1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.10.4:
9 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
11 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
13 * The graphical user interface has a new menu: Edit|Options
15 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
18 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
19 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
21 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
23 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
24 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
27 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
29 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
31 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
33 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
35 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
38 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
41 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
42 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
43 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
45 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
46 Now it can paste multiple variables.
48 * Bug fixes, including the following:
50 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
51 type variable as group variable.
53 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
54 superimposed with the currently selected one.
56 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
59 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
61 * Bug fixes, including the following:
63 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
66 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
69 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
71 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
73 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
74 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
75 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
76 as to produce better separated clusters.
78 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
80 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
82 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
83 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
85 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
87 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
88 somewhat different look and feel.
90 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
92 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
93 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
95 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
96 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
97 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
98 and will generate syntax accordingly.
100 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
101 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
102 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
109 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
111 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
113 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
115 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
117 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
118 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
119 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
120 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
122 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
124 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
125 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
128 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
129 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
130 default and only supported behavior.
132 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
135 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
136 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
137 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
139 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
142 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
144 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
146 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
148 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
149 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
150 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
151 format is not supported.
153 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
156 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
157 when an empty dataset was presented.
159 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
160 scatterplots and histograms.
162 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
163 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
164 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
165 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
167 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
169 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
171 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
173 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
174 introduced in 0.8.2.)
176 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
177 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
180 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
181 subcommand has been corrected.
183 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
186 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
189 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
191 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
193 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
194 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
195 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
197 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
198 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
200 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
201 by the current FILTER settings.
203 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
205 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
206 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
208 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
211 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
212 encoding to be selected.
214 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
216 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
217 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
219 * System file related improvements:
221 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
222 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
225 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
226 character encoding of string data in the system file.
228 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
229 truncation (bug #41863).
231 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
232 read successfully (bug #41475).
234 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
236 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
237 of fully saturated primaries.
239 * Support for new system file variants:
241 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
242 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
243 files. (The older format is still supported.)
245 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
246 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
247 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
248 do not directly read or write this format.
250 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
251 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
253 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
254 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
255 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
256 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
258 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
259 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
260 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
261 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
265 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
267 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
273 * Changes to existing commands:
275 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
276 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
278 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
280 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
282 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
283 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
284 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
286 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
290 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
292 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
295 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
298 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
304 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
311 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
315 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
319 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
321 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
323 * Changes to existing commands:
325 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
327 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
329 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
331 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
332 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
333 applied to the included file.
335 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
337 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
339 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
342 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
345 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
347 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
348 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
349 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
351 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
352 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
354 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
357 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
360 * Other language changes:
362 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
363 extension, which is no longer supported.
365 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
366 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
367 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
368 expressed as U'1D11E'.
370 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
372 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
373 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
374 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
375 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
377 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
379 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
381 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
384 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
385 see different parts of a large data file.
387 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
388 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
389 clicking on an icon will open the file.
391 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
392 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
396 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
397 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
398 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
399 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
401 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
402 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
403 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
406 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
407 characters, including double-width characters and combining
410 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
412 - The HTML output is much improved.
414 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
415 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
416 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
417 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
418 of their intended syntax mode.
420 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
423 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
424 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
425 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
426 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
427 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
428 one the system file uses.
430 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
433 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
434 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
435 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
437 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
440 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
442 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
446 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
448 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
450 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
451 translationproject.org.
453 * Statistical bug fixes:
455 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
458 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
459 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
460 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
462 * Build fixes and changes:
464 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
466 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
467 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
469 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
471 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
473 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
474 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
475 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
478 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
480 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
482 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
483 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
484 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
487 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
489 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
490 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
492 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
494 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
495 with spaces as expected.
497 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
498 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
499 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
501 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
503 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
505 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
506 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
507 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
508 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
510 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
511 that does not exist (bug #24569).
513 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
516 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
518 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
520 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
522 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
523 instead of the current directory, to better match user
526 - Some data editor fixes.
530 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
532 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
534 * Statistical bug fixes:
536 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
537 regression output (bug #23567).
539 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
541 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
543 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
545 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
547 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
549 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
550 disk accesses on modern machines.
