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 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
21 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
22 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
24 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
26 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
27 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
30 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
32 * Graphical user interface changes:
34 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
36 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
38 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
40 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
42 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
44 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
47 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
50 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
51 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
52 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
54 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
55 Now it can paste multiple variables.
57 * Bug fixes, including the following:
59 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
60 type variable as group variable.
62 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
63 superimposed with the currently selected one.
65 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
68 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
70 * Bug fixes, including the following:
72 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
75 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
78 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
80 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
82 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
83 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
84 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
85 as to produce better separated clusters.
87 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
89 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
91 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
92 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
94 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
96 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
97 somewhat different look and feel.
99 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
101 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
102 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
104 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
105 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
106 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
107 and will generate syntax accordingly.
109 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
110 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
111 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
118 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
120 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
122 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
124 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
126 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
127 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
128 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
129 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
131 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
133 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
134 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
137 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
138 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
139 default and only supported behavior.
141 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
144 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
145 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
146 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
148 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
151 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
153 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
155 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
157 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
158 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
159 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
160 format is not supported.
162 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
165 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
166 when an empty dataset was presented.
168 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
169 scatterplots and histograms.
171 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
172 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
173 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
174 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
176 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
178 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
180 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
182 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
183 introduced in 0.8.2.)
185 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
186 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
189 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
190 subcommand has been corrected.
192 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
195 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
198 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
200 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
202 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
203 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
204 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
206 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
207 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
209 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
210 by the current FILTER settings.
212 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
214 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
215 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
217 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
220 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
221 encoding to be selected.
223 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
225 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
226 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
228 * System file related improvements:
230 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
231 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
234 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
235 character encoding of string data in the system file.
237 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
238 truncation (bug #41863).
240 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
241 read successfully (bug #41475).
243 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
245 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
246 of fully saturated primaries.
248 * Support for new system file variants:
250 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
251 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
252 files. (The older format is still supported.)
254 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
255 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
256 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
257 do not directly read or write this format.
259 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
260 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
262 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
263 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
264 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
265 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
267 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
268 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
269 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
270 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
274 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
276 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
282 * Changes to existing commands:
284 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
285 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
287 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
289 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
291 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
292 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
293 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
295 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
299 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
301 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
304 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
307 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
313 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
320 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
324 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
328 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
330 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
332 * Changes to existing commands:
334 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
336 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
338 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
340 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
341 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
342 applied to the included file.
344 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
346 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
348 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
351 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
354 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
356 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
357 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
358 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
360 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
361 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
363 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
366 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
369 * Other language changes:
371 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
372 extension, which is no longer supported.
374 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
375 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
376 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
377 expressed as U'1D11E'.
379 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
381 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
382 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
383 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
384 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
386 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
388 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
390 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
393 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
394 see different parts of a large data file.
396 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
397 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
398 clicking on an icon will open the file.
400 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
401 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
405 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
406 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
407 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
408 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
410 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
411 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
412 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
415 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
416 characters, including double-width characters and combining
419 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
421 - The HTML output is much improved.
423 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
424 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
425 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
426 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
427 of their intended syntax mode.
429 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
432 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
433 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
434 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
435 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
436 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
437 one the system file uses.
439 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
442 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
443 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
444 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
446 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
449 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
451 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
455 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
457 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
459 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
460 translationproject.org.
462 * Statistical bug fixes:
464 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
467 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
468 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
469 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
471 * Build fixes and changes:
473 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
475 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
476 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
478 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
480 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
482 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
483 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
484 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
487 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
489 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
491 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
492 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
493 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
496 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
498 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
499 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
501 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
503 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
504 with spaces as expected.
506 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
507 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
508 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
510 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
512 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
514 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
515 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
516 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
517 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
519 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
520 that does not exist (bug #24569).
522 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
525 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
527 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
529 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
531 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
532 instead of the current directory, to better match user
535 - Some data editor fixes.
539 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
541 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
543 * Statistical bug fixes:
545 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
546 regression output (bug #23567).
548 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
550 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
552 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
554 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
556 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
558 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
559 disk accesses on modern machines.
563 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
566 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
569 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
570 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
573 * Build fixes and changes:
575 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
576 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
578 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
581 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
582 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
584 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
585 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
587 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
589 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
591 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
592 found them too poor to be useful.
