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 /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
22 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
24 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
25 one or more plots are requested.
27 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
28 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
30 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
31 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
32 from the cluster centre to the active file.
34 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
36 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
37 a filter was set has been fixed.
39 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
42 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
44 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
45 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
48 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
50 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
52 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
56 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
58 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
60 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
61 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
63 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
64 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
66 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
68 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
69 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
71 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
73 * Translation updates.
75 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
77 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
78 regression through the origin.
80 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
82 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
84 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
86 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
88 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
91 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
92 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
94 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
96 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
97 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
100 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
102 * Graphical user interface changes:
104 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
106 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
108 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
110 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
112 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
114 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
116 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
118 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
121 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
124 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
125 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
126 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
128 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
129 Now it can paste multiple variables.
131 * Bug fixes, including the following:
133 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
134 type variable as group variable.
136 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
137 superimposed with the currently selected one.
139 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
142 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
144 * Bug fixes, including the following:
146 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
149 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
152 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
154 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
156 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
157 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
158 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
159 as to produce better separated clusters.
161 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
163 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
165 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
166 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
168 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
170 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
171 somewhat different look and feel.
173 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
175 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
176 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
178 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
179 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
180 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
181 and will generate syntax accordingly.
183 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
184 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
185 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
192 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
194 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
196 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
198 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
200 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
201 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
202 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
203 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
205 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
207 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
208 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
211 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
212 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
213 default and only supported behavior.
215 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
218 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
219 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
220 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
222 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
225 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
227 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
229 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
231 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
232 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
233 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
234 format is not supported.
236 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
239 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
240 when an empty dataset was presented.
242 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
243 scatterplots and histograms.
245 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
246 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
247 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
248 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
250 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
252 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
254 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
256 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
257 introduced in 0.8.2.)
259 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
260 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
263 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
264 subcommand has been corrected.
266 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
269 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
272 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
274 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
276 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
277 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
278 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
280 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
281 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
283 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
284 by the current FILTER settings.
286 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
288 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
289 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
291 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
294 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
295 encoding to be selected.
297 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
299 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
300 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
302 * System file related improvements:
304 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
305 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
308 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
309 character encoding of string data in the system file.
311 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
312 truncation (bug #41863).
314 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
315 read successfully (bug #41475).
317 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
319 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
320 of fully saturated primaries.
322 * Support for new system file variants:
324 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
325 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
326 files. (The older format is still supported.)
328 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
329 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
330 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
331 do not directly read or write this format.
333 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
334 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
336 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
337 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
338 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
339 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
341 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
342 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
343 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
344 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
348 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
350 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
356 * Changes to existing commands:
358 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
359 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
361 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
363 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
365 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
366 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
367 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
369 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
373 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
375 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
378 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
381 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
387 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
394 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
398 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
402 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
404 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
406 * Changes to existing commands:
408 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
410 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
412 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
414 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
415 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
416 applied to the included file.
418 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
420 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
422 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
425 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
428 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
430 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
431 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
432 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
434 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
435 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
437 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
440 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
443 * Other language changes:
445 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
446 extension, which is no longer supported.
448 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
449 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
450 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
451 expressed as U'1D11E'.
453 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
455 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
456 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
457 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
458 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
460 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
462 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
464 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
467 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
468 see different parts of a large data file.
470 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
471 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
472 clicking on an icon will open the file.
474 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
475 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
479 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
480 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
481 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
482 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
484 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
485 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
486 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
489 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
490 characters, including double-width characters and combining
493 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
495 - The HTML output is much improved.
497 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
498 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
499 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
500 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
501 of their intended syntax mode.
503 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
506 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
507 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
508 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
509 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
510 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
511 one the system file uses.
513 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
516 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
517 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
518 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
520 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
523 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
525 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
529 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
531 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
533 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
534 translationproject.org.
536 * Statistical bug fixes:
538 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
541 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
542 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
543 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
545 * Build fixes and changes:
547 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
549 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
550 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
552 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
554 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
556 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
557 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
558 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
561 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
563 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
565 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
566 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
567 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
570 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
572 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
573 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
575 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
577 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
578 with spaces as expected.
580 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
581 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
582 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
584 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
586 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
588 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
589 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
590 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
591 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
593 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
594 that does not exist (bug #24569).
596 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
599 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
601 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
603 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
605 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
606 instead of the current directory, to better match user
609 - Some data editor fixes.
613 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
615 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
617 * Statistical bug fixes:
619 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
620 regression output (bug #23567).
