1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
10 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
11 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
13 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
15 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
17 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
18 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
19 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
21 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
24 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
25 contrasts tests has been corrected.
27 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
29 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
30 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
32 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
33 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
34 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
36 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
37 graphical output examples and screenshots.
39 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
44 - Perl is no longer required to build.
46 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
47 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
50 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
52 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
54 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
56 * Output improvements:
58 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
60 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
61 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
63 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
64 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
66 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
67 as a "table of contents" for the file.
69 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
71 * New features in pspp-output:
73 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
75 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
77 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
81 * Translation updates.
83 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
85 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
87 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
89 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
90 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
91 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
93 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
94 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
95 which is surprising to some users.
97 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
98 use to save the contents of its output editor:
100 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
102 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
104 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
105 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
106 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
109 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
110 invalid syntax has been fixed.
112 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
114 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
115 rarely printed on paper.
117 * pspp-convert improvements:
119 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
120 encrypted file's password.
122 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
124 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
125 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
128 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
130 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
132 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
133 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
135 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
136 one or more plots are requested.
138 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
139 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
141 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
142 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
143 from the cluster centre to the active file.
145 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
147 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
150 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
152 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
153 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
156 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
161 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
165 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
167 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
169 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
173 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
175 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
177 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
178 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
180 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
181 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
183 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
185 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
186 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
188 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
190 * Translation updates.
192 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
194 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
195 regression through the origin.
197 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
199 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
201 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
203 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
205 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
208 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
209 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
211 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
213 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
214 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
217 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
219 * Graphical user interface changes:
221 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
223 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
225 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
227 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
229 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
231 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
233 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
235 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
238 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
241 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
242 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
243 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
245 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
246 Now it can paste multiple variables.
248 * Bug fixes, including the following:
250 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
251 type variable as group variable.
253 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
254 superimposed with the currently selected one.
256 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
259 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
261 * Bug fixes, including the following:
263 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
266 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
269 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
271 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
273 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
274 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
275 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
276 as to produce better separated clusters.
278 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
280 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
282 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
283 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
285 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
287 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
288 somewhat different look and feel.
290 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
292 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
293 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
295 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
296 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
297 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
298 and will generate syntax accordingly.
300 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
301 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
302 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
309 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
311 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
313 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
315 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
317 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
318 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
319 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
320 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
322 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
324 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
325 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
328 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
329 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
330 default and only supported behavior.
332 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
335 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
336 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
337 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
339 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
342 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
344 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
346 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
348 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
349 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
350 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
351 format is not supported.
353 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
356 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
357 when an empty dataset was presented.
359 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
360 scatterplots and histograms.
362 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
363 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
364 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
365 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
367 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
369 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
371 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
373 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
374 introduced in 0.8.2.)
376 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
377 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
380 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
381 subcommand has been corrected.
383 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
386 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
389 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
391 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
393 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
394 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
395 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
397 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
398 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
400 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
401 by the current FILTER settings.
403 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
405 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
406 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
408 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
411 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
412 encoding to be selected.
414 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
416 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
417 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
419 * System file related improvements:
421 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
422 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
425 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
426 character encoding of string data in the system file.
428 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
429 truncation (bug #41863).
431 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
432 read successfully (bug #41475).
434 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
436 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
437 of fully saturated primaries.
439 * Support for new system file variants:
441 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
442 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
443 files. (The older format is still supported.)
445 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
446 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
447 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
448 do not directly read or write this format.
450 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
451 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
453 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
454 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
455 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
456 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
458 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
459 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
460 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
461 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
465 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
467 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
473 * Changes to existing commands:
475 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
476 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
478 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
480 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
482 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
483 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
484 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
486 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
490 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
492 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
495 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
498 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
504 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
511 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
515 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
519 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
521 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
523 * Changes to existing commands:
525 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
527 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
529 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
531 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
532 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
533 applied to the included file.
535 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
537 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
539 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
542 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
545 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
547 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
548 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
549 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
551 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
552 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
554 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
557 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
560 * Other language changes:
562 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
563 extension, which is no longer supported.
565 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
566 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
567 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
568 expressed as U'1D11E'.
570 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
572 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
573 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
574 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
575 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
577 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
579 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
581 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
584 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
585 see different parts of a large data file.
587 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
588 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
589 clicking on an icon will open the file.
591 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
592 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
596 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
597 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
598 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
599 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
601 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
602 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
603 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
606 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
607 characters, including double-width characters and combining
610 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
612 - The HTML output is much improved.
614 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
615 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
616 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
617 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
618 of their intended syntax mode.
620 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
623 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
624 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
625 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
626 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
627 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
628 one the system file uses.
630 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
633 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
634 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
635 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
637 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
640 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
642 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
646 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
648 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
650 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
651 translationproject.org.
