1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
9 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
12 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
15 * Bug fixes, including the following:
17 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
18 type variable as group variable.
20 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
21 superimposed with the currently selected one.
23 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
25 * Bug fixes, including the following:
27 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
30 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
33 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
35 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
37 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
38 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
39 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
40 as to produce better separated clusters.
42 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
44 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
46 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
47 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
49 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
51 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
52 somewhat different look and feel.
54 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
56 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
57 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
59 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
60 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
61 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
62 and will generate syntax accordingly.
64 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
65 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
66 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
73 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
75 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
77 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
79 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
81 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
82 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
83 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
84 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
86 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
88 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
89 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
92 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
93 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
94 default and only supported behavior.
96 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
99 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
100 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
101 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
103 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
106 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
108 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
110 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
112 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
113 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
114 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
115 format is not supported.
117 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
120 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
121 when an empty dataset was presented.
123 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
124 scatterplots and histograms.
126 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
127 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
128 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
129 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
131 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
133 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
135 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
137 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
138 introduced in 0.8.2.)
140 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
141 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
144 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
145 subcommand has been corrected.
147 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
150 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
153 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
155 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
157 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
158 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
159 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
161 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
162 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
164 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
165 by the current FILTER settings.
167 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
169 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
170 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
172 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
175 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
176 encoding to be selected.
178 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
180 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
181 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
183 * System file related improvements:
185 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
186 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
189 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
190 character encoding of string data in the system file.
192 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
193 truncation (bug #41863).
195 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
196 read successfully (bug #41475).
198 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
200 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
201 of fully saturated primaries.
203 * Support for new system file variants:
205 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
206 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
207 files. (The older format is still supported.)
209 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
210 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
211 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
212 do not directly read or write this format.
214 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
215 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
217 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
218 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
219 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
220 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
222 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
223 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
224 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
225 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
229 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
231 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
237 * Changes to existing commands:
239 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
240 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
242 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
244 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
246 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
247 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
248 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
250 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
254 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
256 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
259 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
262 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
268 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
275 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
279 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
283 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
285 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
287 * Changes to existing commands:
289 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
291 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
293 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
295 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
296 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
297 applied to the included file.
299 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
301 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
303 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
306 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
309 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
311 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
312 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
313 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
315 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
316 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
318 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
321 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
324 * Other language changes:
326 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
327 extension, which is no longer supported.
329 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
330 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
331 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
332 expressed as U'1D11E'.
334 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
336 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
337 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
338 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
339 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
341 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
343 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
345 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
348 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
349 see different parts of a large data file.
351 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
352 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
353 clicking on an icon will open the file.
355 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
356 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
360 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
361 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
362 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
363 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
365 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
366 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
367 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
370 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
371 characters, including double-width characters and combining
374 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
376 - The HTML output is much improved.
378 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
379 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
380 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
381 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
382 of their intended syntax mode.
384 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
387 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
388 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
389 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
390 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
391 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
392 one the system file uses.
394 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
397 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
398 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
399 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
401 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
404 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
406 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
410 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
412 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
414 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
415 translationproject.org.
417 * Statistical bug fixes:
419 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
422 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
423 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
424 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
426 * Build fixes and changes:
428 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
430 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
431 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
433 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
435 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
437 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
438 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
439 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
442 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
444 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
446 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
447 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
448 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
451 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
453 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
454 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
456 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
458 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
459 with spaces as expected.
461 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
462 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
463 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
465 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
467 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
469 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
470 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
471 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
472 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
474 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
475 that does not exist (bug #24569).
477 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
480 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
482 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
484 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
486 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
487 instead of the current directory, to better match user
490 - Some data editor fixes.
494 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
496 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
498 * Statistical bug fixes:
500 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
501 regression output (bug #23567).
503 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
505 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
507 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
509 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
511 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
513 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
514 disk accesses on modern machines.
518 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
521 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
524 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
525 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
528 * Build fixes and changes:
530 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
531 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
533 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
536 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
537 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
539 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
540 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
542 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
544 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
546 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
547 found them too poor to be useful.
