1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
10 * FREQUENCIES now honors the LAYERED setting on SPLIT FILE.
12 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
13 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
15 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
17 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
18 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
19 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
23 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
25 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
26 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
28 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
30 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
32 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
33 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
34 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
36 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
39 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
40 contrasts tests has been corrected.
42 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
44 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
45 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
47 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
48 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
49 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
51 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
52 graphical output examples and screenshots.
54 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
59 - Perl is no longer required to build.
61 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
62 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
65 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
67 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
69 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
71 * Output improvements:
73 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
75 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
76 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
78 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
79 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
81 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
82 as a "table of contents" for the file.
84 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
86 * New features in pspp-output:
88 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
90 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
92 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
96 * Translation updates.
98 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
100 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
102 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
104 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
105 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
106 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
108 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
109 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
110 which is surprising to some users.
112 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
113 use to save the contents of its output editor:
115 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
117 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
119 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
120 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
121 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
124 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
125 invalid syntax has been fixed.
127 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
129 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
130 rarely printed on paper.
132 * pspp-convert improvements:
134 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
135 encrypted file's password.
137 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
139 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
140 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
143 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
145 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
147 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
148 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
150 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
151 one or more plots are requested.
153 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
154 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
156 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
157 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
158 from the cluster centre to the active file.
160 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
162 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
165 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
167 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
168 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
171 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
176 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
180 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
182 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
184 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
188 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
190 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
192 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
193 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
195 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
196 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
198 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
200 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
201 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
203 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
205 * Translation updates.
207 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
209 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
210 regression through the origin.
212 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
214 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
216 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
218 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
220 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
223 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
224 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
226 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
228 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
229 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
232 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
234 * Graphical user interface changes:
236 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
238 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
240 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
242 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
244 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
246 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
248 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
250 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
253 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
256 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
257 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
258 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
260 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
261 Now it can paste multiple variables.
263 * Bug fixes, including the following:
265 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
266 type variable as group variable.
268 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
269 superimposed with the currently selected one.
271 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
274 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
276 * Bug fixes, including the following:
278 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
281 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
284 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
286 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
288 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
289 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
290 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
291 as to produce better separated clusters.
293 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
295 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
297 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
298 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
300 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
302 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
303 somewhat different look and feel.
305 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
307 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
308 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
310 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
311 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
312 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
313 and will generate syntax accordingly.
315 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
316 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
317 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
324 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
326 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
328 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
330 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
332 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
333 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
334 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
335 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
337 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
339 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
340 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
343 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
344 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
345 default and only supported behavior.
347 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
350 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
351 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
352 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
354 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
357 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
359 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
361 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
363 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
364 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
365 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
366 format is not supported.
368 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
371 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
372 when an empty dataset was presented.
374 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
375 scatterplots and histograms.
377 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
378 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
379 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
380 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
382 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
384 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
386 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
388 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
389 introduced in 0.8.2.)
391 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
392 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
395 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
396 subcommand has been corrected.
398 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
401 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
404 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
406 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
408 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
409 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
410 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
412 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
413 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
415 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
416 by the current FILTER settings.
418 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
420 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
421 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
423 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
426 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
427 encoding to be selected.
429 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
431 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
432 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
434 * System file related improvements:
436 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
437 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
440 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
441 character encoding of string data in the system file.
443 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
444 truncation (bug #41863).
446 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
447 read successfully (bug #41475).
449 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
451 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
452 of fully saturated primaries.
454 * Support for new system file variants:
456 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
457 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
458 files. (The older format is still supported.)
460 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
461 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
462 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
463 do not directly read or write this format.
465 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
466 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
468 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
469 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
470 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
471 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
473 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
474 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
475 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
476 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
480 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
482 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
488 * Changes to existing commands:
490 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
491 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
493 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
495 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
497 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
498 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
499 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
501 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
505 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
507 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
510 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
513 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
519 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
526 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
530 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
534 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
536 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
538 * Changes to existing commands:
540 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
542 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
544 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
546 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
547 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
548 applied to the included file.
550 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
552 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
554 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
557 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
560 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
562 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
563 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
564 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
566 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
567 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
569 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
572 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
575 * Other language changes:
577 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
578 extension, which is no longer supported.
580 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
581 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
582 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
583 expressed as U'1D11E'.
585 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
587 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
588 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
589 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
590 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
592 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
594 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
596 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
599 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
600 see different parts of a large data file.
602 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
603 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
604 clicking on an icon will open the file.
606 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
607 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
611 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
612 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
613 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
614 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
616 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
617 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
618 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
621 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
622 characters, including double-width characters and combining
625 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
627 - The HTML output is much improved.
629 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
630 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
631 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
632 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
633 of their intended syntax mode.
635 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
638 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
639 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
640 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
641 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
642 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
643 one the system file uses.
645 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
648 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
649 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
650 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
652 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
655 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
657 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
661 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
663 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
665 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
666 translationproject.org.
