1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
10 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
11 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
12 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
14 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
17 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
18 contrasts tests has been corrected.
20 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
22 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
23 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
25 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
26 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
27 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
29 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
30 graphical output examples and screenshots.
32 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
37 - Perl is no longer required to build.
39 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
40 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
43 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
45 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
47 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
49 * Output improvements:
51 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
53 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
54 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
56 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
57 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
59 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
60 as a "table of contents" for the file.
62 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
64 * New features in pspp-output:
66 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
68 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
70 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
74 * Translation updates.
76 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
78 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
80 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
82 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
83 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
84 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
86 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
87 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
88 which is surprising to some users.
90 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
91 use to save the contents of its output editor:
93 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
95 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
97 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
98 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
99 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
102 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
103 invalid syntax has been fixed.
105 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
107 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
108 rarely printed on paper.
110 * pspp-convert improvements:
112 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
113 encrypted file's password.
115 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
117 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
118 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
121 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
123 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
125 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
126 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
128 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
129 one or more plots are requested.
131 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
132 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
134 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
135 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
136 from the cluster centre to the active file.
138 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
140 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
143 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
145 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
146 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
149 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
154 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
158 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
160 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
162 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
166 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
168 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
170 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
171 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
173 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
174 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
176 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
178 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
179 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
181 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
183 * Translation updates.
185 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
187 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
188 regression through the origin.
190 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
192 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
194 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
196 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
198 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
201 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
202 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
204 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
206 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
207 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
210 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
212 * Graphical user interface changes:
214 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
216 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
218 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
220 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
222 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
224 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
226 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
228 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
231 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
234 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
235 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
236 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
238 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
239 Now it can paste multiple variables.
241 * Bug fixes, including the following:
243 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
244 type variable as group variable.
246 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
247 superimposed with the currently selected one.
249 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
252 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
254 * Bug fixes, including the following:
256 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
259 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
262 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
264 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
266 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
267 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
268 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
269 as to produce better separated clusters.
271 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
273 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
275 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
276 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
278 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
280 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
281 somewhat different look and feel.
283 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
285 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
286 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
288 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
289 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
290 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
291 and will generate syntax accordingly.
293 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
294 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
295 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
302 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
304 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
306 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
308 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
310 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
311 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
312 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
313 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
315 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
317 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
318 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
321 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
322 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
323 default and only supported behavior.
325 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
328 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
329 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
330 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
332 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
335 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
337 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
339 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
341 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
342 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
343 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
344 format is not supported.
346 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
349 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
350 when an empty dataset was presented.
352 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
353 scatterplots and histograms.
355 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
356 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
357 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
358 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
360 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
362 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
364 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
366 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
367 introduced in 0.8.2.)
369 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
370 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
373 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
374 subcommand has been corrected.
376 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
379 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
382 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
384 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
386 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
387 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
388 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
390 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
391 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
393 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
394 by the current FILTER settings.
396 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
398 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
399 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
401 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
404 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
405 encoding to be selected.
407 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
409 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
410 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
412 * System file related improvements:
414 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
415 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
418 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
419 character encoding of string data in the system file.
421 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
422 truncation (bug #41863).
424 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
425 read successfully (bug #41475).
427 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
429 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
430 of fully saturated primaries.
432 * Support for new system file variants:
434 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
435 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
436 files. (The older format is still supported.)
438 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
439 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
440 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
441 do not directly read or write this format.
443 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
444 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
446 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
447 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
448 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
449 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
451 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
452 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
453 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
454 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
458 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
460 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
466 * Changes to existing commands:
468 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
469 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
471 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
473 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
475 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
476 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
477 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
479 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
483 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
485 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
488 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
491 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
497 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
504 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
508 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
512 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
514 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
516 * Changes to existing commands:
518 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
520 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
522 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
524 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
525 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
526 applied to the included file.
528 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
530 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
532 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
535 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
538 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
540 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
541 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
542 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
544 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
545 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
547 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
550 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
553 * Other language changes:
555 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
556 extension, which is no longer supported.
558 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
559 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
560 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
561 expressed as U'1D11E'.
563 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
565 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
566 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
567 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
568 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
570 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
572 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
574 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
577 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
578 see different parts of a large data file.
580 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
581 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
582 clicking on an icon will open the file.
584 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
585 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
589 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
590 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
591 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
592 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
594 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
595 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
596 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
599 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
600 characters, including double-width characters and combining
603 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
605 - The HTML output is much improved.
607 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
608 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
609 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
610 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
611 of their intended syntax mode.
613 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
616 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
617 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
618 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
619 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
620 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
621 one the system file uses.
623 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
626 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
627 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
628 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
630 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
633 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
635 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
639 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
641 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
643 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
644 translationproject.org.
646 * Statistical bug fixes:
648 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
651 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
652 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
653 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
655 * Build fixes and changes:
657 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
659 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
660 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
662 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
664 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
666 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
667 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
668 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
671 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
673 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
675 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
676 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
677 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
680 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
682 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
683 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
685 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
687 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
688 with spaces as expected.
