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 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
15 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
16 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
17 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
19 * Bug fixes, including the following:
21 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
22 type variable as group variable.
24 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
25 superimposed with the currently selected one.
27 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
30 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
32 * Bug fixes, including the following:
34 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
37 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
40 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
42 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
44 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
45 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
46 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
47 as to produce better separated clusters.
49 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
51 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
53 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
54 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
56 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
58 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
59 somewhat different look and feel.
61 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
63 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
64 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
66 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
67 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
68 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
69 and will generate syntax accordingly.
71 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
72 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
73 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
80 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
82 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
84 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
86 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
88 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
89 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
90 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
91 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
93 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
95 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
96 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
99 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
100 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
101 default and only supported behavior.
103 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
106 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
107 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
108 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
110 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
113 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
115 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
117 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
119 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
120 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
121 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
122 format is not supported.
124 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
127 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
128 when an empty dataset was presented.
130 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
131 scatterplots and histograms.
133 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
134 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
135 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
136 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
138 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
140 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
142 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
144 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
145 introduced in 0.8.2.)
147 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
148 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
151 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
152 subcommand has been corrected.
154 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
157 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
160 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
162 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
164 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
165 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
166 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
168 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
169 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
171 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
172 by the current FILTER settings.
174 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
176 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
177 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
179 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
182 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
183 encoding to be selected.
185 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
187 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
188 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
190 * System file related improvements:
192 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
193 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
196 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
197 character encoding of string data in the system file.
199 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
200 truncation (bug #41863).
202 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
203 read successfully (bug #41475).
205 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
207 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
208 of fully saturated primaries.
210 * Support for new system file variants:
212 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
213 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
214 files. (The older format is still supported.)
216 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
217 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
218 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
219 do not directly read or write this format.
221 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
222 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
224 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
225 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
226 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
227 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
229 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
230 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
231 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
232 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
236 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
238 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
244 * Changes to existing commands:
246 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
247 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
249 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
251 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
253 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
254 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
255 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
257 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
261 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
263 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
266 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
269 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
275 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
282 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
286 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
290 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
292 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
294 * Changes to existing commands:
296 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
298 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
300 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
302 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
303 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
304 applied to the included file.
306 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
308 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
310 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
313 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
316 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
318 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
319 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
320 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
322 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
323 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
325 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
328 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
331 * Other language changes:
333 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
334 extension, which is no longer supported.
336 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
337 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
338 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
339 expressed as U'1D11E'.
341 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
343 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
344 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
345 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
346 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
348 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
350 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
352 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
355 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
356 see different parts of a large data file.
358 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
359 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
360 clicking on an icon will open the file.
362 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
363 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
367 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
368 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
369 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
370 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
372 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
373 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
374 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
377 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
378 characters, including double-width characters and combining
381 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
383 - The HTML output is much improved.
385 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
386 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
387 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
388 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
389 of their intended syntax mode.
391 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
394 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
395 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
396 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
397 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
398 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
399 one the system file uses.
401 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
404 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
405 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
406 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
408 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
411 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
413 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
417 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
419 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
421 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
422 translationproject.org.
424 * Statistical bug fixes:
426 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
429 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
430 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
431 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
433 * Build fixes and changes:
435 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
437 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
438 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
440 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
442 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
444 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
445 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
446 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
449 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
451 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
453 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
454 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
455 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
458 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
460 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
461 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
463 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
465 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
466 with spaces as expected.
468 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
469 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
470 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
472 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
474 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
476 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
477 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
478 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
479 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
481 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
482 that does not exist (bug #24569).
484 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
487 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
489 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
491 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
493 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
494 instead of the current directory, to better match user
497 - Some data editor fixes.
501 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
503 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
505 * Statistical bug fixes:
507 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
508 regression output (bug #23567).
510 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
512 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
514 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
516 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
518 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
520 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
521 disk accesses on modern machines.
525 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
528 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
531 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
532 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
535 * Build fixes and changes:
537 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
538 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
540 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
543 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
544 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
546 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
547 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
549 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
551 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
553 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
554 found them too poor to be useful.
