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 1.4.1 to 1.5.2:
9 * PSPP can now write its results directly to a TeX source file.
11 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
13 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
14 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
16 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
17 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
18 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
20 * The pspp-output utility has new --table-look and --nth-commands options.
22 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
26 * Translation updates.
28 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
30 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
32 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
34 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
35 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
36 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
38 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
39 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
40 which is surprising to some users.
42 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
43 use to save the contents of its output editor:
45 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
47 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
49 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
50 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
51 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
54 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
55 invalid syntax has been fixed.
57 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
59 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
60 rarely printed on paper.
62 * pspp-convert improvements:
64 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
65 encrypted file's password.
67 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
69 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
70 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
73 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
75 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
77 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
78 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
80 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
81 one or more plots are requested.
83 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
84 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
86 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
87 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
88 from the cluster centre to the active file.
90 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
92 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
95 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
97 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
98 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
101 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
106 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
110 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
112 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
114 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
118 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
120 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
122 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
123 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
125 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
126 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
128 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
130 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
131 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
133 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
135 * Translation updates.
137 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
139 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
140 regression through the origin.
142 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
144 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
146 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
148 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
150 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
153 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
154 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
156 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
158 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
159 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
162 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
164 * Graphical user interface changes:
166 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
168 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
170 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
172 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
174 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
176 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
178 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
180 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
183 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
186 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
187 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
188 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
190 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
191 Now it can paste multiple variables.
193 * Bug fixes, including the following:
195 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
196 type variable as group variable.
198 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
199 superimposed with the currently selected one.
201 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
204 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
206 * Bug fixes, including the following:
208 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
211 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
214 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
216 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
218 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
219 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
220 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
221 as to produce better separated clusters.
223 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
225 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
227 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
228 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
230 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
232 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
233 somewhat different look and feel.
235 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
237 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
238 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
240 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
241 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
242 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
243 and will generate syntax accordingly.
245 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
246 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
247 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
254 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
256 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
258 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
260 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
262 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
263 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
264 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
265 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
267 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
269 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
270 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
273 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
274 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
275 default and only supported behavior.
277 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
280 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
281 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
282 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
284 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
287 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
289 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
291 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
293 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
294 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
295 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
296 format is not supported.
298 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
301 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
302 when an empty dataset was presented.
304 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
305 scatterplots and histograms.
307 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
308 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
309 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
310 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
312 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
314 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
316 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
318 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
319 introduced in 0.8.2.)
321 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
322 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
325 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
326 subcommand has been corrected.
328 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
331 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
334 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
336 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
338 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
339 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
340 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
342 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
343 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
345 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
346 by the current FILTER settings.
348 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
350 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
351 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
353 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
356 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
357 encoding to be selected.
359 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
361 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
362 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
364 * System file related improvements:
366 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
367 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
370 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
371 character encoding of string data in the system file.
373 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
374 truncation (bug #41863).
376 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
377 read successfully (bug #41475).
379 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
381 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
382 of fully saturated primaries.
384 * Support for new system file variants:
386 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
387 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
388 files. (The older format is still supported.)
390 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
391 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
392 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
393 do not directly read or write this format.
395 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
396 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
398 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
399 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
400 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
401 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
403 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
404 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
405 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
406 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
410 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
412 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
418 * Changes to existing commands:
420 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
421 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
423 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
425 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
427 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
428 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
429 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
431 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
435 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
437 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
440 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
443 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
449 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
456 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
460 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
464 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
466 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
468 * Changes to existing commands:
470 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
472 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
474 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
476 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
477 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
478 applied to the included file.
480 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
482 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
484 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
487 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
490 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
492 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
493 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
494 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
496 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
497 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
499 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
502 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
505 * Other language changes:
507 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
508 extension, which is no longer supported.
510 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
511 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
512 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
513 expressed as U'1D11E'.
515 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
517 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
518 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
519 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
520 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
522 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
524 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
526 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
529 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
530 see different parts of a large data file.
532 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
533 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
534 clicking on an icon will open the file.
536 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
537 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
541 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
542 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
543 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
544 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
546 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
547 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
548 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
551 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
552 characters, including double-width characters and combining
555 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
557 - The HTML output is much improved.
559 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
560 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
561 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
562 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
563 of their intended syntax mode.
565 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
568 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
569 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
570 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
571 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
572 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
573 one the system file uses.
575 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
578 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
579 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
580 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
582 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
585 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
587 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
591 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
593 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
595 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
596 translationproject.org.
598 * Statistical bug fixes:
600 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
603 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
604 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
605 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
607 * Build fixes and changes:
609 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
611 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
612 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
614 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
616 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
618 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
619 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
620 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
623 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
625 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
627 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
628 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
629 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
632 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
634 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
635 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
637 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
639 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
640 with spaces as expected.
