1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019 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 1.2.0 to 1.3.0:
9 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
11 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
12 rarely printed on paper.
14 * pspp-convert: New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search
15 for an encrypted file's password.
17 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
19 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
21 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
22 one or more plots are requested.
24 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL which
25 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
27 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
28 a filter was set has been fixed.
30 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
33 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
35 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
37 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
41 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
43 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
45 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
46 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
48 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
49 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
51 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
53 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
54 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
56 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
58 * Translation updates.
60 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
62 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
63 regression through the origin.
65 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
67 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
69 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
71 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
73 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
76 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
77 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
79 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
81 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
82 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
85 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
87 * Graphical user interface changes:
89 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
91 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
93 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
95 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
97 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
99 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
101 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
103 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
106 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
109 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
110 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
111 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
113 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
114 Now it can paste multiple variables.
116 * Bug fixes, including the following:
118 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
119 type variable as group variable.
121 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
122 superimposed with the currently selected one.
124 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
127 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
129 * Bug fixes, including the following:
131 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
134 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
137 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
139 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
141 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
142 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
143 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
144 as to produce better separated clusters.
146 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
148 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
150 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
151 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
153 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
155 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
156 somewhat different look and feel.
158 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
160 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
161 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
163 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
164 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
165 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
166 and will generate syntax accordingly.
168 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
169 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
170 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
177 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
179 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
181 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
183 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
185 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
186 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
187 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
188 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
190 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
192 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
193 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
196 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
197 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
198 default and only supported behavior.
200 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
203 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
204 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
205 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
207 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
210 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
212 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
214 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
216 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
217 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
218 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
219 format is not supported.
221 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
224 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
225 when an empty dataset was presented.
227 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
228 scatterplots and histograms.
230 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
231 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
232 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
233 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
235 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
237 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
239 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
241 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
242 introduced in 0.8.2.)
244 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
245 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
248 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
249 subcommand has been corrected.
251 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
254 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
257 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
259 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
261 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
262 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
263 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
265 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
266 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
268 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
269 by the current FILTER settings.
271 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
273 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
274 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
276 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
279 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
280 encoding to be selected.
282 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
284 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
285 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
287 * System file related improvements:
289 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
290 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
293 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
294 character encoding of string data in the system file.
296 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
297 truncation (bug #41863).
299 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
300 read successfully (bug #41475).
302 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
304 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
305 of fully saturated primaries.
307 * Support for new system file variants:
309 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
310 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
311 files. (The older format is still supported.)
313 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
314 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
315 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
316 do not directly read or write this format.
318 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
319 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
321 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
322 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
323 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
324 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
326 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
327 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
328 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
329 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
333 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
335 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
341 * Changes to existing commands:
343 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
344 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
346 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
348 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
350 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
351 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
352 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
354 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
358 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
360 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
363 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
366 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
372 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
379 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
383 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
387 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
389 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
391 * Changes to existing commands:
393 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
395 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
397 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
399 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
400 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
401 applied to the included file.
403 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
405 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
407 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
410 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
413 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
415 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
416 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
417 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
419 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
420 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
422 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
425 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
428 * Other language changes:
430 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
431 extension, which is no longer supported.
433 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
434 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
435 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
436 expressed as U'1D11E'.
438 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
440 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
441 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
442 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
443 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
445 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
447 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
449 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
452 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
453 see different parts of a large data file.
455 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
456 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
457 clicking on an icon will open the file.
459 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
460 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
464 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
465 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
466 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
467 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
469 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
470 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
471 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
474 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
475 characters, including double-width characters and combining
478 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
480 - The HTML output is much improved.
482 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
483 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
484 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
485 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
486 of their intended syntax mode.
488 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
491 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
492 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
493 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
494 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
495 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
496 one the system file uses.
498 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
501 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
502 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
503 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
505 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
508 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
510 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
514 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
516 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
518 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
519 translationproject.org.
521 * Statistical bug fixes:
523 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
526 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
527 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
528 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
530 * Build fixes and changes:
532 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
534 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
535 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
537 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
539 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
541 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
542 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
543 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
546 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
548 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
550 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
551 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
552 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
555 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
557 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
558 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
560 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
562 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
563 with spaces as expected.
565 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
566 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
567 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
569 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
571 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
573 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
574 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
575 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
576 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
578 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
579 that does not exist (bug #24569).
581 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
584 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
586 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
588 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
590 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
591 instead of the current directory, to better match user
594 - Some data editor fixes.
