read successfully (bug #41475).
153 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
155 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
156 of fully saturated primaries.
158 * Support for new system file variants:
160 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
161 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
162 files. (The older format is still supported.)
164 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
165 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
166 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
167 do not directly read or write this format.
169 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
170 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
172 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
173 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
174 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
175 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
177 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
178 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
179 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
180 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
184 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
186 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
192 * Changes to existing commands:
194 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
195 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
197 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
199 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
201 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
202 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
203 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
205 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
209 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
211 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
214 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
217 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
223 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
230 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
234 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
238 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
240 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
242 * Changes to existing commands:
244 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
246 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
248 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
250 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
251 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
252 applied to the included file.
254 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
256 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
258 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
261 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
264 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
266 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
267 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
268 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
270 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
271 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
273 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
276 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
279 * Other language changes:
281 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
282 extension, which is no longer supported.
284 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
285 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
286 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
287 expressed as U'1D11E'.
289 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
291 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
292 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
293 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
294 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
296 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
298 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
300 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
303 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
304 see different parts of a large data file.
306 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
307 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
308 clicking on an icon will open the file.
310 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
311 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
315 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
316 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
317 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
318 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
320 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
321 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
322 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
325 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
326 characters, including double-width characters and combining
329 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
331 - The HTML output is much improved.
333 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
334 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
335 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
336 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
337 of their intended syntax mode.
339 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
342 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
343 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
344 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
345 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
346 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
347 one the system file uses.
349 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
352 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
353 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
354 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
356 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
359 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
361 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
365 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
367 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
369 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
370 translationproject.org.
372 * Statistical bug fixes:
374 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
377 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
378 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
379 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
381 * Build fixes and changes:
383 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
385 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
386 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
388 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
390 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
392 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
393 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
394 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
397 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
399 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
401 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
402 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
403 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
406 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
408 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
409 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
411 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
413 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
414 with spaces as expected.
416 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
417 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
418 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
420 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
422 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
424 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
425 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
426 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
427 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
429 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
430 that does not exist (bug #24569).
432 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
435 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
437 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
439 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
441 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
442 instead of the current directory, to better match user
445 - Some data editor fixes.
449 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
451 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
453 * Statistical bug fixes:
455 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
456 regression output (bug #23567).
458 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
460 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
462 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
464 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
466 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
468 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
469 disk accesses on modern machines.
473 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
476 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
479 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
480 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
483 * Build fixes and changes:
485 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
486 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
488 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
491 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
492 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
494 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
495 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
497 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
499 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
501 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
502 found them too poor to be useful.
504 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
506 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
507 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
509 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
510 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
511 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
512 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
515 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
518 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
522 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
523 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
524 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
526 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
527 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
528 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
530 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
531 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
533 Statistical procedure changes:
535 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
536 via least-squares estimation.
538 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
539 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
541 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
544 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
545 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
547 User interface changes:
549 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
550 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
552 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
555 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
556 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
557 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
560 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
561 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
562 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
563 executed as if `+' had been specified.
565 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
566 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
567 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
569 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
570 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
571 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
572 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
577 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
578 manual for a full description of the available options.
580 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
581 "make install" will do this for you.
583 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
584 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
586 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
587 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
588 Previously, by default output was written only to file
589 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
590 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
595 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
596 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
597 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
598 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
600 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
601 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
602 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
606 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
607 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
608 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
609 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
610 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
612 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
613 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
616 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
617 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
618 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
619 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
621 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
622 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
623 longer needed, or supported.
625 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
626 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
627 no longer needed, or supported.
631 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
632 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
633 is no longer needed, or supported.
635 Command language changes:
637 * The following commands are new:
639 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
640 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
641 types of foreign data.
643 - CD, to change the current directory.
645 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
647 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
650 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
652 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
654 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
657 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
659 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
661 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
663 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
665 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
668 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
670 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
671 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
672 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
674 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
675 re-implemented in a later release:
677 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
683 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
684 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
685 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
687 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
688 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
690 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
692 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
693 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
694 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
695 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
698 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
699 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
700 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
702 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
703 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
704 reassigned to new files.
706 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
707 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
708 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
709 documentation on those particular commands.
713 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
714 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
715 format of these files.
717 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
718 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
719 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
720 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
723 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
724 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
725 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
726 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
727 native floating point format.
729 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
730 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
731 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
733 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
734 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
736 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
737 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
738 subcommands has been added.
740 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
741 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
742 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
745 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
746 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
748 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
749 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
750 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
754 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
755 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
758 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
759 have been extensively revised and improved.
761 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
764 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
766 Changes in build dependencies:
768 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
771 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
772 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
773 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
775 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
777 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
779 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
781 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
789 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
790 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
793 * T-TEST (re-written).
795 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
796 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
799 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
800 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
801 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
802 third-party software.
804 * SET EPOCH implemented.
806 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
809 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
811 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
812 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
813 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
815 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
816 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
818 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
819 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
821 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
822 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
823 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
826 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
827 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
830 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
833 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
836 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
837 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
838 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
840 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
842 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
844 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
847 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
848 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
851 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
852 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
854 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
858 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
861 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
862 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
864 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
865 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
867 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
870 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
873 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
876 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
877 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
878 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
880 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
882 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
884 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
888 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
890 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
894 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
895 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
897 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
899 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
901 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
905 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
907 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
909 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
910 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
912 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
913 didn't like being the last command in a file.
915 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
916 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
917 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
918 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
920 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
921 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
922 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
924 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
925 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
926 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
928 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
929 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
930 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
933 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
934 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
937 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
938 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
940 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
941 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
942 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
944 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
945 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
946 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
948 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
949 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
950 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
953 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
954 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
957 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
958 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
960 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
963 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
964 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
965 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
967 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
968 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
972 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
973 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
975 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
976 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
977 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
979 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
981 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
985 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
987 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
989 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
990 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
992 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
994 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
995 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
997 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
998 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1000 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1001 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1004 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1005 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1010 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1011 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1012 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1014 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1018 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1020 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1021 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1024 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1025 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1026 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1028 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1030 Procedures now implemented:
1031 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1033 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1036 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1037 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1048 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1049 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1052 New command-line features:
1053 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1054 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1055 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1056 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1057 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1059 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1061 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1063 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1065 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1066 reinstall your `devices' file.
1068 New output driver for HTML.
1070 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1072 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1074 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1075 * PSPP system file format
1076 * PSPP portable file format
1077 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1080 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1081 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1083 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1085 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1086 versions, please see ONEWS.
1088 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1089 Copyright information:
1091 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1092 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1093 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1094 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1096 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1097 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1098 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1102 version-control: never