642 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
643 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
644 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
646 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
648 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
650 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
651 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
652 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
653 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
655 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
656 that does not exist (bug #24569).
658 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
661 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
663 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
665 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
667 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
668 instead of the current directory, to better match user
671 - Some data editor fixes.
675 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
677 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
679 * Statistical bug fixes:
681 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
682 regression output (bug #23567).
684 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
686 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
688 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
690 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
692 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
694 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
695 disk accesses on modern machines.
699 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
702 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
705 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
706 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
709 * Build fixes and changes:
711 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
712 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
714 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
717 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
718 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
720 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
721 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
723 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
725 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
727 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
728 found them too poor to be useful.
730 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
732 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
733 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
735 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
736 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
737 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
738 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
741 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
744 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
748 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
749 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
750 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
752 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
753 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
754 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
756 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
757 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
759 Statistical procedure changes:
761 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
762 via least-squares estimation.
764 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
765 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
767 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
770 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
771 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
773 User interface changes:
775 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
776 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
778 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
781 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
782 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
783 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
786 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
787 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
788 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
789 executed as if `+' had been specified.
791 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
792 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
793 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
795 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
796 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
797 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
798 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
803 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
804 manual for a full description of the available options.
806 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
807 "make install" will do this for you.
809 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
810 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
812 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
813 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
814 Previously, by default output was written only to file
815 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
816 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
821 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
822 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
823 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
824 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
826 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
827 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
828 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
832 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
833 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
834 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
835 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
836 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
838 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
839 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
842 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
843 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
844 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
845 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
847 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
848 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
849 longer needed, or supported.
851 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
852 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
853 no longer needed, or supported.
857 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
858 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
859 is no longer needed, or supported.
861 Command language changes:
863 * The following commands are new:
865 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
866 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
867 types of foreign data.
869 - CD, to change the current directory.
871 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
873 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
876 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
878 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
880 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
883 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
885 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
887 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
889 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
891 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
894 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
896 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
897 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
898 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
900 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
901 re-implemented in a later release:
903 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
909 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
910 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
911 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
913 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
914 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
916 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
918 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
919 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
920 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
921 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
924 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
925 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
926 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
928 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
929 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
930 reassigned to new files.
932 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
933 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
934 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
935 documentation on those particular commands.
939 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
940 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
941 format of these files.
943 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
944 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
945 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
946 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
949 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
950 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
951 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
952 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
953 native floating point format.
955 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
956 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
957 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
959 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
960 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
962 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
963 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
964 subcommands has been added.
966 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
967 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
968 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
971 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
972 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
974 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
975 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
976 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
980 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
981 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
984 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
985 have been extensively revised and improved.
987 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
990 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
992 Changes in build dependencies:
994 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
997 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
998 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
999 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1001 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1003 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1005 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1007 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1015 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1016 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1019 * T-TEST (re-written).
1021 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1022 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1025 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1026 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1027 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1028 third-party software.
1030 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1032 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1035 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1037 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1038 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1039 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1041 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1042 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1044 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1045 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1047 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1048 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1049 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1052 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1053 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1056 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1059 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1062 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1063 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1064 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1066 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1068 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1070 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1073 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1074 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1077 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1078 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1080 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1084 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1087 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1088 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1090 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1091 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1093 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1096 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1099 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1102 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1103 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1104 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1106 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1108 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1110 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1114 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1116 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1120 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1121 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1123 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1125 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1127 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1131 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1133 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1135 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1136 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1138 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1139 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1141 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1142 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1143 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1144 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1146 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1147 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1148 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1150 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1151 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1152 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1154 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1155 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1156 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1159 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1160 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1163 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1164 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1166 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1167 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1168 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1170 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1171 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1172 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1174 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1175 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1176 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1179 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1180 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1183 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1184 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1186 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1189 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1190 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1191 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1193 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1194 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1198 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1199 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1201 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1202 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1203 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1205 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1207 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1211 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1213 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1215 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1216 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1218 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1220 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1221 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1223 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1224 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1226 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1227 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1230 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1231 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1236 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1237 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1238 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1240 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1244 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1246 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1247 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1250 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1251 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1252 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1254 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1256 Procedures now implemented:
1257 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1259 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1262 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1263 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1274 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1275 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1278 New command-line features:
1279 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1280 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1281 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1282 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1283 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1285 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1287 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1289 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1291 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1292 reinstall your `devices' file.
1294 New output driver for HTML.
1296 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1298 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1300 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1301 * PSPP system file format
1302 * PSPP portable file format
1303 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1306 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1307 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1309 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1311 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1312 versions, please see ONEWS.
1314 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1315 Copyright information:
1317 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1318 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1319 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1320 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1322 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1323 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1324 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1328 version-control: never