549 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
551 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
552 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
554 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
555 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
556 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
557 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
560 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
563 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
567 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
568 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
569 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
571 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
572 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
573 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
575 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
576 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
578 Statistical procedure changes:
580 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
581 via least-squares estimation.
583 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
584 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
586 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
589 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
590 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
592 User interface changes:
594 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
595 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
597 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
600 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
601 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
602 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
605 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
606 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
607 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
608 executed as if `+' had been specified.
610 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
611 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
612 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
614 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
615 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
616 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
617 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
622 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
623 manual for a full description of the available options.
625 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
626 "make install" will do this for you.
628 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
629 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
631 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
632 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
633 Previously, by default output was written only to file
634 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
635 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
640 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
641 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
642 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
643 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
645 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
646 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
647 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
651 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
652 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
653 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
654 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
655 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
657 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
658 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
661 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
662 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
663 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
664 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
666 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
667 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
668 longer needed, or supported.
670 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
671 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
672 no longer needed, or supported.
676 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
677 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
678 is no longer needed, or supported.
680 Command language changes:
682 * The following commands are new:
684 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
685 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
686 types of foreign data.
688 - CD, to change the current directory.
690 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
692 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
695 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
697 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
699 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
702 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
704 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
706 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
708 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
710 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
713 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
715 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
716 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
717 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
719 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
720 re-implemented in a later release:
722 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
728 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
729 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
730 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
732 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
733 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
735 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
737 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
738 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
739 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
740 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
743 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
744 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
745 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
747 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
748 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
749 reassigned to new files.
751 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
752 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
753 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
754 documentation on those particular commands.
758 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
759 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
760 format of these files.
762 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
763 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
764 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
765 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
768 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
769 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
770 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
771 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
772 native floating point format.
774 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
775 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
776 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
778 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
779 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
781 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
782 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
783 subcommands has been added.
785 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
786 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
787 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
790 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
791 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
793 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
794 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
795 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
799 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
800 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
803 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
804 have been extensively revised and improved.
806 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
809 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
811 Changes in build dependencies:
813 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
816 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
817 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
818 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
820 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
822 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
824 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
826 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
834 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
835 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
838 * T-TEST (re-written).
840 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
841 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
844 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
845 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
846 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
847 third-party software.
849 * SET EPOCH implemented.
851 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
854 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
856 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
857 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
858 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
860 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
861 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
863 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
864 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
866 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
867 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
868 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
871 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
872 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
875 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
878 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
881 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
882 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
883 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
885 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
887 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
889 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
892 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
893 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
896 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
897 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
899 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
903 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
906 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
907 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
909 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
910 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
912 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
915 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
918 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
921 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
922 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
923 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
925 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
927 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
929 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
933 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
935 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
939 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
940 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
942 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
944 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
946 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
950 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
952 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
954 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
955 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
957 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
958 didn't like being the last command in a file.
960 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
961 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
962 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
963 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
965 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
966 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
967 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
969 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
970 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
971 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
973 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
974 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
975 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
978 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
979 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
982 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
983 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
985 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
986 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
987 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
989 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
990 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
991 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
993 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
994 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
995 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
998 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
999 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1002 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1003 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1005 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1008 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1009 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1010 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1012 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1013 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1017 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1018 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1020 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1021 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1022 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1024 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1026 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1030 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1032 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1034 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1035 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1037 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1039 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1040 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1042 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1043 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1045 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1046 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1049 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1050 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1055 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1056 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1057 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1059 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1063 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1065 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1066 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1069 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1070 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1071 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1073 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1075 Procedures now implemented:
1076 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1078 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1081 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1082 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1093 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1094 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1097 New command-line features:
1098 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1099 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1100 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1101 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1102 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1104 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1106 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1108 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1110 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1111 reinstall your `devices' file.
1113 New output driver for HTML.
1115 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1117 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1119 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1120 * PSPP system file format
1121 * PSPP portable file format
1122 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1125 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1126 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1128 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1130 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1131 versions, please see ONEWS.
1133 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1134 Copyright information:
1136 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1137 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1138 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1139 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1141 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1142 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1143 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1147 version-control: never