556 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
558 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
559 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
561 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
562 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
563 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
564 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
567 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
570 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
574 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
575 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
576 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
578 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
579 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
580 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
582 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
583 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
585 Statistical procedure changes:
587 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
588 via least-squares estimation.
590 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
591 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
593 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
596 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
597 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
599 User interface changes:
601 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
602 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
604 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
607 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
608 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
609 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
612 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
613 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
614 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
615 executed as if `+' had been specified.
617 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
618 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
619 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
621 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
622 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
623 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
624 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
629 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
630 manual for a full description of the available options.
632 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
633 "make install" will do this for you.
635 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
636 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
638 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
639 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
640 Previously, by default output was written only to file
641 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
642 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
647 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
648 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
649 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
650 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
652 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
653 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
654 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
658 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
659 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
660 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
661 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
662 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
664 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
665 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
668 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
669 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
670 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
671 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
673 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
674 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
675 longer needed, or supported.
677 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
678 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
679 no longer needed, or supported.
683 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
684 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
685 is no longer needed, or supported.
687 Command language changes:
689 * The following commands are new:
691 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
692 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
693 types of foreign data.
695 - CD, to change the current directory.
697 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
699 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
702 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
704 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
706 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
709 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
711 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
713 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
715 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
717 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
720 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
722 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
723 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
724 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
726 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
727 re-implemented in a later release:
729 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
735 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
736 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
737 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
739 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
740 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
742 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
744 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
745 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
746 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
747 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
750 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
751 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
752 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
754 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
755 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
756 reassigned to new files.
758 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
759 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
760 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
761 documentation on those particular commands.
765 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
766 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
767 format of these files.
769 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
770 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
771 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
772 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
775 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
776 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
777 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
778 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
779 native floating point format.
781 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
782 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
783 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
785 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
786 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
788 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
789 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
790 subcommands has been added.
792 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
793 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
794 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
797 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
798 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
800 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
801 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
802 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
806 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
807 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
810 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
811 have been extensively revised and improved.
813 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
816 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
818 Changes in build dependencies:
820 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
823 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
824 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
825 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
827 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
829 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
831 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
833 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
841 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
842 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
845 * T-TEST (re-written).
847 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
848 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
851 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
852 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
853 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
854 third-party software.
856 * SET EPOCH implemented.
858 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
861 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
863 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
864 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
865 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
867 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
868 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
870 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
871 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
873 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
874 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
875 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
878 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
879 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
882 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
885 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
888 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
889 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
890 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
892 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
894 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
896 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
899 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
900 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
903 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
904 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
906 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
910 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
913 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
914 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
916 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
917 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
919 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
922 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
925 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
928 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
929 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
930 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
932 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
934 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
936 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
940 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
942 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
946 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
947 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
949 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
951 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
953 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
957 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
959 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
961 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
962 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
964 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
965 didn't like being the last command in a file.
967 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
968 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
969 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
970 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
972 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
973 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
974 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
976 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
977 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
978 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
980 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
981 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
982 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
985 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
986 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
989 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
990 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
992 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
993 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
994 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
996 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
997 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
998 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1000 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1001 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1002 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1005 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1006 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1009 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1010 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1012 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1015 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1016 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1017 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1019 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1020 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1024 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1025 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1027 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1028 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1029 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1031 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1033 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1037 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1039 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1041 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1042 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1044 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1046 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1047 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1049 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1050 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1052 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1053 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1056 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1057 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1062 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1063 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1064 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1066 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1070 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1072 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1073 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1076 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1077 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1078 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1080 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1082 Procedures now implemented:
1083 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1085 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1088 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1089 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1100 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1101 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1104 New command-line features:
1105 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1106 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1107 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1108 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1109 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1111 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1113 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1115 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1117 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1118 reinstall your `devices' file.
1120 New output driver for HTML.
1122 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1124 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1126 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1127 * PSPP system file format
1128 * PSPP portable file format
1129 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1132 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1133 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1135 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1137 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1138 versions, please see ONEWS.
1140 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1141 Copyright information:
1143 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1144 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1145 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1146 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1148 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1149 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1150 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1154 version-control: never