1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017 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 * A graphical user interface has a new menu: Edit|Options
11 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
14 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
15 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
17 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
19 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
20 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
23 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
25 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
27 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
29 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
31 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
34 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
37 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
38 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
39 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
41 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
42 Now it can paste multiple variables.
44 * Bug fixes, including the following:
46 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
47 type variable as group variable.
49 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
50 superimposed with the currently selected one.
52 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
55 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
57 * Bug fixes, including the following:
59 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
62 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
65 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
67 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
69 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
70 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
71 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
72 as to produce better separated clusters.
74 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
76 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
78 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
79 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
81 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
83 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
84 somewhat different look and feel.
86 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
88 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
89 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
91 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
92 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
93 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
94 and will generate syntax accordingly.
96 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
97 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
98 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
105 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
107 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
109 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
111 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
113 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
114 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
115 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
116 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
118 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
120 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
121 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
124 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
125 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
126 default and only supported behavior.
128 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
131 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
132 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
133 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
135 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
138 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
140 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
142 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
144 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
145 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
146 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
147 format is not supported.
149 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
152 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
153 when an empty dataset was presented.
155 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
156 scatterplots and histograms.
158 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
159 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
160 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
161 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
163 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
165 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
167 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
169 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
170 introduced in 0.8.2.)
172 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
173 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
176 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
177 subcommand has been corrected.
179 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
182 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
185 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
187 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
189 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
190 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
191 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
193 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
194 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
196 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
197 by the current FILTER settings.
199 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
201 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
202 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
204 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
207 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
208 encoding to be selected.
210 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
212 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
213 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
215 * System file related improvements:
217 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
218 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
221 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
222 character encoding of string data in the system file.
224 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
225 truncation (bug #41863).
227 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
228 read successfully (bug #41475).
230 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
232 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
233 of fully saturated primaries.
235 * Support for new system file variants:
237 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
238 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
239 files. (The older format is still supported.)
241 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
242 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
243 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
244 do not directly read or write this format.
246 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
247 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
249 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
250 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
251 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
252 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
254 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
255 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
256 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
257 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
261 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
263 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
269 * Changes to existing commands:
271 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
272 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
274 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
276 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
278 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
279 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
280 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
282 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
286 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
288 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
291 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
294 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
300 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
307 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
311 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
315 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
317 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
319 * Changes to existing commands:
321 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
323 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
325 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
327 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
328 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
329 applied to the included file.
331 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
333 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
335 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
338 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
341 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
343 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
344 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
345 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
347 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
348 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
350 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
353 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
356 * Other language changes:
358 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
359 extension, which is no longer supported.
361 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
362 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
363 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
364 expressed as U'1D11E'.
366 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
368 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
369 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
370 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
371 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
373 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
375 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
377 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
380 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
381 see different parts of a large data file.
383 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
384 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
385 clicking on an icon will open the file.
387 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
388 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
392 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
393 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
394 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
395 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
397 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
398 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
399 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
402 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
403 characters, including double-width characters and combining
406 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
408 - The HTML output is much improved.
410 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
411 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
412 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
413 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
414 of their intended syntax mode.
416 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
419 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
420 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
421 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
422 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
423 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
424 one the system file uses.
426 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
429 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
430 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
431 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
433 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
436 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
438 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
442 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
444 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
446 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
447 translationproject.org.
449 * Statistical bug fixes:
451 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
454 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
455 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
456 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
458 * Build fixes and changes:
460 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
462 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
463 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
465 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
467 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
469 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
470 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
471 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
474 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
476 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
478 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
479 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
480 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
483 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
485 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
486 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
488 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
490 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
491 with spaces as expected.
493 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
494 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
495 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
497 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
499 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
501 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
502 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
503 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
504 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
506 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
507 that does not exist (bug #24569).
509 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
512 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
514 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
516 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
518 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
519 instead of the current directory, to better match user
522 - Some data editor fixes.
526 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
528 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
530 * Statistical bug fixes:
532 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
533 regression output (bug #23567).
535 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
537 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
539 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
541 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
543 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
545 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
546 disk accesses on modern machines.
550 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
553 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
556 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
557 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
560 * Build fixes and changes:
562 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
563 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
565 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
568 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
569 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
571 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
572 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
574 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
576 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
578 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
579 found them too poor to be useful.
