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 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
12 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
14 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
15 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
17 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
19 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
21 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
22 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
23 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
25 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
28 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
29 contrasts tests has been corrected.
31 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
33 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
34 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
36 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
37 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
38 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
40 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
41 graphical output examples and screenshots.
43 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
48 - Perl is no longer required to build.
50 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
51 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
54 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
56 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
58 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
60 * Output improvements:
62 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
64 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
65 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
67 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
68 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
70 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
71 as a "table of contents" for the file.
73 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
75 * New features in pspp-output:
77 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
79 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
81 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
85 * Translation updates.
87 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
89 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
91 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
93 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
94 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
95 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
97 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
98 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
99 which is surprising to some users.
101 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
102 use to save the contents of its output editor:
104 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
106 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
108 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
109 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
110 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
113 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
114 invalid syntax has been fixed.
116 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
118 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
119 rarely printed on paper.
121 * pspp-convert improvements:
123 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
124 encrypted file's password.
126 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
128 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
129 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
132 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
134 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
136 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
137 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
139 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
140 one or more plots are requested.
142 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
143 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
145 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
146 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
147 from the cluster centre to the active file.
149 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
151 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
154 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
156 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
157 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
160 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
165 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
169 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
171 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
173 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
177 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
179 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
181 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
182 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
184 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
185 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
187 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
189 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
190 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
192 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
194 * Translation updates.
196 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
198 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
199 regression through the origin.
201 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
203 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
205 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
207 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
209 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
212 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
213 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
215 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
217 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
218 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
221 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
223 * Graphical user interface changes:
225 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
227 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
229 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
231 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
233 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
235 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
237 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
239 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
242 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
245 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
246 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
247 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
249 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
250 Now it can paste multiple variables.
252 * Bug fixes, including the following:
254 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
255 type variable as group variable.
257 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
258 superimposed with the currently selected one.
260 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
263 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
265 * Bug fixes, including the following:
267 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
270 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
273 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
275 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
277 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
278 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
279 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
280 as to produce better separated clusters.
282 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
284 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
286 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
287 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
289 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
291 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
292 somewhat different look and feel.
294 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
296 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
297 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
299 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
300 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
301 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
302 and will generate syntax accordingly.
304 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
305 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
306 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
313 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
315 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
317 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
319 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
321 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
322 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
323 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
324 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
326 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
328 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
329 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
332 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
333 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
334 default and only supported behavior.
336 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
339 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
340 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
341 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
343 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
346 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
348 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
350 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
352 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
353 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
354 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
355 format is not supported.
357 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
360 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
361 when an empty dataset was presented.
363 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
364 scatterplots and histograms.
366 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
367 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
368 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
369 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
371 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
373 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
375 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
377 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
378 introduced in 0.8.2.)
380 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
381 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
384 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
385 subcommand has been corrected.
387 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
390 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
393 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
395 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
397 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
398 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
399 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
401 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
402 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
404 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
405 by the current FILTER settings.
407 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
409 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
410 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
412 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
415 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
416 encoding to be selected.
418 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
420 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
421 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
423 * System file related improvements:
425 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
426 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
429 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
430 character encoding of string data in the system file.
432 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
433 truncation (bug #41863).
435 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
436 read successfully (bug #41475).
438 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
440 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
441 of fully saturated primaries.
443 * Support for new system file variants:
445 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
446 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
447 files. (The older format is still supported.)
449 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
450 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
451 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
452 do not directly read or write this format.
454 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
455 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
457 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
458 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
459 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
460 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
462 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
463 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
464 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
465 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
469 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
471 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
477 * Changes to existing commands:
479 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
480 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
482 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
484 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
486 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
487 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
488 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
490 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
494 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
496 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
499 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
502 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
508 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
515 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
519 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
523 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
525 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
527 * Changes to existing commands:
529 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
531 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
533 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
535 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
536 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
537 applied to the included file.
539 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
541 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
543 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
546 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
549 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
551 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
552 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
553 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
555 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
556 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
558 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
561 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
564 * Other language changes:
566 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
567 extension, which is no longer supported.
569 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
570 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
571 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
572 expressed as U'1D11E'.
574 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
576 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
577 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
578 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
579 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
581 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
583 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
585 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
588 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
589 see different parts of a large data file.
591 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
592 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
593 clicking on an icon will open the file.
595 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
596 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
600 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
601 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
602 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
603 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
605 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
606 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
607 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
610 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
611 characters, including double-width characters and combining
614 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
616 - The HTML output is much improved.
618 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
619 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
620 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
621 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
622 of their intended syntax mode.
624 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
627 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
628 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
629 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
630 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
631 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
632 one the system file uses.
634 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
637 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
638 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
639 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
641 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
644 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
646 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
650 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
652 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
654 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
655 translationproject.org.
