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 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
9 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
12 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
14 * Bug fixes, including the following:
16 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
19 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
22 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
24 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
26 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
27 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
28 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
29 as to produce better separated clusters.
31 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
33 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
35 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
36 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
38 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
40 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
41 somewhat different look and feel.
43 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
45 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
46 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
48 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
49 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
50 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
51 and will generate syntax accordingly.
53 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
54 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
55 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
62 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
64 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
66 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
68 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
70 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
71 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
72 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
73 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
75 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
77 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
78 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
81 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
82 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
83 default and only supported behavior.
85 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
88 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
89 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
90 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
92 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
95 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
97 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
99 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
101 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
102 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
103 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
104 format is not supported.
106 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
109 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
110 when an empty dataset was presented.
112 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
113 scatterplots and histograms.
115 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
116 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
117 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
118 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
120 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
122 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
124 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
126 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
127 introduced in 0.8.2.)
129 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
130 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
133 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
134 subcommand has been corrected.
136 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
139 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
142 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
144 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
146 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
147 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
148 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
150 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
151 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
153 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
154 by the current FILTER settings.
156 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
158 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
159 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
161 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
164 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
165 encoding to be selected.
167 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
169 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
170 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
172 * System file related improvements:
174 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
175 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
178 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
179 character encoding of string data in the system file.
181 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
182 truncation (bug #41863).
184 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
185 read successfully (bug #41475).
187 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
189 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
190 of fully saturated primaries.
192 * Support for new system file variants:
194 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
195 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
196 files. (The older format is still supported.)
198 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
199 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
200 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
201 do not directly read or write this format.
203 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
204 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
206 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
207 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
208 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
209 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
211 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
212 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
213 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
214 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
218 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
220 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
226 * Changes to existing commands:
228 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
229 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
231 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
233 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
235 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
236 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
237 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
239 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
243 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
245 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
248 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
251 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
257 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
264 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
268 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
272 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
274 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
276 * Changes to existing commands:
278 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
280 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
282 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
284 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
285 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
286 applied to the included file.
288 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
290 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
292 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
295 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
298 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
300 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
301 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
302 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
304 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
305 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
307 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
310 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
313 * Other language changes:
315 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
316 extension, which is no longer supported.
318 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
319 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
320 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
321 expressed as U'1D11E'.
323 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
325 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
326 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
327 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
328 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
330 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
332 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
334 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
337 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
338 see different parts of a large data file.
340 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
341 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
342 clicking on an icon will open the file.
344 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
345 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
349 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
350 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
351 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
352 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
354 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
355 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
356 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
359 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
360 characters, including double-width characters and combining
363 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
365 - The HTML output is much improved.
367 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
368 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
369 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
370 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
371 of their intended syntax mode.
373 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
376 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
377 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
378 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
379 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
380 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
381 one the system file uses.
383 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
386 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
387 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
388 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
390 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
393 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
395 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
399 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
401 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
403 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
404 translationproject.org.
406 * Statistical bug fixes:
408 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
411 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
412 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
413 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
415 * Build fixes and changes:
417 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
419 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
420 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
422 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
424 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
426 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
427 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
428 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
431 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
433 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
435 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
436 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
437 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
440 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
442 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
443 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
445 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
447 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
448 with spaces as expected.
450 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
451 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
452 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
454 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
456 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
458 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
459 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
460 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
461 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
463 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
464 that does not exist (bug #24569).
466 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
469 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
471 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
473 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
475 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
476 instead of the current directory, to better match user
479 - Some data editor fixes.
483 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
485 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
487 * Statistical bug fixes:
489 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
490 regression output (bug #23567).
492 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
494 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
496 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
498 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
500 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
502 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
503 disk accesses on modern machines.
507 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
510 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
513 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
514 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
517 * Build fixes and changes:
519 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
520 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
522 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
525 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
526 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
528 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
529 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
531 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
533 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
535 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
536 found them too poor to be useful.
