1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019 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 1.2.0 to 1.3.0:
9 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
11 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
12 rarely printed on paper.
14 * pspp-convert: New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search
15 for an encrypted file's password.
17 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
19 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
21 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL which
22 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
24 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
25 a filter was set has been fixed.
27 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for posthoc tests of the oneway
30 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
32 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
34 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
38 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
40 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
42 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
43 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
45 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
46 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
48 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
50 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
51 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
53 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
55 * Translation updates.
57 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
59 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
60 regression through the origin.
62 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
64 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
66 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
68 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
70 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
73 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
74 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
76 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
78 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
79 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
82 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
84 * Graphical user interface changes:
86 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
88 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
90 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
92 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
94 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
96 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
98 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
100 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
103 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
106 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
107 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
108 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
110 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
111 Now it can paste multiple variables.
113 * Bug fixes, including the following:
115 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
116 type variable as group variable.
118 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
119 superimposed with the currently selected one.
121 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
124 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
126 * Bug fixes, including the following:
128 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
131 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
134 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
136 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
138 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
139 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
140 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
141 as to produce better separated clusters.
143 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
145 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
147 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
148 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
150 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
152 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
153 somewhat different look and feel.
155 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
157 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
158 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
160 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
161 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
162 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
163 and will generate syntax accordingly.
165 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
166 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
167 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
174 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
176 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
178 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
180 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
182 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
183 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
184 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
185 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
187 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
189 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
190 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
193 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
194 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
195 default and only supported behavior.
197 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
200 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
201 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
202 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
204 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
207 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
209 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
211 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
213 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
214 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
215 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
216 format is not supported.
218 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
221 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
222 when an empty dataset was presented.
224 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
225 scatterplots and histograms.
227 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
228 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
229 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
230 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
232 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
234 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
236 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
238 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
239 introduced in 0.8.2.)
241 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
242 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
245 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
246 subcommand has been corrected.
248 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
251 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
254 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
256 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
258 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
259 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
260 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
262 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
263 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
265 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
266 by the current FILTER settings.
268 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
270 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
271 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
273 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
276 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
277 encoding to be selected.
279 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
281 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
282 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
284 * System file related improvements:
286 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
287 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
290 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
291 character encoding of string data in the system file.
293 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
294 truncation (bug #41863).
296 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
297 read successfully (bug #41475).
299 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
301 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
302 of fully saturated primaries.
304 * Support for new system file variants:
306 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
307 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
308 files. (The older format is still supported.)
310 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
311 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
312 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
313 do not directly read or write this format.
315 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
316 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
318 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
319 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
320 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
321 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
323 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
324 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
325 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
326 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
330 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
332 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
338 * Changes to existing commands:
340 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
341 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
343 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
345 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
347 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
348 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
349 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
351 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
355 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
357 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
360 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
363 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
369 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
376 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
380 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
384 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
386 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
388 * Changes to existing commands:
390 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
392 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
394 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
396 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
397 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
398 applied to the included file.
400 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
402 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
404 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
407 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
410 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
412 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
413 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
414 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
416 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
417 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
419 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
422 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
425 * Other language changes:
427 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
428 extension, which is no longer supported.
430 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
431 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
432 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
433 expressed as U'1D11E'.
435 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
437 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
438 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
439 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
440 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
442 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
444 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
446 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
449 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
450 see different parts of a large data file.
452 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
453 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
454 clicking on an icon will open the file.
456 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
457 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
461 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
462 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
463 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
464 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
466 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
467 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
468 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
471 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
472 characters, including double-width characters and combining
475 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
477 - The HTML output is much improved.
479 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
480 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
481 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
482 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
483 of their intended syntax mode.
485 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
488 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
489 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
490 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
491 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
492 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
493 one the system file uses.
495 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
498 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
499 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
500 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
502 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
505 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
507 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
511 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
513 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
515 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
516 translationproject.org.
518 * Statistical bug fixes:
520 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
523 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
524 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
525 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
527 * Build fixes and changes:
529 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
531 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
532 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
534 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
536 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
538 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
539 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
540 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
543 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
545 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
547 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
548 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
549 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
552 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
554 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
555 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
557 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
559 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
560 with spaces as expected.
562 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
563 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
564 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
566 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
568 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
570 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
571 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
572 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
573 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
575 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
576 that does not exist (bug #24569).
578 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
581 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
583 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
585 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
587 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
588 instead of the current directory, to better match user
591 - Some data editor fixes.
