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.
9 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
10 rarely printed on paper.
12 * pspp-convert: New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search
13 for an encrypted file's password.
15 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
17 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
19 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
21 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
23 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
27 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
29 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
31 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
32 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
34 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
35 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
37 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
39 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
40 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
42 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
44 * Translation updates.
46 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
48 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
49 regression through the origin.
51 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
53 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
55 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
57 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
59 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
62 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
63 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
65 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
67 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
68 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
71 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
73 * Graphical user interface changes:
75 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
77 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
79 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
81 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
83 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
85 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
87 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
89 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
92 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
95 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
96 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
97 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
99 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
100 Now it can paste multiple variables.
102 * Bug fixes, including the following:
104 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
105 type variable as group variable.
107 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
108 superimposed with the currently selected one.
110 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
113 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
115 * Bug fixes, including the following:
117 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
120 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
123 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
125 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
127 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
128 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
129 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
130 as to produce better separated clusters.
132 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
134 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
136 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
137 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
139 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
141 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
142 somewhat different look and feel.
144 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
146 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
147 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
149 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
150 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
151 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
152 and will generate syntax accordingly.
154 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
155 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
156 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
163 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
165 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
167 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
169 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
171 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
172 for truncating 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 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
178 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
179 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
182 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
183 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
184 default and only supported behavior.
186 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
189 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
190 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
191 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
193 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
196 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
198 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
200 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
202 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
203 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
204 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
205 format is not supported.
207 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
210 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
211 when an empty dataset was presented.
213 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
214 scatterplots and histograms.
216 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
217 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
218 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
219 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
221 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
223 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
225 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
227 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
228 introduced in 0.8.2.)
230 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
231 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
234 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
235 subcommand has been corrected.
237 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
240 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
243 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
245 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
247 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
248 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
249 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
251 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
252 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
254 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
255 by the current FILTER settings.
257 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
259 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
260 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
262 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
265 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
266 encoding to be selected.
268 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
270 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
271 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
273 * System file related improvements:
275 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
276 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
279 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
280 character encoding of string data in the system file.
282 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
283 truncation (bug #41863).
285 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
286 read successfully (bug #41475).
288 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
290 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
291 of fully saturated primaries.
293 * Support for new system file variants:
295 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
296 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
297 files. (The older format is still supported.)
299 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
300 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
301 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
302 do not directly read or write this format.
304 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
305 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
307 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
308 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
309 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
310 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
312 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
313 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
314 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
315 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
319 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
321 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
327 * Changes to existing commands:
329 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
330 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
332 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
334 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
336 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
337 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
338 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
340 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
344 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
346 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
349 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
352 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
358 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
365 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
369 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
373 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
375 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
377 * Changes to existing commands:
379 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
381 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
383 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
385 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
386 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
387 applied to the included file.
389 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
391 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
393 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
396 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
399 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
401 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
402 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
403 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
405 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
406 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
408 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
411 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
414 * Other language changes:
416 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
417 extension, which is no longer supported.
419 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
420 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
421 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
422 expressed as U'1D11E'.
424 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
426 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
427 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
428 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
429 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
431 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
433 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
435 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
438 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
439 see different parts of a large data file.
441 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
442 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
443 clicking on an icon will open the file.
445 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
446 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
450 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
451 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
452 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
453 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
455 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
456 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
457 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
460 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
461 characters, including double-width characters and combining
464 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
466 - The HTML output is much improved.
468 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
469 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
470 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
471 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
472 of their intended syntax mode.
474 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
477 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
478 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
479 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
480 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
481 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
482 one the system file uses.
484 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
487 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
488 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
489 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
491 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
494 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
496 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
500 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
502 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
504 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
505 translationproject.org.
507 * Statistical bug fixes:
509 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
512 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
513 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
514 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
516 * Build fixes and changes:
518 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
520 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
521 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
523 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
525 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
527 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
528 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
529 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
532 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
534 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
536 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
537 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
538 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
541 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
543 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
544 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
546 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
548 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
549 with spaces as expected.
551 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
552 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
553 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
555 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
557 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
559 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
560 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
561 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
562 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
564 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
565 that does not exist (bug #24569).
567 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
570 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
572 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
574 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
576 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
577 instead of the current directory, to better match user
580 - Some data editor fixes.
584 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
586 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
588 * Statistical bug fixes:
590 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
591 regression output (bug #23567).
