1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.5.0:
9 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
11 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
13 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
14 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
15 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
17 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
18 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
19 which is suprising to some users.
21 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
22 use to save the contents of its output editor:
24 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
26 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
28 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
29 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
30 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
33 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
34 invalid syntax has been fixed.
36 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
38 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
39 rarely printed on paper.
41 * pspp-convert improvements:
43 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
44 encrypted file's password.
46 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
48 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
49 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
52 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
54 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
56 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
57 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
59 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
60 one or more plots are requested.
62 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
63 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
65 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
66 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
67 from the cluster centre to the active file.
69 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
71 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
74 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
76 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
77 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
80 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
85 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
89 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
91 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
93 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
97 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
99 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
101 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
102 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
104 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
105 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
107 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
109 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
110 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
112 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
114 * Translation updates.
116 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
118 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
119 regression through the origin.
121 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
123 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
125 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
127 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
129 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
132 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
133 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
135 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
137 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
138 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
141 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
143 * Graphical user interface changes:
145 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
147 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
149 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
151 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
153 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
155 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
157 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
159 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
162 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
165 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
166 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
167 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
169 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
170 Now it can paste multiple variables.
172 * Bug fixes, including the following:
174 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
175 type variable as group variable.
177 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
178 superimposed with the currently selected one.
180 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
183 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
185 * Bug fixes, including the following:
187 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
190 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
193 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
195 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
197 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
198 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
199 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
200 as to produce better separated clusters.
202 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
204 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
206 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
207 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
209 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
211 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
212 somewhat different look and feel.
214 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
216 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
217 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
219 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
220 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
221 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
222 and will generate syntax accordingly.
224 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
225 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
226 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
233 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
235 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
237 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
239 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
241 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
242 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
243 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
244 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
246 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
248 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
249 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
252 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
253 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
254 default and only supported behavior.
256 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
259 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
260 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
261 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
263 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
266 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
268 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
270 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
272 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
273 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
274 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
275 format is not supported.
277 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
280 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
281 when an empty dataset was presented.
283 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
284 scatterplots and histograms.
286 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
287 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
288 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
289 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
291 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
293 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
295 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
297 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
298 introduced in 0.8.2.)
300 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
301 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
304 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
305 subcommand has been corrected.
307 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
310 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
313 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
315 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
317 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
318 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
319 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
321 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
322 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
324 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
325 by the current FILTER settings.
327 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
329 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
330 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
332 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
335 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
336 encoding to be selected.
338 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
340 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
341 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
343 * System file related improvements:
345 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
346 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
349 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
350 character encoding of string data in the system file.
352 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
353 truncation (bug #41863).
355 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
356 read successfully (bug #41475).
358 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
360 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
361 of fully saturated primaries.
363 * Support for new system file variants:
365 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
366 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
367 files. (The older format is still supported.)
369 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
370 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
371 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
372 do not directly read or write this format.
374 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
375 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
377 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
378 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
379 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
380 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
382 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
383 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
384 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
385 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
389 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
391 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
397 * Changes to existing commands:
399 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
400 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
402 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
404 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
406 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
407 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
408 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
410 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
414 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
416 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
419 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
422 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
428 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
435 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
439 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
443 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
445 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
447 * Changes to existing commands:
449 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
451 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
453 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
455 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
456 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
457 applied to the included file.
459 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
461 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
463 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
466 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
469 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
471 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
472 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
473 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
475 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
476 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
478 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
481 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
484 * Other language changes:
486 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
487 extension, which is no longer supported.
489 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
490 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
491 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
492 expressed as U'1D11E'.
494 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
496 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
497 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
498 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
499 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
501 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
503 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
505 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
508 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
509 see different parts of a large data file.
511 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
512 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
513 clicking on an icon will open the file.
515 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
516 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
520 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
521 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
522 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
523 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
525 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
526 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
527 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
530 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
531 characters, including double-width characters and combining
534 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
536 - The HTML output is much improved.
538 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
539 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
540 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
541 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
542 of their intended syntax mode.
544 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
547 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
548 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
549 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
550 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
551 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
552 one the system file uses.
554 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
557 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
558 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
559 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
561 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
564 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
566 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
570 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
572 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
574 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
575 translationproject.org.
577 * Statistical bug fixes:
579 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
582 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
583 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
584 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
586 * Build fixes and changes:
588 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
590 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
591 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
593 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
595 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
597 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
598 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
599 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
602 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
604 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
606 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
607 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
608 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
611 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
613 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
614 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
616 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
618 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
619 with spaces as expected.
621 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
622 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
623 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
625 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
627 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
629 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
630 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
631 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
632 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
634 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
635 that does not exist (bug #24569).