622 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
624 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
626 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
628 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
630 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
632 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
633 disk accesses on modern machines.
637 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
640 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
643 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
644 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
647 * Build fixes and changes:
649 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
650 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
652 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
655 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
656 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
658 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
659 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
661 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
663 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
665 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
666 found them too poor to be useful.
668 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
670 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
671 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
673 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
674 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
675 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
676 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
679 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
682 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
686 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
687 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
688 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
690 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
691 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
692 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
694 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
695 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
697 Statistical procedure changes:
699 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
700 via least-squares estimation.
702 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
703 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
705 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
708 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
709 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
711 User interface changes:
713 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
714 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
716 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
719 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
720 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
721 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
724 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
725 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
726 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
727 executed as if `+' had been specified.
729 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
730 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
731 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
733 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
734 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
735 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
736 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
741 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
742 manual for a full description of the available options.
744 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
745 "make install" will do this for you.
747 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
748 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
750 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
751 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
752 Previously, by default output was written only to file
753 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
754 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
759 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
760 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
761 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
762 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
764 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
765 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
766 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
770 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
771 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
772 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
773 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
774 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
776 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
777 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
780 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
781 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
782 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
783 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
785 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
786 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
787 longer needed, or supported.
789 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
790 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
791 no longer needed, or supported.
795 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
796 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
797 is no longer needed, or supported.
799 Command language changes:
801 * The following commands are new:
803 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
804 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
805 types of foreign data.
807 - CD, to change the current directory.
809 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
811 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
814 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
816 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
818 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
821 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
823 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
825 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
827 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
829 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
832 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
834 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
835 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
836 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
838 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
839 re-implemented in a later release:
841 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
847 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
848 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
849 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
851 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
852 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
854 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
856 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
857 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
858 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
859 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
862 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
863 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
864 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
866 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
867 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
868 reassigned to new files.
870 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
871 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
872 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
873 documentation on those particular commands.
877 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
878 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
879 format of these files.
881 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
882 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
883 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
884 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
887 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
888 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
889 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
890 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
891 native floating point format.
893 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
894 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
895 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
897 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
898 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
900 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
901 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
902 subcommands has been added.
904 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
905 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
906 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
909 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
910 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
912 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
913 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
914 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
918 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
919 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
922 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
923 have been extensively revised and improved.
925 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
928 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
930 Changes in build dependencies:
932 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
935 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
936 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
937 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
939 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
941 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
943 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
945 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
953 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
954 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
957 * T-TEST (re-written).
959 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
960 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
963 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
964 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
965 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
966 third-party software.
968 * SET EPOCH implemented.
970 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
973 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
975 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
976 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
977 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
979 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
980 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
982 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
983 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
985 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
986 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
987 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
990 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
991 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
994 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
997 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1000 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1001 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1002 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1004 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1006 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1008 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1011 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1012 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1015 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1016 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1018 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1022 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1025 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1026 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1028 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1029 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1031 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1034 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1037 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1040 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1041 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1042 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1044 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1046 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1048 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1052 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1054 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1058 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1059 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1061 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1063 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1065 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1069 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1071 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1073 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1074 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1076 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1077 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1079 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1080 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1081 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1082 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1084 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1085 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1086 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1088 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1089 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1090 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1092 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1093 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1094 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1097 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1098 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1101 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1102 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1104 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1105 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1106 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1108 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1109 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1110 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1112 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1113 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1114 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1117 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1118 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1121 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1122 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1124 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1127 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1128 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1129 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1131 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1132 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1136 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1137 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1139 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1140 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1141 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1143 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1145 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1149 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1151 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1153 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1154 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1156 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1158 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1159 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1161 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1162 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1164 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1165 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1168 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1169 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1174 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1175 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1176 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1178 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1182 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1184 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1185 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1188 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1189 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1190 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1192 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1194 Procedures now implemented:
1195 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1197 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1200 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1201 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1212 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1213 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1216 New command-line features:
1217 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1218 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1219 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1220 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1221 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1223 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1225 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1227 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1229 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1230 reinstall your `devices' file.
1232 New output driver for HTML.
1234 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1236 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1238 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1239 * PSPP system file format
1240 * PSPP portable file format
1241 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1244 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1245 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1247 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1249 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1250 versions, please see ONEWS.
1252 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1253 Copyright information:
1255 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1256 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1257 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1258 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1260 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1261 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1262 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1266 version-control: never