593 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
595 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
597 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
599 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
601 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
603 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
604 disk accesses on modern machines.
608 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
611 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
614 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
615 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
618 * Build fixes and changes:
620 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
621 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
623 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
626 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
627 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
629 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
630 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
632 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
634 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
636 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
637 found them too poor to be useful.
639 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
641 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
642 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
644 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
645 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
646 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
647 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
650 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
653 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
657 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
658 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
659 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
661 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
662 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
663 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
665 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
666 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
668 Statistical procedure changes:
670 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
671 via least-squares estimation.
673 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
674 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
676 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
679 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
680 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
682 User interface changes:
684 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
685 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
687 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
690 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
691 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
692 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
695 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
696 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
697 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
698 executed as if `+' had been specified.
700 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
701 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
702 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
704 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
705 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
706 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
707 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
712 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
713 manual for a full description of the available options.
715 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
716 "make install" will do this for you.
718 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
719 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
721 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
722 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
723 Previously, by default output was written only to file
724 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
725 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
730 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
731 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
732 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
733 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
735 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
736 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
737 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
741 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
742 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
743 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
744 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
745 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
747 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
748 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
751 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
752 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
753 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
754 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
756 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
757 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
758 longer needed, or supported.
760 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
761 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
762 no longer needed, or supported.
766 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
767 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
768 is no longer needed, or supported.
770 Command language changes:
772 * The following commands are new:
774 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
775 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
776 types of foreign data.
778 - CD, to change the current directory.
780 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
782 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
785 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
787 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
789 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
792 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
794 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
796 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
798 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
800 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
803 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
805 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
806 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
807 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
809 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
810 re-implemented in a later release:
812 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
818 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
819 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
820 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
822 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
823 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
825 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
827 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
828 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
829 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
830 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
833 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
834 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
835 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
837 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
838 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
839 reassigned to new files.
841 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
842 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
843 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
844 documentation on those particular commands.
848 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
849 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
850 format of these files.
852 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
853 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
854 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
855 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
858 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
859 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
860 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
861 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
862 native floating point format.
864 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
865 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
866 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
868 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
869 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
871 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
872 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
873 subcommands has been added.
875 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
876 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
877 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
880 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
881 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
883 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
884 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
885 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
889 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
890 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
893 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
894 have been extensively revised and improved.
896 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
899 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
901 Changes in build dependencies:
903 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
906 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
907 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
908 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
910 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
912 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
914 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
916 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
924 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
925 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
928 * T-TEST (re-written).
930 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
931 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
934 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
935 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
936 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
937 third-party software.
939 * SET EPOCH implemented.
941 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
944 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
946 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
947 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
948 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
950 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
951 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
953 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
954 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
956 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
957 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
958 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
961 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
962 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
965 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
968 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
971 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
972 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
973 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
975 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
977 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
979 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
982 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
983 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
986 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
987 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
989 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
993 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
996 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
997 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
999 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1000 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1002 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1005 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1008 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1011 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1012 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1013 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1015 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1017 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1019 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1023 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1025 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1029 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1030 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1032 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1034 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1036 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1040 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1042 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1044 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1045 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1047 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1048 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1050 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1051 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1052 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1053 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1055 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1056 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1057 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1059 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1060 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1061 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1063 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1064 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1065 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1068 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1069 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1072 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1073 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1075 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1076 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1077 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1079 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1080 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1081 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1083 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1084 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1085 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1088 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1089 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1092 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1093 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1095 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1098 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1099 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1100 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1102 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1103 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1107 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1108 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1110 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1111 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1112 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1114 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1116 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1120 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1122 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1124 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1125 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1127 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1129 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1130 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1132 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1133 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1135 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1136 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1139 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1140 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1145 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1146 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1147 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1149 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1153 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1155 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1156 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1159 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1160 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1161 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1163 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1165 Procedures now implemented:
1166 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1168 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1171 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1172 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1183 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1184 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1187 New command-line features:
1188 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1189 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1190 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1191 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1192 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1194 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1196 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1198 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1200 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1201 reinstall your `devices' file.
1203 New output driver for HTML.
1205 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1207 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1209 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1210 * PSPP system file format
1211 * PSPP portable file format
1212 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1215 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1216 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1218 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1220 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1221 versions, please see ONEWS.
1223 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1224 Copyright information:
1226 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1227 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1228 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1229 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1231 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1232 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1233 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1237 version-control: never