595 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
597 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
599 * Statistical bug fixes:
601 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
602 regression output (bug #23567).
604 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
606 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
608 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
610 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
612 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
614 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
615 disk accesses on modern machines.
619 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
622 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
625 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
626 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
629 * Build fixes and changes:
631 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
632 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
634 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
637 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
638 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
640 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
641 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
643 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
645 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
647 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
648 found them too poor to be useful.
650 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
652 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
653 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
655 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
656 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
657 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
658 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
661 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
664 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
668 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
669 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
670 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
672 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
673 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
674 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
676 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
677 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
679 Statistical procedure changes:
681 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
682 via least-squares estimation.
684 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
685 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
687 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
690 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
691 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
693 User interface changes:
695 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
696 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
698 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
701 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
702 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
703 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
706 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
707 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
708 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
709 executed as if `+' had been specified.
711 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
712 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
713 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
715 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
716 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
717 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
718 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
723 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
724 manual for a full description of the available options.
726 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
727 "make install" will do this for you.
729 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
730 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
732 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
733 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
734 Previously, by default output was written only to file
735 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
736 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
741 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
742 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
743 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
744 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
746 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
747 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
748 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
752 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
753 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
754 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
755 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
756 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
758 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
759 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
762 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
763 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
764 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
765 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
767 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
768 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
769 longer needed, or supported.
771 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
772 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
773 no longer needed, or supported.
777 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
778 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
779 is no longer needed, or supported.
781 Command language changes:
783 * The following commands are new:
785 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
786 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
787 types of foreign data.
789 - CD, to change the current directory.
791 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
793 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
796 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
798 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
800 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
803 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
805 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
807 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
809 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
811 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
814 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
816 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
817 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
818 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
820 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
821 re-implemented in a later release:
823 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
829 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
830 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
831 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
833 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
834 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
836 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
838 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
839 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
840 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
841 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
844 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
845 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
846 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
848 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
849 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
850 reassigned to new files.
852 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
853 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
854 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
855 documentation on those particular commands.
859 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
860 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
861 format of these files.
863 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
864 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
865 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
866 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
869 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
870 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
871 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
872 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
873 native floating point format.
875 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
876 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
877 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
879 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
880 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
882 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
883 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
884 subcommands has been added.
886 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
887 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
888 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
891 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
892 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
894 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
895 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
896 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
900 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
901 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
904 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
905 have been extensively revised and improved.
907 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
910 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
912 Changes in build dependencies:
914 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
917 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
918 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
919 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
921 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
923 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
925 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
927 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
935 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
936 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
939 * T-TEST (re-written).
941 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
942 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
945 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
946 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
947 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
948 third-party software.
950 * SET EPOCH implemented.
952 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
955 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
957 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
958 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
959 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
961 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
962 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
964 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
965 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
967 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
968 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
969 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
972 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
973 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
976 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
979 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
982 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
983 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
984 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
986 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
988 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
990 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
993 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
994 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
997 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
998 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1000 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1004 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1007 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1008 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1010 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1011 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1013 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1016 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1019 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1022 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1023 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1024 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1026 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1028 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1030 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1034 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1036 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1040 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1041 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1043 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1045 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1047 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1051 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1053 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1055 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1056 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1058 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1059 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1061 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1062 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1063 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1064 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1066 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1067 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1068 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1070 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1071 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1072 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1074 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1075 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1076 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1079 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1080 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1083 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1084 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1086 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1087 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1088 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1090 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1091 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1092 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1094 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1095 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1096 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1099 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1100 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1103 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1104 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1106 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1109 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1110 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1111 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1113 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1114 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1118 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1119 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1121 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1122 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1123 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1125 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1127 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1131 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1133 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1135 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1136 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1138 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1140 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1141 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1143 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1144 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1146 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1147 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1150 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1151 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1156 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1157 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1158 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1160 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1164 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1166 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1167 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1170 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1171 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1172 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1174 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1176 Procedures now implemented:
1177 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1179 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1182 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1183 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1194 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1195 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1198 New command-line features:
1199 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1200 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1201 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1202 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1203 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1205 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1207 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1209 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1211 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1212 reinstall your `devices' file.
1214 New output driver for HTML.
1216 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1218 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1220 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1221 * PSPP system file format
1222 * PSPP portable file format
1223 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1226 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1227 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1229 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1231 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1232 versions, please see ONEWS.
1234 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1235 Copyright information:
1237 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1238 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1239 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1240 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1242 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1243 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1244 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1248 version-control: never