554 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
557 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
560 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
561 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
564 * Build fixes and changes:
566 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
567 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
569 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
572 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
573 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
575 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
576 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
578 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
580 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
582 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
583 found them too poor to be useful.
585 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
587 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
588 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
590 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
591 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
592 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
593 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
596 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
599 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
603 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
604 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
605 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
607 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
608 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
609 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
611 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
612 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
614 Statistical procedure changes:
616 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
617 via least-squares estimation.
619 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
620 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
622 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
625 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
626 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
628 User interface changes:
630 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
631 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
633 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
636 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
637 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
638 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
641 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
642 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
643 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
644 executed as if `+' had been specified.
646 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
647 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
648 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
650 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
651 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
652 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
653 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
658 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
659 manual for a full description of the available options.
661 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
662 "make install" will do this for you.
664 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
665 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
667 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
668 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
669 Previously, by default output was written only to file
670 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
671 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
676 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
677 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
678 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
679 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
681 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
682 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
683 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
687 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
688 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
689 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
690 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
691 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
693 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
694 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
697 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
698 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
699 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
700 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
702 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
703 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
704 longer needed, or supported.
706 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
707 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
708 no longer needed, or supported.
712 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
713 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
714 is no longer needed, or supported.
716 Command language changes:
718 * The following commands are new:
720 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
721 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
722 types of foreign data.
724 - CD, to change the current directory.
726 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
728 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
731 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
733 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
735 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
738 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
740 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
742 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
744 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
746 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
749 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
751 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
752 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
753 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
755 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
756 re-implemented in a later release:
758 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
764 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
765 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
766 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
768 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
769 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
771 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
773 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
774 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
775 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
776 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
779 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
780 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
781 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
783 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
784 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
785 reassigned to new files.
787 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
788 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
789 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
790 documentation on those particular commands.
794 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
795 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
796 format of these files.
798 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
799 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
800 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
801 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
804 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
805 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
806 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
807 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
808 native floating point format.
810 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
811 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
812 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
814 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
815 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
817 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
818 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
819 subcommands has been added.
821 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
822 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
823 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
826 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
827 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
829 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
830 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
831 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
835 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
836 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
839 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
840 have been extensively revised and improved.
842 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
845 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
847 Changes in build dependencies:
849 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
852 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
853 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
854 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
856 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
858 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
860 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
862 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
870 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
871 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
874 * T-TEST (re-written).
876 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
877 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
880 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
881 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
882 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
883 third-party software.
885 * SET EPOCH implemented.
887 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
890 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
892 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
893 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
894 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
896 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
897 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
899 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
900 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
902 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
903 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
904 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
907 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
908 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
911 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
914 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
917 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
918 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
919 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
921 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
923 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
925 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
928 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
929 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
932 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
933 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
935 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
939 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
942 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
943 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
945 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
946 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
948 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
951 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
954 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
957 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
958 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
959 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
961 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
963 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
965 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
969 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
971 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
975 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
976 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
978 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
980 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
982 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
986 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
988 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
990 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
991 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
993 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
994 didn't like being the last command in a file.
996 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
997 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
998 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
999 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1001 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1002 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1003 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1005 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1006 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1007 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1009 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1010 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1011 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1014 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1015 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1018 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1019 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1021 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1022 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1023 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1025 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1026 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1027 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1029 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1030 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1031 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1034 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1035 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1038 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1039 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1041 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1044 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1045 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1046 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1048 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1049 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1053 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1054 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1056 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1057 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1058 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1060 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1062 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1066 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1068 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1070 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1071 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1073 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1075 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1076 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1078 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1079 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1081 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1082 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1085 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1086 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1091 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1092 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1093 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1095 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1099 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1101 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1102 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1105 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1106 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1107 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1109 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1111 Procedures now implemented:
1112 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1114 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1117 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1118 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1129 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1130 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1133 New command-line features:
1134 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1135 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1136 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1137 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1138 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1140 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1142 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1144 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1146 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1147 reinstall your `devices' file.
1149 New output driver for HTML.
1151 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1153 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1155 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1156 * PSPP system file format
1157 * PSPP portable file format
1158 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1161 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1162 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1164 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1166 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1167 versions, please see ONEWS.
1169 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1170 Copyright information:
1172 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1173 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1174 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1175 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1177 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1178 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1179 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1183 version-control: never