1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
10 * The CTABLES command is now implemented.
12 * FREQUENCIES now honors the LAYERED setting on SPLIT FILE.
16 - New aggregation functions CGT, CLT, CIN, and COUT.
18 - Break variables are now optional.
20 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
21 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
23 * The pspp-dump-sav program is no longer installed by default.
25 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
27 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
28 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
29 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
33 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
35 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
36 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
38 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
40 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
42 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
43 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
44 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
46 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
49 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
50 contrasts tests has been corrected.
52 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
54 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
55 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
57 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
58 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
59 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
61 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
62 graphical output examples and screenshots.
64 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
69 - Perl is no longer required to build.
71 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
72 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
75 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
77 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
79 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
81 * Output improvements:
83 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
85 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
86 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
88 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
89 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
91 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
92 as a "table of contents" for the file.
94 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
96 * New features in pspp-output:
98 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
100 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
102 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
106 * Translation updates.
108 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
110 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
112 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
114 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
115 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
116 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
118 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
119 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
120 which is surprising to some users.
122 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
123 use to save the contents of its output editor:
125 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
127 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
129 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
130 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
131 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
134 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
135 invalid syntax has been fixed.
137 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
139 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
140 rarely printed on paper.
142 * pspp-convert improvements:
144 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
145 encrypted file's password.
147 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
149 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
150 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
153 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
155 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
157 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
158 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
160 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
161 one or more plots are requested.
163 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
164 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
166 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
167 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
168 from the cluster centre to the active file.
170 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
172 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
175 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
177 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
178 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
181 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
186 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
190 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
192 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
194 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
198 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
200 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
202 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
203 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
205 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
206 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
208 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
210 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
211 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
213 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
215 * Translation updates.
217 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
219 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
220 regression through the origin.
222 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
224 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
226 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
228 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
230 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
233 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
234 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
236 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
238 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
239 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
242 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
244 * Graphical user interface changes:
246 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
248 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
250 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
252 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
254 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
256 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
258 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
260 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
263 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
266 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
267 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
268 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
270 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
271 Now it can paste multiple variables.
273 * Bug fixes, including the following:
275 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
276 type variable as group variable.
278 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
279 superimposed with the currently selected one.
281 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
284 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
286 * Bug fixes, including the following:
288 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
291 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
294 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
296 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
298 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
299 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
300 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
301 as to produce better separated clusters.
303 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
305 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
307 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
308 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
310 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
312 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
313 somewhat different look and feel.
315 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
317 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
318 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
320 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
321 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
322 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
323 and will generate syntax accordingly.
325 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
326 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
327 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
334 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
336 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
338 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
340 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
342 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
343 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
344 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
345 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
347 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
349 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
350 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
353 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
354 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
355 default and only supported behavior.
357 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
360 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
361 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
362 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
364 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
367 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
369 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
371 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
373 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
374 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
375 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
376 format is not supported.
378 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
381 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
382 when an empty dataset was presented.
384 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
385 scatterplots and histograms.
387 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
388 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
389 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
390 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
392 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
394 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
396 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
398 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
399 introduced in 0.8.2.)
401 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
402 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
405 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
406 subcommand has been corrected.
408 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
411 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
414 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
416 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
418 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
419 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
420 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
422 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
423 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
425 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
426 by the current FILTER settings.
428 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
430 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
431 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
433 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
436 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
437 encoding to be selected.
439 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
441 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
442 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
444 * System file related improvements:
446 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
447 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
450 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
451 character encoding of string data in the system file.
453 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
454 truncation (bug #41863).
456 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
457 read successfully (bug #41475).
459 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
461 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
462 of fully saturated primaries.
464 * Support for new system file variants:
466 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
467 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
468 files. (The older format is still supported.)
470 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
471 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
472 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
473 do not directly read or write this format.
475 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
476 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
478 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
479 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
480 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
481 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
483 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
484 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
485 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
486 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
490 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
492 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
498 * Changes to existing commands:
500 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
501 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
503 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
505 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
507 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
508 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
509 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
511 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
515 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
517 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
520 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
523 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
529 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
536 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
540 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
544 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
546 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
548 * Changes to existing commands:
550 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
552 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
554 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
556 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
557 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
558 applied to the included file.
560 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
562 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
564 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
567 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
570 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
572 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
573 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
574 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
576 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
577 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
579 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
582 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
585 * Other language changes:
587 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
588 extension, which is no longer supported.
590 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
591 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
592 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
593 expressed as U'1D11E'.
595 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
597 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
598 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
599 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
600 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
602 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
604 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
606 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
609 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
610 see different parts of a large data file.
612 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
613 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
614 clicking on an icon will open the file.
616 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
617 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
621 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
622 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
623 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
624 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
626 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
627 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
628 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
631 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
632 characters, including double-width characters and combining
635 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
637 - The HTML output is much improved.
639 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
640 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
641 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
642 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
643 of their intended syntax mode.
645 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
648 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
649 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
650 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
651 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
652 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
653 one the system file uses.
655 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
658 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
659 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
660 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
662 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
665 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
667 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
671 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
673 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
675 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
676 translationproject.org.