538 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
540 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
541 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
543 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
544 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
545 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
546 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
549 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
552 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
556 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
557 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
558 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
560 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
561 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
562 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
564 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
565 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
567 Statistical procedure changes:
569 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
570 via least-squares estimation.
572 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
573 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
575 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
578 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
579 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
581 User interface changes:
583 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
584 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
586 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
589 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
590 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
591 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
594 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
595 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
596 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
597 executed as if `+' had been specified.
599 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
600 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
601 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
603 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
604 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
605 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
606 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
611 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
612 manual for a full description of the available options.
614 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
615 "make install" will do this for you.
617 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
618 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
620 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
621 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
622 Previously, by default output was written only to file
623 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
624 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
629 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
630 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
631 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
632 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
634 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
635 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
636 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
640 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
641 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
642 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
643 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
644 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
646 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
647 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
650 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
651 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
652 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
653 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
655 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
656 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
657 longer needed, or supported.
659 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
660 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
661 no longer needed, or supported.
665 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
666 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
667 is no longer needed, or supported.
669 Command language changes:
671 * The following commands are new:
673 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
674 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
675 types of foreign data.
677 - CD, to change the current directory.
679 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
681 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
684 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
686 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
688 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
691 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
693 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
695 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
697 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
699 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
702 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
704 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
705 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
706 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
708 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
709 re-implemented in a later release:
711 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
717 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
718 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
719 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
721 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
722 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
724 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
726 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
727 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
728 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
729 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
732 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
733 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
734 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
736 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
737 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
738 reassigned to new files.
740 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
741 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
742 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
743 documentation on those particular commands.
747 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
748 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
749 format of these files.
751 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
752 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
753 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
754 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
757 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
758 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
759 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
760 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
761 native floating point format.
763 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
764 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
765 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
767 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
768 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
770 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
771 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
772 subcommands has been added.
774 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
775 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
776 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
779 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
780 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
782 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
783 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
784 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
788 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
789 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
792 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
793 have been extensively revised and improved.
795 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
798 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
800 Changes in build dependencies:
802 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
805 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
806 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
807 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
809 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
811 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
813 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
815 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
823 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
824 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
827 * T-TEST (re-written).
829 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
830 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
833 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
834 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
835 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
836 third-party software.
838 * SET EPOCH implemented.
840 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
843 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
845 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
846 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
847 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
849 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
850 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
852 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
853 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
855 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
856 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
857 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
860 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
861 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
864 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
867 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
870 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
871 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
872 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
874 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
876 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
878 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
881 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
882 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
885 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
886 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
888 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
892 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
895 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
896 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
898 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
899 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
901 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
904 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
907 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
910 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
911 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
912 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
914 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
916 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
918 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
922 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
924 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
928 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
929 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
931 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
933 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
935 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
939 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
941 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
943 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
944 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
946 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
947 didn't like being the last command in a file.
949 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
950 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
951 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
952 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
954 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
955 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
956 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
958 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
959 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
960 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
962 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
963 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
964 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
967 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
968 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
971 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
972 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
974 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
975 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
976 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
978 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
979 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
980 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
982 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
983 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
984 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
987 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
988 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
991 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
992 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
994 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
997 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
998 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
999 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1001 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1002 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1006 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1007 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1009 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1010 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1011 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1013 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1015 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1019 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1021 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1023 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1024 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1026 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1028 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1029 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1031 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1032 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1034 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1035 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1038 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1039 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1044 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1045 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1046 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1048 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1052 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1054 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1055 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1058 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1059 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1060 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1062 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1064 Procedures now implemented:
1065 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1067 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1070 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1071 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1082 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1083 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1086 New command-line features:
1087 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1088 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1089 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1090 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1091 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1093 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1095 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1097 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1099 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1100 reinstall your `devices' file.
1102 New output driver for HTML.
1104 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1106 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1108 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1109 * PSPP system file format
1110 * PSPP portable file format
1111 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1114 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1115 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1117 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1119 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1120 versions, please see ONEWS.
1122 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1123 Copyright information:
1125 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1126 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1127 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1128 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1130 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1131 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1132 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1136 version-control: never