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 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
10 regression through the origin.
12 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
14 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
16 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
18 * The graphical user interface has a new menu: Edit|Options
20 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
23 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
24 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
26 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
28 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
29 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
32 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
34 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
36 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
38 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
40 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
43 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
46 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
47 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
48 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
50 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
51 Now it can paste multiple variables.
53 * Bug fixes, including the following:
55 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
56 type variable as group variable.
58 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
59 superimposed with the currently selected one.
61 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
64 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
66 * Bug fixes, including the following:
68 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
71 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
74 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
76 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
78 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
79 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
80 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
81 as to produce better separated clusters.
83 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
85 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
87 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
88 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
90 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
92 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
93 somewhat different look and feel.
95 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
97 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
98 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
100 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
101 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
102 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
103 and will generate syntax accordingly.
105 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
106 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
107 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
114 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
116 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
118 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
120 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
122 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
123 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
124 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
125 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
127 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
129 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
130 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
133 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
134 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
135 default and only supported behavior.
137 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
140 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
141 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
142 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
144 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
147 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
149 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
151 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
153 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
154 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
155 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
156 format is not supported.
158 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
161 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
162 when an empty dataset was presented.
164 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
165 scatterplots and histograms.
167 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
168 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
169 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
170 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
172 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
174 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
176 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
178 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
179 introduced in 0.8.2.)
181 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
182 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
185 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
186 subcommand has been corrected.
188 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
191 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
194 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
196 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
198 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
199 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
200 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
202 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
203 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
205 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
206 by the current FILTER settings.
208 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
210 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
211 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
213 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
216 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
217 encoding to be selected.
219 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
221 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
222 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
224 * System file related improvements:
226 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
227 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
230 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
231 character encoding of string data in the system file.
233 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
234 truncation (bug #41863).
236 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
237 read successfully (bug #41475).
239 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
241 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
242 of fully saturated primaries.
244 * Support for new system file variants:
246 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
247 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
248 files. (The older format is still supported.)
250 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
251 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
252 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
253 do not directly read or write this format.
255 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
256 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
258 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
259 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
260 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
261 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
263 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
264 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
265 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
266 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
270 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
272 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
278 * Changes to existing commands:
280 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
281 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
283 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
285 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
287 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
288 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
289 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
291 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
295 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
297 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
300 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
303 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
309 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
316 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
320 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
324 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
326 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
328 * Changes to existing commands:
330 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
332 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
334 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
336 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
337 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
338 applied to the included file.
340 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
342 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
344 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
347 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
350 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
352 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
353 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
354 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
356 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
357 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
359 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
362 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
365 * Other language changes:
367 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
368 extension, which is no longer supported.
370 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
371 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
372 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
373 expressed as U'1D11E'.
375 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
377 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
378 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
379 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
380 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
382 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
384 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
386 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
389 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
390 see different parts of a large data file.
392 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
393 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
394 clicking on an icon will open the file.
396 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
397 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
401 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
402 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
403 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
404 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
406 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
407 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
408 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
411 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
412 characters, including double-width characters and combining
415 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
417 - The HTML output is much improved.
419 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
420 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
421 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
422 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
423 of their intended syntax mode.
425 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
428 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
429 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
430 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
431 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
432 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
433 one the system file uses.
435 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
438 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
439 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
440 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
442 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
445 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
447 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
451 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
453 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
455 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
456 translationproject.org.
458 * Statistical bug fixes:
460 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
463 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
464 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
465 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
467 * Build fixes and changes:
469 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
471 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
472 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
474 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
476 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
478 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
479 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
480 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
483 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
485 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
487 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
488 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
489 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
492 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
494 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
495 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
497 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
499 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
500 with spaces as expected.
502 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
503 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
504 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
506 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
508 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
510 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
511 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
512 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
513 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
515 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
516 that does not exist (bug #24569).
518 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
521 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
523 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
525 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
527 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
528 instead of the current directory, to better match user
531 - Some data editor fixes.
535 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
537 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
539 * Statistical bug fixes:
541 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
542 regression output (bug #23567).
544 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
546 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
548 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
550 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
552 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
554 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
555 disk accesses on modern machines.
