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 0.10.2 to 0.10.4:
9 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
11 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
13 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
15 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
18 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
21 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
22 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
23 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
25 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
26 Now it can paste multiple variables.
28 * Bug fixes, including the following:
30 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
31 type variable as group variable.
33 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
34 superimposed with the currently selected one.
36 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
39 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
41 * Bug fixes, including the following:
43 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
46 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
49 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
51 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
53 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
54 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
55 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
56 as to produce better separated clusters.
58 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
60 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
62 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
63 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
65 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
67 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
68 somewhat different look and feel.
70 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
72 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
73 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
75 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
76 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
77 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
78 and will generate syntax accordingly.
80 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
81 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
82 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
89 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
91 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
93 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
95 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
97 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
98 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
99 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
100 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
102 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
104 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
105 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
108 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
109 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
110 default and only supported behavior.
112 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
115 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
116 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
117 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
119 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
122 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
124 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
126 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
128 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
129 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
130 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
131 format is not supported.
133 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
136 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
137 when an empty dataset was presented.
139 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
140 scatterplots and histograms.
142 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
143 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
144 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
145 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
147 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
149 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
151 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
153 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
154 introduced in 0.8.2.)
156 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
157 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
160 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
161 subcommand has been corrected.
163 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
166 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
169 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
171 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
173 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
174 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
175 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
177 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
178 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
180 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
181 by the current FILTER settings.
183 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
185 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
186 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
188 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
191 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
192 encoding to be selected.
194 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
196 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
197 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
199 * System file related improvements:
201 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
202 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
205 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
206 character encoding of string data in the system file.
208 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
209 truncation (bug #41863).
211 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
212 read successfully (bug #41475).
214 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
216 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
217 of fully saturated primaries.
219 * Support for new system file variants:
221 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
222 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
223 files. (The older format is still supported.)
225 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
226 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
227 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
228 do not directly read or write this format.
230 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
231 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
233 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
234 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
235 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
236 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
238 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
239 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
240 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
241 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
245 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
247 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
253 * Changes to existing commands:
255 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
256 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
258 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
260 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
262 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
263 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
264 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
266 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
270 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
272 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
275 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
278 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
284 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
291 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
295 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
299 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
301 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
303 * Changes to existing commands:
305 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
307 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
309 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
311 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
312 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
313 applied to the included file.
315 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
317 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
319 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
322 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
325 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
327 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
328 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
329 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
331 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
332 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
334 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
337 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
340 * Other language changes:
342 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
343 extension, which is no longer supported.
345 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
346 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
347 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
348 expressed as U'1D11E'.
350 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
352 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
353 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
354 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
355 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
357 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
359 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
361 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
364 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
365 see different parts of a large data file.
367 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
368 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
369 clicking on an icon will open the file.
371 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
372 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
376 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
377 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
378 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
379 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
381 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
382 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
383 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
386 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
387 characters, including double-width characters and combining
390 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
392 - The HTML output is much improved.
394 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
395 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
396 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
397 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
398 of their intended syntax mode.
400 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
403 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
404 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
405 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
406 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
407 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
408 one the system file uses.
410 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
413 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
414 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
415 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
417 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
420 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
422 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
426 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
428 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
430 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
431 translationproject.org.
433 * Statistical bug fixes:
435 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
438 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
439 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
440 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
442 * Build fixes and changes:
444 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
446 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
447 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
449 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
451 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
453 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
454 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
455 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
458 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
460 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
462 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
463 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
464 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
467 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
469 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
470 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
472 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
474 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
475 with spaces as expected.
477 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
478 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
479 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
481 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
483 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
485 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
486 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
487 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
488 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
490 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
491 that does not exist (bug #24569).
493 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
496 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
498 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
500 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
502 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
503 instead of the current directory, to better match user
506 - Some data editor fixes.
510 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
512 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
514 * Statistical bug fixes:
516 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
517 regression output (bug #23567).
519 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
521 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
523 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
525 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
527 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
529 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
530 disk accesses on modern machines.
534 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
537 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
540 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
541 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
544 * Build fixes and changes:
546 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
547 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
549 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
552 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
553 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
555 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
556 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
558 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
560 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
562 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
563 found them too poor to be useful.