657 * Statistical bug fixes:
659 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
662 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
663 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
664 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
666 * Build fixes and changes:
668 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
670 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
671 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
673 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
675 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
677 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
678 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
679 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
682 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
684 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
686 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
687 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
688 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
691 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
693 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
694 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
696 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
698 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
699 with spaces as expected.
701 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
702 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
703 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
705 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
707 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
709 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
710 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
711 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
712 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
714 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
715 that does not exist (bug #24569).
717 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
720 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
722 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
724 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
726 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
727 instead of the current directory, to better match user
730 - Some data editor fixes.
734 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
736 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
738 * Statistical bug fixes:
740 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
741 regression output (bug #23567).
743 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
745 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
747 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
749 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
751 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
753 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
754 disk accesses on modern machines.
758 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
761 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
764 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
765 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
768 * Build fixes and changes:
770 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
771 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
773 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
776 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
777 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
779 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
780 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
782 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
784 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
786 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
787 found them too poor to be useful.
789 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
791 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
792 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
794 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
795 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
796 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
797 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
800 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
803 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
807 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
808 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
809 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
811 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
812 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
813 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
815 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
816 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
818 Statistical procedure changes:
820 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
821 via least-squares estimation.
823 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
824 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
826 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
829 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
830 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
832 User interface changes:
834 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
835 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
837 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
840 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
841 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
842 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
845 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
846 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
847 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
848 executed as if `+' had been specified.
850 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
851 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
852 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
854 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
855 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
856 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
857 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
862 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
863 manual for a full description of the available options.
865 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
866 "make install" will do this for you.
868 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
869 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
871 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
872 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
873 Previously, by default output was written only to file
874 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
875 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
880 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
881 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
882 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
883 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
885 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
886 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
887 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
891 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
892 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
893 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
894 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
895 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
897 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
898 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
901 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
902 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
903 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
904 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
906 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
907 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
908 longer needed, or supported.
910 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
911 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
912 no longer needed, or supported.
916 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
917 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
918 is no longer needed, or supported.
920 Command language changes:
922 * The following commands are new:
924 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
925 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
926 types of foreign data.
928 - CD, to change the current directory.
930 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
932 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
935 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
937 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
939 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
942 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
944 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
946 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
948 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
950 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
953 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
955 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
956 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
957 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
959 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
960 re-implemented in a later release:
962 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
968 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
969 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
970 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
972 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
973 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
975 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
977 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
978 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
979 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
980 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
983 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
984 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
985 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
987 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
988 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
989 reassigned to new files.
991 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
992 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
993 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
994 documentation on those particular commands.
998 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
999 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1000 format of these files.
1002 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1003 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1004 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1005 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1008 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1009 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1010 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1011 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1012 native floating point format.
1014 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1015 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1016 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1018 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1019 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1021 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1022 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1023 subcommands has been added.
1025 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1026 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1027 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1030 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1031 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1033 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1034 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1035 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1039 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1040 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1043 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1044 have been extensively revised and improved.
1046 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1049 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1051 Changes in build dependencies:
1053 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1056 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1057 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1058 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1060 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1062 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1064 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1066 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1074 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1075 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1078 * T-TEST (re-written).
1080 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1081 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1084 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1085 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1086 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1087 third-party software.
1089 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1091 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1094 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1096 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1097 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1098 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1100 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1101 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1103 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1104 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1106 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1107 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1108 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1111 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1112 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1115 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1118 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1121 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1122 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1123 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1125 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1127 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1129 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1132 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1133 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1136 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1137 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1139 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1143 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1146 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1147 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1149 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1150 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1152 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1155 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1158 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1161 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1162 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1163 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1165 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1167 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1169 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1173 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1175 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1179 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1180 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1182 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1184 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1186 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1190 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1192 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1194 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1195 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1197 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1198 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1200 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1201 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1202 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1203 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1205 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1206 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1207 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1209 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1210 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1211 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1213 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1214 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1215 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1218 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1219 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1222 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1223 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1225 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1226 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1227 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1229 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1230 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1231 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1233 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1234 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1235 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1238 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1239 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1242 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1243 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1245 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1248 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1249 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1250 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1252 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1253 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1257 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1258 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1260 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1261 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1262 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1264 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1266 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1270 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1272 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1274 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1275 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1277 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1279 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1280 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1282 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1283 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1285 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1286 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1289 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1290 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1295 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1296 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1297 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1299 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1303 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1305 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1306 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1309 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1310 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1311 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1313 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1315 Procedures now implemented:
1316 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1318 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1321 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1322 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1333 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1334 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1337 New command-line features:
1338 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1339 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1340 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1341 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1342 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1344 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1346 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1348 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1350 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1351 reinstall your `devices' file.
1353 New output driver for HTML.
1355 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1357 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1359 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1360 * PSPP system file format
1361 * PSPP portable file format
1362 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1365 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1366 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1368 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1370 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1371 versions, please see ONEWS.
1373 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1374 Copyright information:
1376 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1377 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1378 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1379 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1381 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1382 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1383 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1387 version-control: never