598 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
600 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
602 * Statistical bug fixes:
604 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
605 regression output (bug #23567).
607 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
609 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
611 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
613 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
615 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
617 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
618 disk accesses on modern machines.
622 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
625 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
628 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
629 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
632 * Build fixes and changes:
634 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
635 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
637 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
640 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
641 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
643 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
644 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
646 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
648 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
650 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
651 found them too poor to be useful.
653 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
655 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
656 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
658 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
659 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
660 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
661 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
664 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
667 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
671 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
672 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
673 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
675 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
676 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
677 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
679 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
680 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
682 Statistical procedure changes:
684 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
685 via least-squares estimation.
687 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
688 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
690 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
693 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
694 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
696 User interface changes:
698 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
699 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
701 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
704 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
705 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
706 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
709 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
710 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
711 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
712 executed as if `+' had been specified.
714 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
715 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
716 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
718 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
719 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
720 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
721 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
726 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
727 manual for a full description of the available options.
729 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
730 "make install" will do this for you.
732 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
733 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
735 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
736 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
737 Previously, by default output was written only to file
738 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
739 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
744 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
745 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
746 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
747 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
749 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
750 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
751 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
755 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
756 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
757 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
758 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
759 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
761 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
762 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
765 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
766 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
767 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
768 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
770 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
771 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
772 longer needed, or supported.
774 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
775 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
776 no longer needed, or supported.
780 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
781 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
782 is no longer needed, or supported.
784 Command language changes:
786 * The following commands are new:
788 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
789 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
790 types of foreign data.
792 - CD, to change the current directory.
794 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
796 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
799 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
801 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
803 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
806 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
808 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
810 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
812 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
814 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
817 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
819 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
820 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
821 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
823 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
824 re-implemented in a later release:
826 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
832 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
833 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
834 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
836 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
837 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
839 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
841 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
842 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
843 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
844 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
847 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
848 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
849 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
851 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
852 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
853 reassigned to new files.
855 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
856 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
857 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
858 documentation on those particular commands.
862 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
863 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
864 format of these files.
866 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
867 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
868 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
869 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
872 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
873 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
874 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
875 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
876 native floating point format.
878 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
879 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
880 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
882 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
883 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
885 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
886 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
887 subcommands has been added.
889 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
890 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
891 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
894 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
895 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
897 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
898 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
899 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
903 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
904 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
907 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
908 have been extensively revised and improved.
910 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
913 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
915 Changes in build dependencies:
917 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
920 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
921 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
922 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
924 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
926 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
928 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
930 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
938 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
939 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
942 * T-TEST (re-written).
944 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
945 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
948 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
949 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
950 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
951 third-party software.
953 * SET EPOCH implemented.
955 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
958 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
960 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
961 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
962 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
964 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
965 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
967 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
968 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
970 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
971 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
972 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
975 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
976 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
979 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
982 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
985 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
986 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
987 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
989 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
991 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
993 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
996 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
997 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1000 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1001 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1003 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1007 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1010 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1011 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1013 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1014 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1016 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1019 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1022 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1025 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1026 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1027 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1029 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1031 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1033 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1037 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1039 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1043 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1044 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1046 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1048 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1050 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1054 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1056 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1058 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1059 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1061 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1062 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1064 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1065 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1066 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1067 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1069 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1070 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1071 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1073 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1074 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1075 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1077 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1078 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1079 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1082 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1083 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1086 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1087 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1089 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1090 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1091 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1093 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1094 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1095 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1097 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1098 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1099 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1102 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1103 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1106 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1107 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1109 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1112 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1113 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1114 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1116 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1117 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1121 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1122 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1124 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1125 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1126 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1128 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1130 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1134 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1136 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1138 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1139 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1141 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1143 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1144 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1146 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1147 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1149 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1150 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1153 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1154 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1159 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1160 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1161 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1163 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1167 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1169 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1170 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1173 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1174 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1175 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1177 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1179 Procedures now implemented:
1180 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1182 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1185 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1186 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1197 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1198 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1201 New command-line features:
1202 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1203 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1204 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1205 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1206 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1208 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1210 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1212 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1214 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1215 reinstall your `devices' file.
1217 New output driver for HTML.
1219 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1221 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1223 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1224 * PSPP system file format
1225 * PSPP portable file format
1226 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1229 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1230 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1232 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1234 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1235 versions, please see ONEWS.
1237 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1238 Copyright information:
1240 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1241 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1242 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1243 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1245 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1246 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1247 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1251 version-control: never