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 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
11 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
13 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
14 regression through the origin.
16 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
18 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
20 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
22 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
24 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
27 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
28 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
30 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
32 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
33 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
36 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
38 * Graphical user interface changes:
40 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
42 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
44 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
46 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
48 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
50 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
52 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
54 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
57 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
60 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
61 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
62 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
64 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
65 Now it can paste multiple variables.
67 * Bug fixes, including the following:
69 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
70 type variable as group variable.
72 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
73 superimposed with the currently selected one.
75 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
78 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
80 * Bug fixes, including the following:
82 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
85 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
88 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
90 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
92 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
93 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
94 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
95 as to produce better separated clusters.
97 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
99 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
101 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
102 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
104 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
106 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
107 somewhat different look and feel.
109 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
111 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
112 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
114 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
115 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
116 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
117 and will generate syntax accordingly.
119 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
120 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
121 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
128 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
130 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
132 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
134 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
136 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
137 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
138 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
139 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
141 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
143 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
144 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
147 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
148 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
149 default and only supported behavior.
151 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
154 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
155 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
156 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
158 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
161 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
163 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
165 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
167 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
168 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
169 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
170 format is not supported.
172 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
175 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
176 when an empty dataset was presented.
178 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
179 scatterplots and histograms.
181 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
182 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
183 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
184 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
186 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
188 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
190 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
192 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
193 introduced in 0.8.2.)
195 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
196 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
199 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
200 subcommand has been corrected.
202 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
205 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
208 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
210 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
212 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
213 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
214 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
216 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
217 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
219 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
220 by the current FILTER settings.
222 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
224 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
225 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
227 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
230 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
231 encoding to be selected.
233 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
235 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
236 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
238 * System file related improvements:
240 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
241 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
244 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
245 character encoding of string data in the system file.
247 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
248 truncation (bug #41863).
250 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
251 read successfully (bug #41475).
253 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
255 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
256 of fully saturated primaries.
258 * Support for new system file variants:
260 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
261 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
262 files. (The older format is still supported.)
264 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
265 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
266 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
267 do not directly read or write this format.
269 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
270 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
272 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
273 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
274 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
275 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
277 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
278 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
279 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
280 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
284 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
286 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
292 * Changes to existing commands:
294 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
295 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
297 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
299 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
301 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
302 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
303 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
305 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
309 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
311 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
314 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
317 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
323 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
330 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
334 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
338 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
340 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
342 * Changes to existing commands:
344 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
346 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
348 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
350 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
351 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
352 applied to the included file.
354 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
356 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
358 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
361 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
364 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
366 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
367 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
368 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
370 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
371 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
373 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
376 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
379 * Other language changes:
381 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
382 extension, which is no longer supported.
384 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
385 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
386 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
387 expressed as U'1D11E'.
389 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
391 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
392 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
393 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
394 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
396 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
398 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
400 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
403 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
404 see different parts of a large data file.
406 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
407 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
408 clicking on an icon will open the file.
410 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
411 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
415 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
416 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
417 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
418 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
420 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
421 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
422 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
425 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
426 characters, including double-width characters and combining
429 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
431 - The HTML output is much improved.
433 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
434 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
435 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
436 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
437 of their intended syntax mode.
439 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
442 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
443 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
444 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
445 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
446 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
447 one the system file uses.
449 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
452 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
453 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
454 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
456 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
459 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
461 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
465 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
467 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
469 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
470 translationproject.org.
472 * Statistical bug fixes:
474 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
477 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
478 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
479 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
481 * Build fixes and changes:
483 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
485 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
486 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
488 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
490 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
492 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
493 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
494 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
497 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
499 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
501 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
502 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
503 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
506 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
508 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
509 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
511 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
513 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
514 with spaces as expected.
516 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
517 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
518 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
520 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
522 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
524 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
525 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
526 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
527 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
529 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
530 that does not exist (bug #24569).
532 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
535 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
537 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
539 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
541 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
542 instead of the current directory, to better match user
545 - Some data editor fixes.
549 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
551 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
553 * Statistical bug fixes:
555 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
556 regression output (bug #23567).
558 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
560 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
562 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
564 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
566 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
568 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
569 disk accesses on modern machines.