581 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
583 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
584 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
586 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
587 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
588 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
589 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
592 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
595 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
599 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
600 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
601 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
603 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
604 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
605 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
607 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
608 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
610 Statistical procedure changes:
612 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
613 via least-squares estimation.
615 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
616 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
618 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
621 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
622 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
624 User interface changes:
626 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
627 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
629 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
632 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
633 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
634 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
637 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
638 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
639 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
640 executed as if `+' had been specified.
642 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
643 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
644 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
646 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
647 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
648 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
649 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
654 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
655 manual for a full description of the available options.
657 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
658 "make install" will do this for you.
660 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
661 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
663 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
664 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
665 Previously, by default output was written only to file
666 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
667 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
672 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
673 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
674 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
675 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
677 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
678 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
679 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
683 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
684 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
685 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
686 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
687 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
689 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
690 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
693 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
694 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
695 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
696 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
698 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
699 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
700 longer needed, or supported.
702 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
703 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
704 no longer needed, or supported.
708 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
709 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
710 is no longer needed, or supported.
712 Command language changes:
714 * The following commands are new:
716 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
717 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
718 types of foreign data.
720 - CD, to change the current directory.
722 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
724 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
727 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
729 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
731 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
734 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
736 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
738 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
740 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
742 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
745 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
747 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
748 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
749 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
751 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
752 re-implemented in a later release:
754 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
760 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
761 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
762 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
764 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
765 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
767 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
769 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
770 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
771 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
772 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
775 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
776 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
777 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
779 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
780 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
781 reassigned to new files.
783 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
784 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
785 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
786 documentation on those particular commands.
790 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
791 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
792 format of these files.
794 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
795 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
796 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
797 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
800 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
801 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
802 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
803 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
804 native floating point format.
806 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
807 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
808 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
810 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
811 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
813 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
814 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
815 subcommands has been added.
817 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
818 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
819 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
822 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
823 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
825 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
826 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
827 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
831 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
832 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
835 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
836 have been extensively revised and improved.
838 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
841 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
843 Changes in build dependencies:
845 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
848 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
849 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
850 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
852 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
854 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
856 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
858 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
866 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
867 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
870 * T-TEST (re-written).
872 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
873 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
876 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
877 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
878 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
879 third-party software.
881 * SET EPOCH implemented.
883 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
886 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
888 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
889 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
890 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
892 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
893 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
895 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
896 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
898 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
899 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
900 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
903 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
904 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
907 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
910 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
913 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
914 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
915 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
917 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
919 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
921 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
924 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
925 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
928 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
929 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
931 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
935 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
938 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
939 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
941 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
942 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
944 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
947 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
950 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
953 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
954 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
955 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
957 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
959 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
961 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
965 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
967 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
971 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
972 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
974 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
976 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
978 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
982 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
984 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
986 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
987 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
989 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
990 didn't like being the last command in a file.
992 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
993 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
994 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
995 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
997 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
998 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
999 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1001 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1002 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1003 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1005 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1006 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1007 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1010 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1011 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1014 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1015 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1017 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1018 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1019 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1021 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1022 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1023 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1025 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1026 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1027 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1030 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1031 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1034 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1035 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1037 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1040 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1041 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1042 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1044 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1045 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1049 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1050 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1052 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1053 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1054 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1056 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1058 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1062 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1064 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1066 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1067 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1069 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1071 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1072 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1074 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1075 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1077 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1078 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1081 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1082 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1087 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1088 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1089 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1091 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1095 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1097 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1098 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1101 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1102 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1103 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1105 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1107 Procedures now implemented:
1108 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1110 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1113 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1114 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1125 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1126 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1129 New command-line features:
1130 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1131 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1132 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1133 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1134 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1136 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1138 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1140 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1142 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1143 reinstall your `devices' file.
1145 New output driver for HTML.
1147 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1149 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1151 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1152 * PSPP system file format
1153 * PSPP portable file format
1154 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1157 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1158 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1160 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1162 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1163 versions, please see ONEWS.
1165 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1166 Copyright information:
1168 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1169 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1170 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1171 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1173 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1174 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1175 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1179 version-control: never