PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
-Time-stamp: <2005-05-02 22:40:58 blp>
+Time-stamp: <2005-07-03 21:25:56 blp>
Copyright (C) 1996-9, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end for copying conditions.
Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
\f
-Preliminary list of changes from 0.3.1 to 0.3.2:
-
- PSPP now reads and writes system files compatible with spssV12.
-
- New commands: VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, VARIABLE LEVEL.
-
-Preliminary list of changes from 0.3.0 to 0.3.1:
+Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
New build dependencies:
Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
- * DATE (as a stub, to enhance compatibility).
-
- * EXAMINE.
+ * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
* FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
* SHOW.
+ * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
+ criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
+ sort.
+
* T-TEST (re-written).
- * USE (as a stub, to enhance compatibility).
+ * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
+ to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
+ them unnecessarily.
+
+ * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
+ currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
+ written to and read from system files and thus may affect
+ third-party software.
+
+ * SET EPOCH implemented.
+
+ * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
+ delimiters.
+
+ * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
+
+ Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
+ to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
+ reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
- skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate.
+ skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
+ --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
+ some cases.
Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
of these bugs.
- ASCII driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into single blank
- lines.
+ The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
+ single blank lines.
Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
cleaner.
- lib/julcal has been removed.
+ The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
+ this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
+ be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
+
+ New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
+
+ Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
+
+ lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
+ removed.
For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version