668 * Statistical bug fixes:
670 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
673 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
674 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
675 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
677 * Build fixes and changes:
679 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
681 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
682 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
684 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
686 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
688 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
689 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
690 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
693 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
695 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
697 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
698 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
699 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
702 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
704 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
705 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
707 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
709 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
710 with spaces as expected.
712 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
713 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
714 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
716 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
718 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
720 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
721 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
722 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
723 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
725 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
726 that does not exist (bug #24569).
728 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
731 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
733 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
735 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
737 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
738 instead of the current directory, to better match user
741 - Some data editor fixes.
745 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
747 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
749 * Statistical bug fixes:
751 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
752 regression output (bug #23567).
754 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
756 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
758 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
760 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
762 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
764 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
765 disk accesses on modern machines.
769 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
772 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
775 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
776 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
779 * Build fixes and changes:
781 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
782 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
784 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
787 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
788 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
790 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
791 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
793 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
795 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
797 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
798 found them too poor to be useful.
800 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
802 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
803 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
805 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
806 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
807 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
808 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
811 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
814 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
818 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
819 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
820 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
822 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
823 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
824 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
826 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
827 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
829 Statistical procedure changes:
831 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
832 via least-squares estimation.
834 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
835 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
837 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
840 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
841 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
843 User interface changes:
845 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
846 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
848 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
851 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
852 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
853 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
856 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
857 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
858 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
859 executed as if `+' had been specified.
861 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
862 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
863 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
865 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
866 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
867 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
868 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
873 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
874 manual for a full description of the available options.
876 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
877 "make install" will do this for you.
879 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
880 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
882 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
883 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
884 Previously, by default output was written only to file
885 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
886 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
891 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
892 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
893 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
894 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
896 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
897 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
898 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
902 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
903 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
904 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
905 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
906 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
908 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
909 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
912 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
913 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
914 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
915 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
917 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
918 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
919 longer needed, or supported.
921 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
922 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
923 no longer needed, or supported.
927 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
928 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
929 is no longer needed, or supported.
931 Command language changes:
933 * The following commands are new:
935 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
936 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
937 types of foreign data.
939 - CD, to change the current directory.
941 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
943 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
946 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
948 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
950 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
953 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
955 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
957 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
959 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
961 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
964 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
966 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
967 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
968 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
970 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
971 re-implemented in a later release:
973 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
979 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
980 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
981 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
983 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
984 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
986 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
988 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
989 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
990 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
991 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
994 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
995 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
996 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
998 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
999 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1000 reassigned to new files.
1002 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1003 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1004 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1005 documentation on those particular commands.
1007 Data access changes:
1009 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1010 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1011 format of these files.
1013 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1014 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1015 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1016 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1019 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1020 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1021 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1022 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1023 native floating point format.
1025 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1026 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1027 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1029 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1030 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1032 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1033 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1034 subcommands has been added.
1036 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1037 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1038 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1041 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1042 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1044 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1045 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1046 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1050 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1051 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1054 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1055 have been extensively revised and improved.
1057 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1060 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1062 Changes in build dependencies:
1064 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1067 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1068 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1069 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1071 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1073 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1075 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1077 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1085 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1086 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1089 * T-TEST (re-written).
1091 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1092 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1095 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1096 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1097 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1098 third-party software.
1100 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1102 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1105 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1107 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1108 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1109 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1111 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1112 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1114 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1115 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1117 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1118 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1119 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1122 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1123 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1126 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1129 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1132 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1133 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1134 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1136 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1138 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1140 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1143 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1144 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1147 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1148 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1150 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1154 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1157 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1158 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1160 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1161 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1163 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1166 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1169 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1172 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1173 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1174 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1176 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1178 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1180 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1184 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1186 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1190 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1191 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1193 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1195 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1197 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1201 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1203 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1205 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1206 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1208 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1209 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1211 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1212 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1213 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1214 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1216 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1217 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1218 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1220 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1221 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1222 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1224 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1225 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1226 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1229 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1230 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1233 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1234 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1236 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1237 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1238 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1240 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1241 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1242 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1244 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1245 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1246 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1249 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1250 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1253 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1254 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1256 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1259 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1260 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1261 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1263 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1264 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1268 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1269 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1271 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1272 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1273 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1275 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1277 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1281 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1283 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1285 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1286 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1288 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1290 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1291 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1293 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1294 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1296 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1297 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1300 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1301 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1306 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1307 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1308 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1310 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1314 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1316 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1317 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1320 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1321 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1322 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1324 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1326 Procedures now implemented:
1327 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1329 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1332 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1333 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1344 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1345 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1348 New command-line features:
1349 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1350 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1351 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1352 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1353 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1355 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1357 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1359 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1361 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1362 reinstall your `devices' file.
1364 New output driver for HTML.
1366 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1368 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1370 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1371 * PSPP system file format
1372 * PSPP portable file format
1373 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1376 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1377 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1379 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1381 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1382 versions, please see ONEWS.
1384 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1385 Copyright information:
1387 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1388 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1389 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1390 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1392 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1393 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1394 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1398 version-control: never