559 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
562 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
565 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
566 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
569 * Build fixes and changes:
571 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
572 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
574 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
577 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
578 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
580 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
581 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
583 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
585 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
587 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
588 found them too poor to be useful.
590 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
592 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
593 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
595 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
596 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
597 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
598 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
601 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
604 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
608 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
609 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
610 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
612 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
613 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
614 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
616 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
617 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
619 Statistical procedure changes:
621 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
622 via least-squares estimation.
624 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
625 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
627 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
630 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
631 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
633 User interface changes:
635 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
636 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
638 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
641 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
642 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
643 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
646 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
647 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
648 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
649 executed as if `+' had been specified.
651 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
652 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
653 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
655 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
656 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
657 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
658 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
663 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
664 manual for a full description of the available options.
666 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
667 "make install" will do this for you.
669 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
670 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
672 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
673 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
674 Previously, by default output was written only to file
675 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
676 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
681 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
682 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
683 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
684 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
686 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
687 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
688 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
692 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
693 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
694 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
695 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
696 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
698 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
699 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
702 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
703 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
704 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
705 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
707 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
708 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
709 longer needed, or supported.
711 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
712 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
713 no longer needed, or supported.
717 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
718 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
719 is no longer needed, or supported.
721 Command language changes:
723 * The following commands are new:
725 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
726 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
727 types of foreign data.
729 - CD, to change the current directory.
731 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
733 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
736 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
738 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
740 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
743 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
745 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
747 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
749 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
751 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
754 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
756 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
757 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
758 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
760 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
761 re-implemented in a later release:
763 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
769 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
770 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
771 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
773 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
774 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
776 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
778 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
779 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
780 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
781 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
784 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
785 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
786 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
788 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
789 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
790 reassigned to new files.
792 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
793 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
794 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
795 documentation on those particular commands.
799 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
800 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
801 format of these files.
803 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
804 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
805 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
806 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
809 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
810 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
811 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
812 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
813 native floating point format.
815 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
816 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
817 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
819 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
820 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
822 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
823 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
824 subcommands has been added.
826 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
827 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
828 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
831 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
832 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
834 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
835 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
836 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
840 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
841 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
844 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
845 have been extensively revised and improved.
847 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
850 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
852 Changes in build dependencies:
854 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
857 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
858 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
859 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
861 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
863 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
865 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
867 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
875 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
876 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
879 * T-TEST (re-written).
881 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
882 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
885 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
886 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
887 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
888 third-party software.
890 * SET EPOCH implemented.
892 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
895 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
897 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
898 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
899 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
901 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
902 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
904 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
905 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
907 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
908 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
909 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
912 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
913 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
916 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
919 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
922 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
923 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
924 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
926 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
928 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
930 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
933 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
934 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
937 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
938 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
940 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
944 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
947 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
948 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
950 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
951 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
953 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
956 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
959 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
962 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
963 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
964 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
966 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
968 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
970 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
974 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
976 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
980 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
981 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
983 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
985 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
987 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
991 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
993 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
995 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
996 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
998 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
999 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1001 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1002 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1003 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1004 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1006 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1007 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1008 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1010 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1011 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1012 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1014 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1015 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1016 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1019 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1020 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1023 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1024 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1026 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1027 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1028 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1030 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1031 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1032 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1034 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1035 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1036 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1039 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1040 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1043 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1044 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1046 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1049 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1050 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1051 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1053 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1054 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1058 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1059 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1061 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1062 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1063 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1065 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1067 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1071 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1073 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1075 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1076 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1078 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1080 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1081 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1083 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1084 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1086 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1087 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1090 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1091 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1096 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1097 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1098 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1100 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1104 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1106 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1107 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1110 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1111 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1112 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1114 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1116 Procedures now implemented:
1117 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1119 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1122 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1123 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1134 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1135 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1138 New command-line features:
1139 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1140 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1141 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1142 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1143 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1145 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1147 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1149 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1151 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1152 reinstall your `devices' file.
1154 New output driver for HTML.
1156 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1158 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1160 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1161 * PSPP system file format
1162 * PSPP portable file format
1163 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1166 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1167 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1169 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1171 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1172 versions, please see ONEWS.
1174 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1175 Copyright information:
1177 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1178 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1179 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1180 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1182 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1183 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1184 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1188 version-control: never