565 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
567 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
568 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
570 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
571 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
572 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
573 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
576 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
579 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
583 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
584 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
585 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
587 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
588 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
589 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
591 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
592 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
594 Statistical procedure changes:
596 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
597 via least-squares estimation.
599 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
600 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
602 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
605 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
606 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
608 User interface changes:
610 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
611 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
613 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
616 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
617 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
618 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
621 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
622 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
623 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
624 executed as if `+' had been specified.
626 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
627 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
628 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
630 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
631 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
632 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
633 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
638 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
639 manual for a full description of the available options.
641 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
642 "make install" will do this for you.
644 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
645 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
647 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
648 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
649 Previously, by default output was written only to file
650 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
651 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
656 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
657 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
658 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
659 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
661 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
662 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
663 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
667 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
668 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
669 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
670 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
671 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
673 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
674 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
677 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
678 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
679 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
680 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
682 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
683 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
684 longer needed, or supported.
686 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
687 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
688 no longer needed, or supported.
692 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
693 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
694 is no longer needed, or supported.
696 Command language changes:
698 * The following commands are new:
700 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
701 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
702 types of foreign data.
704 - CD, to change the current directory.
706 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
708 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
711 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
713 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
715 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
718 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
720 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
722 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
724 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
726 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
729 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
731 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
732 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
733 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
735 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
736 re-implemented in a later release:
738 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
744 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
745 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
746 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
748 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
749 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
751 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
753 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
754 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
755 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
756 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
759 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
760 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
761 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
763 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
764 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
765 reassigned to new files.
767 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
768 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
769 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
770 documentation on those particular commands.
774 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
775 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
776 format of these files.
778 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
779 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
780 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
781 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
784 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
785 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
786 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
787 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
788 native floating point format.
790 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
791 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
792 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
794 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
795 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
797 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
798 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
799 subcommands has been added.
801 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
802 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
803 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
806 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
807 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
809 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
810 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
811 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
815 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
816 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
819 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
820 have been extensively revised and improved.
822 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
825 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
827 Changes in build dependencies:
829 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
832 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
833 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
834 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
836 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
838 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
840 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
842 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
850 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
851 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
854 * T-TEST (re-written).
856 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
857 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
860 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
861 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
862 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
863 third-party software.
865 * SET EPOCH implemented.
867 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
870 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
872 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
873 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
874 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
876 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
877 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
879 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
880 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
882 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
883 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
884 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
887 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
888 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
891 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
894 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
897 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
898 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
899 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
901 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
903 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
905 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
908 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
909 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
912 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
913 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
915 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
919 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
922 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
923 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
925 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
926 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
928 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
931 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
934 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
937 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
938 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
939 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
941 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
943 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
945 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
949 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
951 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
955 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
956 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
958 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
960 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
962 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
966 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
968 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
970 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
971 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
973 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
974 didn't like being the last command in a file.
976 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
977 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
978 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
979 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
981 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
982 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
983 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
985 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
986 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
987 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
989 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
990 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
991 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
994 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
995 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
998 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
999 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1001 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1002 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1003 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1005 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1006 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1007 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1009 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1010 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1011 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1014 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1015 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1018 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1019 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1021 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1024 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1025 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1026 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1028 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1029 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1033 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1034 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1036 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1037 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1038 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1040 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1042 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1046 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1048 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1050 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1051 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1053 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1055 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1056 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1058 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1059 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1061 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1062 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1065 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1066 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1071 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1072 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1073 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1075 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1079 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1081 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1082 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1085 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1086 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1087 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1089 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1091 Procedures now implemented:
1092 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1094 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1097 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1098 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1109 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1110 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1113 New command-line features:
1114 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1115 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1116 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1117 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1118 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1120 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1122 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1124 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1126 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1127 reinstall your `devices' file.
1129 New output driver for HTML.
1131 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1133 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1135 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1136 * PSPP system file format
1137 * PSPP portable file format
1138 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1141 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1142 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1144 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1146 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1147 versions, please see ONEWS.
1149 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1150 Copyright information:
1152 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1153 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1154 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1155 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1157 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1158 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1159 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1163 version-control: never