594 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
596 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
597 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
599 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
600 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
601 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
602 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
605 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
608 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
612 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
613 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
614 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
616 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
617 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
618 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
620 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
621 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
623 Statistical procedure changes:
625 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
626 via least-squares estimation.
628 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
629 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
631 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
634 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
635 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
637 User interface changes:
639 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
640 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
642 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
645 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
646 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
647 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
650 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
651 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
652 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
653 executed as if `+' had been specified.
655 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
656 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
657 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
659 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
660 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
661 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
662 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
667 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
668 manual for a full description of the available options.
670 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
671 "make install" will do this for you.
673 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
674 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
676 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
677 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
678 Previously, by default output was written only to file
679 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
680 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
685 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
686 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
687 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
688 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
690 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
691 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
692 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
696 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
697 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
698 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
699 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
700 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
702 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
703 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
706 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
707 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
708 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
709 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
711 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
712 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
713 longer needed, or supported.
715 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
716 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
717 no longer needed, or supported.
721 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
722 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
723 is no longer needed, or supported.
725 Command language changes:
727 * The following commands are new:
729 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
730 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
731 types of foreign data.
733 - CD, to change the current directory.
735 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
737 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
740 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
742 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
744 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
747 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
749 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
751 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
753 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
755 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
758 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
760 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
761 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
762 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
764 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
765 re-implemented in a later release:
767 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
773 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
774 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
775 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
777 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
778 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
780 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
782 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
783 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
784 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
785 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
788 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
789 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
790 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
792 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
793 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
794 reassigned to new files.
796 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
797 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
798 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
799 documentation on those particular commands.
803 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
804 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
805 format of these files.
807 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
808 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
809 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
810 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
813 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
814 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
815 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
816 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
817 native floating point format.
819 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
820 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
821 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
823 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
824 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
826 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
827 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
828 subcommands has been added.
830 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
831 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
832 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
835 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
836 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
838 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
839 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
840 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
844 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
845 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
848 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
849 have been extensively revised and improved.
851 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
854 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
856 Changes in build dependencies:
858 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
861 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
862 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
863 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
865 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
867 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
869 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
871 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
879 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
880 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
883 * T-TEST (re-written).
885 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
886 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
889 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
890 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
891 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
892 third-party software.
894 * SET EPOCH implemented.
896 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
899 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
901 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
902 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
903 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
905 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
906 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
908 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
909 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
911 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
912 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
913 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
916 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
917 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
920 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
923 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
926 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
927 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
928 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
930 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
932 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
934 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
937 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
938 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
941 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
942 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
944 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
948 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
951 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
952 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
954 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
955 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
957 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
960 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
963 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
966 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
967 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
968 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
970 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
972 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
974 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
978 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
980 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
984 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
985 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
987 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
989 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
991 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
995 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
997 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
999 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1000 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1002 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1003 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1005 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1006 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1007 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1008 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1010 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1011 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1012 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1014 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1015 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1016 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1018 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1019 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1020 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1023 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1024 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1027 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1028 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1030 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1031 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1032 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1034 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1035 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1036 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1038 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1039 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1040 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1043 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1044 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1047 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1048 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1050 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1053 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1054 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1055 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1057 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1058 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1062 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1063 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1065 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1066 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1067 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1069 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1071 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1075 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1077 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1079 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1080 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1082 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1084 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1085 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1087 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1088 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1090 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1091 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1094 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1095 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1100 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1101 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1102 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1104 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1108 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1110 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1111 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1114 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1115 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1116 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1118 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1120 Procedures now implemented:
1121 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1123 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1126 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1127 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1138 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1139 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1142 New command-line features:
1143 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1144 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1145 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1146 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1147 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1149 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1151 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1153 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1155 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1156 reinstall your `devices' file.
1158 New output driver for HTML.
1160 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1162 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1164 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1165 * PSPP system file format
1166 * PSPP portable file format
1167 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1170 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1171 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1173 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1175 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1176 versions, please see ONEWS.
1178 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1179 Copyright information:
1181 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1182 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1183 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1184 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1186 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1187 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1188 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1192 version-control: never