573 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
576 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
579 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
580 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
583 * Build fixes and changes:
585 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
586 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
588 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
591 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
592 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
594 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
595 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
597 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
599 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
601 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
602 found them too poor to be useful.
604 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
606 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
607 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
609 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
610 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
611 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
612 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
615 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
618 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
622 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
623 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
624 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
626 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
627 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
628 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
630 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
631 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
633 Statistical procedure changes:
635 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
636 via least-squares estimation.
638 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
639 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
641 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
644 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
645 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
647 User interface changes:
649 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
650 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
652 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
655 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
656 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
657 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
660 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
661 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
662 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
663 executed as if `+' had been specified.
665 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
666 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
667 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
669 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
670 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
671 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
672 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
677 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
678 manual for a full description of the available options.
680 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
681 "make install" will do this for you.
683 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
684 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
686 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
687 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
688 Previously, by default output was written only to file
689 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
690 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
695 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
696 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
697 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
698 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
700 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
701 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
702 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
706 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
707 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
708 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
709 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
710 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
712 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
713 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
716 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
717 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
718 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
719 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
721 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
722 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
723 longer needed, or supported.
725 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
726 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
727 no longer needed, or supported.
731 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
732 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
733 is no longer needed, or supported.
735 Command language changes:
737 * The following commands are new:
739 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
740 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
741 types of foreign data.
743 - CD, to change the current directory.
745 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
747 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
750 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
752 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
754 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
757 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
759 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
761 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
763 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
765 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
768 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
770 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
771 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
772 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
774 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
775 re-implemented in a later release:
777 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
783 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
784 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
785 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
787 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
788 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
790 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
792 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
793 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
794 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
795 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
798 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
799 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
800 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
802 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
803 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
804 reassigned to new files.
806 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
807 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
808 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
809 documentation on those particular commands.
813 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
814 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
815 format of these files.
817 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
818 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
819 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
820 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
823 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
824 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
825 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
826 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
827 native floating point format.
829 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
830 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
831 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
833 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
834 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
836 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
837 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
838 subcommands has been added.
840 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
841 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
842 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
845 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
846 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
848 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
849 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
850 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
854 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
855 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
858 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
859 have been extensively revised and improved.
861 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
864 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
866 Changes in build dependencies:
868 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
871 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
872 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
873 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
875 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
877 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
879 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
881 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
889 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
890 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
893 * T-TEST (re-written).
895 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
896 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
899 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
900 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
901 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
902 third-party software.
904 * SET EPOCH implemented.
906 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
909 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
911 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
912 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
913 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
915 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
916 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
918 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
919 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
921 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
922 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
923 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
926 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
927 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
930 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
933 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
936 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
937 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
938 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
940 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
942 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
944 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
947 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
948 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
951 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
952 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
954 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
958 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
961 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
962 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
964 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
965 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
967 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
970 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
973 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
976 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
977 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
978 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
980 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
982 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
984 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
988 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
990 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
994 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
995 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
997 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
999 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1001 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1005 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1007 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1009 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1010 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1012 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1013 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1015 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1016 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1017 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1018 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1020 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1021 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1022 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1024 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1025 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1026 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1028 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1029 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1030 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1033 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1034 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1037 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1038 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1040 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1041 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1042 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1044 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1045 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1046 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1048 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1049 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1050 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1053 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1054 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1057 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1058 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1060 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1063 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1064 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1065 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1067 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1068 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1072 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1073 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1075 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1076 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1077 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1079 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1081 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1085 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1087 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1089 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1090 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1092 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1094 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1095 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1097 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1098 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1100 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1101 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1104 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1105 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1110 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1111 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1112 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1114 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1118 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1120 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1121 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1124 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1125 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1126 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1128 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1130 Procedures now implemented:
1131 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1133 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1136 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1137 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1148 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1149 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1152 New command-line features:
1153 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1154 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1155 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1156 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1157 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1159 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1161 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1163 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1165 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1166 reinstall your `devices' file.
1168 New output driver for HTML.
1170 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1172 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1174 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1175 * PSPP system file format
1176 * PSPP portable file format
1177 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1180 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1181 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1183 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1185 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1186 versions, please see ONEWS.
1188 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1189 Copyright information:
1191 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1192 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1193 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1194 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1196 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1197 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1198 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1202 version-control: never