653 * Statistical bug fixes:
655 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
658 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
659 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
660 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
662 * Build fixes and changes:
664 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
666 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
667 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
669 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
671 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
673 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
674 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
675 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
678 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
680 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
682 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
683 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
684 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
687 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
689 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
690 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
692 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
694 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
695 with spaces as expected.
697 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
698 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
699 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
701 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
703 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
705 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
706 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
707 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
708 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
710 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
711 that does not exist (bug #24569).
713 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
716 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
718 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
720 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
722 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
723 instead of the current directory, to better match user
726 - Some data editor fixes.
730 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
732 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
734 * Statistical bug fixes:
736 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
737 regression output (bug #23567).
739 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
741 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
743 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
745 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
747 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
749 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
750 disk accesses on modern machines.
754 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
757 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
760 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
761 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
764 * Build fixes and changes:
766 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
767 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
769 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
772 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
773 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
775 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
776 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
778 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
780 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
782 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
783 found them too poor to be useful.
785 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
787 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
788 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
790 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
791 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
792 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
793 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
796 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
799 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
803 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
804 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
805 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
807 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
808 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
809 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
811 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
812 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
814 Statistical procedure changes:
816 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
817 via least-squares estimation.
819 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
820 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
822 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
825 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
826 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
828 User interface changes:
830 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
831 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
833 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
836 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
837 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
838 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
841 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
842 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
843 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
844 executed as if `+' had been specified.
846 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
847 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
848 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
850 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
851 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
852 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
853 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
858 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
859 manual for a full description of the available options.
861 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
862 "make install" will do this for you.
864 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
865 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
867 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
868 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
869 Previously, by default output was written only to file
870 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
871 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
876 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
877 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
878 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
879 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
881 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
882 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
883 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
887 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
888 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
889 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
890 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
891 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
893 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
894 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
897 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
898 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
899 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
900 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
902 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
903 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
904 longer needed, or supported.
906 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
907 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
908 no longer needed, or supported.
912 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
913 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
914 is no longer needed, or supported.
916 Command language changes:
918 * The following commands are new:
920 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
921 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
922 types of foreign data.
924 - CD, to change the current directory.
926 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
928 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
931 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
933 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
935 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
938 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
940 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
942 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
944 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
946 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
949 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
951 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
952 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
953 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
955 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
956 re-implemented in a later release:
958 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
964 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
965 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
966 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
968 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
969 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
971 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
973 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
974 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
975 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
976 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
979 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
980 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
981 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
983 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
984 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
985 reassigned to new files.
987 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
988 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
989 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
990 documentation on those particular commands.
994 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
995 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
996 format of these files.
998 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
999 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1000 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1001 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1004 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1005 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1006 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1007 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1008 native floating point format.
1010 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1011 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1012 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1014 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1015 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1017 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1018 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1019 subcommands has been added.
1021 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1022 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1023 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1026 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1027 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1029 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1030 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1031 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1035 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1036 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1039 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1040 have been extensively revised and improved.
1042 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1045 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1047 Changes in build dependencies:
1049 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1052 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1053 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1054 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1056 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1058 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1060 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1062 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1070 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1071 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1074 * T-TEST (re-written).
1076 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1077 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1080 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1081 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1082 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1083 third-party software.
1085 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1087 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1090 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1092 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1093 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1094 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1096 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1097 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1099 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1100 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1102 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1103 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1104 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1107 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1108 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1111 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1114 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1117 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1118 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1119 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1121 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1123 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1125 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1128 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1129 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1132 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1133 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1135 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1139 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1142 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1143 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1145 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1146 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1148 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1151 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1154 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1157 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1158 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1159 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1161 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1163 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1165 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1169 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1171 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1175 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1176 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1178 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1180 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1182 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1186 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1188 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1190 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1191 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1193 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1194 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1196 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1197 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1198 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1199 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1201 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1202 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1203 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1205 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1206 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1207 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1209 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1210 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1211 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1214 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1215 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1218 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1219 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1221 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1222 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1223 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1225 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1226 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1227 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1229 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1230 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1231 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1234 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1235 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1238 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1239 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1241 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1244 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1245 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1246 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1248 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1249 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1253 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1254 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1256 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1257 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1258 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1260 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1262 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1266 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1268 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1270 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1271 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1273 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1275 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1276 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1278 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1279 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1281 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1282 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1285 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1286 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1291 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1292 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1293 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1295 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1299 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1301 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1302 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1305 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1306 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1307 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1309 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1311 Procedures now implemented:
1312 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1314 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1317 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1318 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1329 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1330 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1333 New command-line features:
1334 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1335 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1336 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1337 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1338 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1340 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1342 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1344 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1346 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1347 reinstall your `devices' file.
1349 New output driver for HTML.
1351 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1353 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1355 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1356 * PSPP system file format
1357 * PSPP portable file format
1358 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1361 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1362 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1364 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1366 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1367 versions, please see ONEWS.
1369 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1370 Copyright information:
1372 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1373 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1374 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1375 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1377 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1378 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1379 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1383 version-control: never