690 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
691 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
692 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
694 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
696 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
698 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
699 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
700 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
701 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
703 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
704 that does not exist (bug #24569).
706 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
709 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
711 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
713 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
715 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
716 instead of the current directory, to better match user
719 - Some data editor fixes.
723 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
725 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
727 * Statistical bug fixes:
729 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
730 regression output (bug #23567).
732 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
734 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
736 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
738 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
740 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
742 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
743 disk accesses on modern machines.
747 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
750 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
753 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
754 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
757 * Build fixes and changes:
759 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
760 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
762 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
765 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
766 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
768 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
769 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
771 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
773 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
775 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
776 found them too poor to be useful.
778 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
780 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
781 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
783 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
784 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
785 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
786 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
789 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
792 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
796 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
797 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
798 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
800 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
801 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
802 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
804 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
805 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
807 Statistical procedure changes:
809 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
810 via least-squares estimation.
812 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
813 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
815 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
818 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
819 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
821 User interface changes:
823 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
824 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
826 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
829 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
830 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
831 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
834 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
835 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
836 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
837 executed as if `+' had been specified.
839 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
840 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
841 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
843 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
844 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
845 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
846 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
851 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
852 manual for a full description of the available options.
854 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
855 "make install" will do this for you.
857 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
858 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
860 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
861 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
862 Previously, by default output was written only to file
863 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
864 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
869 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
870 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
871 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
872 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
874 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
875 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
876 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
880 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
881 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
882 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
883 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
884 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
886 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
887 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
890 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
891 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
892 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
893 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
895 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
896 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
897 longer needed, or supported.
899 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
900 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
901 no longer needed, or supported.
905 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
906 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
907 is no longer needed, or supported.
909 Command language changes:
911 * The following commands are new:
913 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
914 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
915 types of foreign data.
917 - CD, to change the current directory.
919 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
921 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
924 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
926 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
928 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
931 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
933 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
935 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
937 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
939 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
942 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
944 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
945 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
946 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
948 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
949 re-implemented in a later release:
951 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
957 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
958 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
959 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
961 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
962 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
964 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
966 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
967 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
968 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
969 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
972 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
973 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
974 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
976 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
977 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
978 reassigned to new files.
980 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
981 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
982 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
983 documentation on those particular commands.
987 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
988 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
989 format of these files.
991 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
992 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
993 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
994 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
997 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
998 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
999 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1000 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1001 native floating point format.
1003 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1004 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1005 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1007 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1008 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1010 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1011 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1012 subcommands has been added.
1014 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1015 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1016 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1019 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1020 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1022 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1023 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1024 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1028 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1029 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1032 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1033 have been extensively revised and improved.
1035 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1038 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1040 Changes in build dependencies:
1042 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1045 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1046 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1047 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1049 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1051 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1053 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1055 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1063 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1064 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1067 * T-TEST (re-written).
1069 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1070 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1073 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1074 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1075 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1076 third-party software.
1078 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1080 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1083 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1085 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1086 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1087 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1089 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1090 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1092 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1093 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1095 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1096 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1097 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1100 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1101 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1104 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1107 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1110 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1111 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1112 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1114 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1116 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1118 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1121 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1122 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1125 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1126 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1128 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1132 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1135 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1136 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1138 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1139 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1141 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1144 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1147 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1150 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1151 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1152 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1154 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1156 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1158 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1162 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1164 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1168 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1169 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1171 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1173 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1175 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1179 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1181 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1183 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1184 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1186 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1187 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1189 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1190 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1191 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1192 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1194 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1195 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1196 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1198 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1199 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1200 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1202 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1203 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1204 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1207 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1208 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1211 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1212 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1214 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1215 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1216 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1218 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1219 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1220 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1222 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1223 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1224 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1227 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1228 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1231 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1232 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1234 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1237 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1238 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1239 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1241 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1242 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1246 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1247 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1249 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1250 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1251 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1253 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1255 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1259 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1261 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1263 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1264 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1266 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1268 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1269 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1271 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1272 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1274 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1275 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1278 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1279 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1284 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1285 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1286 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1288 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1292 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1294 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1295 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1298 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1299 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1300 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1302 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1304 Procedures now implemented:
1305 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1307 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1310 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1311 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1322 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1323 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1326 New command-line features:
1327 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1328 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1329 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1330 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1331 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1333 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1335 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1337 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1339 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1340 reinstall your `devices' file.
1342 New output driver for HTML.
1344 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1346 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1348 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1349 * PSPP system file format
1350 * PSPP portable file format
1351 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1354 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1355 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1357 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1359 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1360 versions, please see ONEWS.
1362 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1363 Copyright information:
1365 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1366 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1367 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1368 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1370 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1371 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1372 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1376 version-control: never