637 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
640 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
642 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
644 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
646 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
647 instead of the current directory, to better match user
650 - Some data editor fixes.
654 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
656 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
658 * Statistical bug fixes:
660 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
661 regression output (bug #23567).
663 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
665 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
667 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
669 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
671 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
673 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
674 disk accesses on modern machines.
678 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
681 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
684 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
685 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
688 * Build fixes and changes:
690 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
691 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
693 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
696 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
697 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
699 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
700 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
702 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
704 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
706 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
707 found them too poor to be useful.
709 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
711 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
712 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
714 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
715 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
716 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
717 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
720 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
723 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
727 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
728 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
729 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
731 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
732 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
733 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
735 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
736 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
738 Statistical procedure changes:
740 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
741 via least-squares estimation.
743 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
744 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
746 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
749 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
750 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
752 User interface changes:
754 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
755 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
757 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
760 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
761 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
762 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
765 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
766 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
767 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
768 executed as if `+' had been specified.
770 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
771 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
772 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
774 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
775 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
776 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
777 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
782 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
783 manual for a full description of the available options.
785 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
786 "make install" will do this for you.
788 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
789 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
791 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
792 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
793 Previously, by default output was written only to file
794 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
795 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
800 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
801 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
802 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
803 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
805 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
806 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
807 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
811 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
812 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
813 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
814 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
815 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
817 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
818 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
821 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
822 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
823 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
824 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
826 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
827 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
828 longer needed, or supported.
830 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
831 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
832 no longer needed, or supported.
836 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
837 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
838 is no longer needed, or supported.
840 Command language changes:
842 * The following commands are new:
844 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
845 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
846 types of foreign data.
848 - CD, to change the current directory.
850 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
852 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
855 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
857 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
859 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
862 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
864 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
866 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
868 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
870 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
873 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
875 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
876 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
877 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
879 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
880 re-implemented in a later release:
882 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
888 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
889 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
890 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
892 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
893 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
895 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
897 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
898 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
899 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
900 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
903 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
904 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
905 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
907 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
908 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
909 reassigned to new files.
911 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
912 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
913 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
914 documentation on those particular commands.
918 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
919 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
920 format of these files.
922 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
923 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
924 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
925 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
928 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
929 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
930 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
931 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
932 native floating point format.
934 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
935 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
936 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
938 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
939 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
941 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
942 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
943 subcommands has been added.
945 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
946 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
947 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
950 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
951 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
953 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
954 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
955 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
959 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
960 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
963 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
964 have been extensively revised and improved.
966 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
969 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
971 Changes in build dependencies:
973 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
976 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
977 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
978 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
980 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
982 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
984 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
986 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
994 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
995 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
998 * T-TEST (re-written).
1000 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1001 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1004 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1005 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1006 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1007 third-party software.
1009 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1011 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1014 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1016 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1017 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1018 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1020 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1021 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1023 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1024 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1026 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1027 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1028 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1031 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1032 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1035 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1038 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1041 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1042 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1043 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1045 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1047 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1049 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1052 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1053 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1056 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1057 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1059 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1063 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1066 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1067 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1069 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1070 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1072 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1075 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1078 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1081 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1082 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1083 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1085 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1087 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1089 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1093 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1095 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1099 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1100 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1102 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1104 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1106 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1110 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1112 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1114 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1115 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1117 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1118 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1120 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1121 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1122 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1123 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1125 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1126 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1127 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1129 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1130 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1131 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1133 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1134 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1135 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1138 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1139 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1142 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1143 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1145 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1146 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1147 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1149 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1150 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1151 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1153 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1154 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1155 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1158 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1159 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1162 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1163 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1165 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1168 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1169 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1170 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1172 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1173 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1177 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1178 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1180 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1181 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1182 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1184 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1186 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1190 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1192 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1194 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1195 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1197 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1199 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1200 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1202 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1203 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1205 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1206 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1209 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1210 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1215 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1216 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1217 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1219 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1223 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1225 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1226 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1229 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1230 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1231 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1233 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1235 Procedures now implemented:
1236 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1238 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1241 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1242 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1253 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1254 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1257 New command-line features:
1258 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1259 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1260 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1261 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1262 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1264 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1266 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1268 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1270 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1271 reinstall your `devices' file.
1273 New output driver for HTML.
1275 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1277 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1279 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1280 * PSPP system file format
1281 * PSPP portable file format
1282 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1285 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1286 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1288 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1290 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1291 versions, please see ONEWS.
1293 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1294 Copyright information:
1296 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1297 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1298 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1299 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1301 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1302 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1303 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1307 version-control: never