1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Time-stamp: <2009-10-11 14:15:35 blp>
3 Copyright (C) 1996-9, 2000, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
12 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
14 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
16 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
17 translationproject.org.
19 * Statistical bug fixes:
21 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
24 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
25 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
26 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
28 * Build fixes and changes:
30 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
32 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
33 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
35 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
37 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
39 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
40 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
41 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
44 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
46 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
48 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
49 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
50 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
53 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
55 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
56 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
58 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
60 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
61 with spaces as expected.
63 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
64 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
65 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
67 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
69 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
71 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
72 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
73 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
74 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
76 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
77 that does not exist (bug #24569).
79 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
82 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
84 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
86 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
88 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
89 instead of the current directory, to better match user
92 - Some data editor fixes.
96 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
98 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
100 * Statistical bug fixes:
102 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
103 regression output (bug #23567).
105 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
107 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
109 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
111 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
113 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
115 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
116 disk accesses on modern machines.
120 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
123 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
126 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
127 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
130 * Build fixes and changes:
132 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
133 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
135 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
138 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
139 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
141 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
142 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
144 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
146 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
148 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
149 found them too poor to be useful.
151 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
153 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
154 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
156 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
157 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
158 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
159 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
162 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
165 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
169 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
170 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
171 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
173 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
174 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
175 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
177 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
178 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
180 Statistical procedure changes:
182 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
183 via least-squares estimation.
185 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
186 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
188 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
191 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
192 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
194 User interface changes:
196 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
197 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
199 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
202 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
203 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
204 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
207 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
208 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
209 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
210 executed as if `+' had been specified.
212 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
213 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
214 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
216 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
217 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
218 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
219 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
224 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
225 manual for a full description of the available options.
227 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
228 "make install" will do this for you.
230 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
231 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
233 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
234 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
235 Previously, by default output was written only to file
236 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
237 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
242 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
243 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
244 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
245 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
247 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
248 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
249 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
253 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
254 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
255 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
256 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
257 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
259 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
260 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
263 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
264 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
265 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
266 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
268 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
269 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
270 longer needed, or supported.
272 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
273 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
274 no longer needed, or supported.
278 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
279 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
280 is no longer needed, or supported.
282 Command language changes:
284 * The following commands are new:
286 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
287 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
288 types of foreign data.
290 - CD, to change the current directory.
292 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
294 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
297 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
299 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
301 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
304 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
306 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
308 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
310 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
312 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
315 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
317 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
318 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
319 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
321 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
322 re-implemented in a later release:
324 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
330 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
331 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
332 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
334 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
335 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
337 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
339 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
340 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
341 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
342 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
345 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
346 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
347 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
349 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
350 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
351 reassigned to new files.
353 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
354 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
355 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
356 documentation on those particular commands.
360 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
361 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
362 format of these files.
364 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
365 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
366 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
367 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
370 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
371 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
372 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
373 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
374 native floating point format.
376 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
377 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
378 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
380 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
381 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
383 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
384 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
385 subcommands has been added.
387 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
388 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
389 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
392 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
393 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
395 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
396 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
397 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
401 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
402 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
405 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
406 have been extensively revised and improved.
408 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
411 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
413 Changes in build dependencies:
415 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
418 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
419 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
420 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
422 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
424 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
426 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
428 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
436 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
437 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
440 * T-TEST (re-written).
442 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
443 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
446 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
447 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
448 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
449 third-party software.
451 * SET EPOCH implemented.
453 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
456 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
458 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
459 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
460 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
462 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
463 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
465 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
466 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
468 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
469 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
470 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
473 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
474 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
477 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
480 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
483 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
484 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
485 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
487 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
489 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
491 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
494 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
495 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
498 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
499 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
501 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
505 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
508 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
509 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
511 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
512 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
514 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
517 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
520 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
523 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
524 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
525 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
527 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
529 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
531 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
535 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
537 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
541 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
542 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
544 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
546 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
548 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
552 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
554 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
556 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
557 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
559 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
560 didn't like being the last command in a file.
562 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
563 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
564 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
565 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
567 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
568 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
569 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
571 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
572 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
573 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
575 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
576 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
577 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
580 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
581 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
584 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
585 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
587 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
588 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
589 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
591 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
592 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
593 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
595 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
596 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
597 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
600 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
601 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
604 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
605 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
607 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
610 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
611 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
612 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
614 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
615 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
619 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
620 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
622 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
623 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
624 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
626 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
628 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
632 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
634 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
636 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
637 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
639 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
641 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
642 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
644 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
645 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
647 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
648 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
651 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
652 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
657 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
658 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
659 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
661 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
665 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
667 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
668 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
671 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
672 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
673 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
675 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
677 Procedures now implemented:
678 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
680 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
683 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
684 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
695 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
696 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
699 New command-line features:
700 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
701 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
702 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
703 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
704 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
706 Operator LAG is now implemented.
708 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
710 Table output manager completely rewritten.
712 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
713 reinstall your `devices' file.
715 New output driver for HTML.
717 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
719 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
721 Added Texinfo documentation for:
722 * PSPP system file format
723 * PSPP portable file format
724 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
727 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
728 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
730 Changes for version 0.1.0:
732 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
733 versions, please see ONEWS.
735 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
736 Copyright information:
738 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
739 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
740 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
741 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
743 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
744 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
745 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
749 version-control: never