678 * Statistical bug fixes:
680 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
683 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
684 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
685 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
687 * Build fixes and changes:
689 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
691 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
692 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
694 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
696 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
698 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
699 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
700 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
703 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
705 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
707 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
708 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
709 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
712 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
714 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
715 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
717 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
719 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
720 with spaces as expected.
722 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
723 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
724 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
726 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
728 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
730 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
731 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
732 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
733 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
735 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
736 that does not exist (bug #24569).
738 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
741 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
743 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
745 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
747 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
748 instead of the current directory, to better match user
751 - Some data editor fixes.
755 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
757 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
759 * Statistical bug fixes:
761 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
762 regression output (bug #23567).
764 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
766 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
768 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
770 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
772 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
774 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
775 disk accesses on modern machines.
779 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
782 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
785 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
786 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
789 * Build fixes and changes:
791 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
792 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
794 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
797 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
798 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
800 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
801 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
803 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
805 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
807 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
808 found them too poor to be useful.
810 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
812 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
813 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
815 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
816 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
817 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
818 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
821 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
824 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
828 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
829 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
830 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
832 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
833 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
834 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
836 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
837 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
839 Statistical procedure changes:
841 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
842 via least-squares estimation.
844 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
845 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
847 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
850 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
851 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
853 User interface changes:
855 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
856 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
858 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
861 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
862 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
863 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
866 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
867 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
868 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
869 executed as if `+' had been specified.
871 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
872 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
873 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
875 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
876 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
877 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
878 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
883 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
884 manual for a full description of the available options.
886 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
887 "make install" will do this for you.
889 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
890 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
892 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
893 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
894 Previously, by default output was written only to file
895 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
896 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
901 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
902 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
903 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
904 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
906 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
907 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
908 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
912 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
913 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
914 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
915 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
916 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
918 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
919 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
922 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
923 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
924 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
925 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
927 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
928 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
929 longer needed, or supported.
931 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
932 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
933 no longer needed, or supported.
937 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
938 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
939 is no longer needed, or supported.
941 Command language changes:
943 * The following commands are new:
945 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
946 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
947 types of foreign data.
949 - CD, to change the current directory.
951 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
953 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
956 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
958 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
960 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
963 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
965 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
967 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
969 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
971 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
974 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
976 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
977 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
978 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
980 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
981 re-implemented in a later release:
983 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
989 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
990 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
991 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
993 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
994 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
996 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
998 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
999 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
1000 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
1001 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
1004 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
1005 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
1006 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
1008 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
1009 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1010 reassigned to new files.
1012 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1013 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1014 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1015 documentation on those particular commands.
1017 Data access changes:
1019 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1020 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1021 format of these files.
1023 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1024 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1025 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1026 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1029 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1030 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1031 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1032 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1033 native floating point format.
1035 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1036 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1037 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1039 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1040 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1042 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1043 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1044 subcommands has been added.
1046 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1047 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1048 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1051 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1052 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1054 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1055 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1056 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1060 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1061 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1064 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1065 have been extensively revised and improved.
1067 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1070 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1072 Changes in build dependencies:
1074 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1077 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1078 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1079 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1081 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1083 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1085 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1087 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1095 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1096 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1099 * T-TEST (re-written).
1101 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1102 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1105 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1106 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1107 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1108 third-party software.
1110 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1112 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1115 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1117 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1118 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1119 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1121 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1122 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1124 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1125 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1127 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1128 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1129 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1132 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1133 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1136 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1139 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1142 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1143 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1144 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1146 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1148 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1150 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1153 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1154 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1157 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1158 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1160 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1164 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1167 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1168 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1170 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1171 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1173 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1176 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1179 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1182 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1183 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1184 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1186 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1188 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1190 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1194 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1196 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1200 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1201 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1203 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1205 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1207 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1211 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1213 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1215 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1216 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1218 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1219 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1221 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1222 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1223 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1224 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1226 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1227 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1228 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1230 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1231 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1232 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1234 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1235 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1236 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1239 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1240 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1243 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1244 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1246 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1247 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1248 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1250 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1251 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1252 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1254 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1255 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1256 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1259 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1260 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1263 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1264 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1266 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1269 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1270 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1271 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1273 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1274 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1278 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1279 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1281 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1282 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1283 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1285 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1287 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1291 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1293 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1295 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1296 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1298 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1300 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1301 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1303 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1304 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1306 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1307 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1310 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1311 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1316 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1317 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1318 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1320 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1324 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1326 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1327 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1330 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1331 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1332 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1334 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1336 Procedures now implemented:
1337 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1339 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1342 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1343 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1354 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1355 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1358 New command-line features:
1359 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1360 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1361 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1362 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1363 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1365 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1367 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1369 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1371 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1372 reinstall your `devices' file.
1374 New output driver for HTML.
1376 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1378 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1380 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1381 * PSPP system file format
1382 * PSPP portable file format
1383 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1386 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1387 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1389 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1391 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1392 versions, please see ONEWS.
1394 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1395 Copyright information:
1397 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1398 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1399 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1400 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1402 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1403 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1404 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1408 version-control: never