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.
9 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958 and CVE-2017-12959.
11 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
13 * Translation updates.
15 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
17 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
18 regression through the origin.
20 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
22 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
24 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
26 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
28 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
31 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
32 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
34 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
36 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
37 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
40 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
42 * Graphical user interface changes:
44 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
46 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
48 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
50 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
52 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
54 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
56 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
58 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
61 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
64 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
65 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
66 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
68 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
69 Now it can paste multiple variables.
71 * Bug fixes, including the following:
73 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
74 type variable as group variable.
76 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
77 superimposed with the currently selected one.
79 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
82 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
84 * Bug fixes, including the following:
86 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
89 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
92 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
94 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
96 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
97 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
98 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
99 as to produce better separated clusters.
101 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
103 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
105 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
106 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
108 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
110 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
111 somewhat different look and feel.
113 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
115 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
116 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
118 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
119 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
120 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
121 and will generate syntax accordingly.
123 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
124 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
125 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
132 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
134 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
136 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
138 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
140 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
141 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
142 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
143 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
145 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
147 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
148 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
151 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
152 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
153 default and only supported behavior.
155 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
158 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
159 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
160 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
162 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
165 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
167 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
169 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
171 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
172 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
173 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
174 format is not supported.
176 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
179 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
180 when an empty dataset was presented.
182 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
183 scatterplots and histograms.
185 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
186 for rounding 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 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
192 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
194 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
196 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
197 introduced in 0.8.2.)
199 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
200 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
203 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
204 subcommand has been corrected.
206 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
209 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
212 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
214 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
216 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
217 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
218 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
220 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
221 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
223 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
224 by the current FILTER settings.
226 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
228 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
229 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
231 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
234 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
235 encoding to be selected.
237 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
239 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
240 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
242 * System file related improvements:
244 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
245 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
248 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
249 character encoding of string data in the system file.
251 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
252 truncation (bug #41863).
254 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
255 read successfully (bug #41475).
257 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
259 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
260 of fully saturated primaries.
262 * Support for new system file variants:
264 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
265 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
266 files. (The older format is still supported.)
268 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
269 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
270 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
271 do not directly read or write this format.
273 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
274 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
276 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
277 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
278 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
279 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
281 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
282 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
283 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
284 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
288 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
290 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
296 * Changes to existing commands:
298 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
299 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
301 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
303 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
305 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
306 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
307 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
309 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
313 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
315 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
318 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
321 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
327 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
334 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
338 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
342 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
344 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
346 * Changes to existing commands:
348 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
350 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
352 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
354 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
355 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
356 applied to the included file.
358 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
360 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
362 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
365 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
368 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
370 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
371 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
372 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
374 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
375 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
377 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
380 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
383 * Other language changes:
385 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
386 extension, which is no longer supported.
388 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
389 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
390 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
391 expressed as U'1D11E'.
393 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
395 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
396 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
397 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
398 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
400 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
402 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
404 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
407 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
408 see different parts of a large data file.
410 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
411 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
412 clicking on an icon will open the file.
414 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
415 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
419 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
420 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
421 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
422 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
424 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
425 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
426 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
429 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
430 characters, including double-width characters and combining
433 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
435 - The HTML output is much improved.
437 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
438 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
439 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
440 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
441 of their intended syntax mode.
443 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
446 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
447 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
448 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
449 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
450 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
451 one the system file uses.
453 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
456 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
457 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
458 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
460 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
463 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
465 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
469 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
471 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
473 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
474 translationproject.org.
476 * Statistical bug fixes:
478 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
481 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
482 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
483 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
485 * Build fixes and changes:
487 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
489 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
490 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
492 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
494 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
496 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
497 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
498 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
501 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
503 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
505 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
506 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
507 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
510 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
512 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
513 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
515 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
517 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
518 with spaces as expected.
520 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
521 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
522 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
524 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
526 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
528 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
529 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
530 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
531 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
533 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
534 that does not exist (bug #24569).
536 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
539 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
541 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
543 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
545 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
546 instead of the current directory, to better match user
549 - Some data editor fixes.
553 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
555 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
557 * Statistical bug fixes:
559 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
560 regression output (bug #23567).
562 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
564 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
566 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
568 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
570 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
572 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
573 disk accesses on modern machines.
577 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
580 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
583 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
584 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
587 * Build fixes and changes:
589 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
590 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
592 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
595 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
596 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
598 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
599 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
601 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
603 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
605 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
606 found them too poor to be useful.
608 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
610 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
611 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
613 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
614 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
615 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
616 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
619 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
622 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
626 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
627 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
628 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
630 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
631 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
632 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
634 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
635 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
637 Statistical procedure changes:
639 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
640 via least-squares estimation.
642 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
643 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
645 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
648 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
649 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
651 User interface changes:
653 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
654 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
656 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
659 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
660 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
661 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
664 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
665 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
666 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
667 executed as if `+' had been specified.
669 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
670 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
671 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
673 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
674 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
675 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
676 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
681 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
682 manual for a full description of the available options.
684 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
685 "make install" will do this for you.
687 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
688 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
690 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
691 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
692 Previously, by default output was written only to file
693 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
694 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
699 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
700 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
701 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
702 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
704 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
705 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
706 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
710 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
711 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
712 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
713 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
714 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
716 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
717 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
720 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
721 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
722 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
723 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
725 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
726 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
727 longer needed, or supported.
729 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
730 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
731 no longer needed, or supported.
735 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
736 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
737 is no longer needed, or supported.
739 Command language changes:
741 * The following commands are new:
743 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
744 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
745 types of foreign data.
747 - CD, to change the current directory.
749 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
751 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
754 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
756 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
758 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
761 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
763 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
765 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
767 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
769 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
772 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
774 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
775 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
776 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
778 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
779 re-implemented in a later release:
781 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
787 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
788 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
789 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
791 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
792 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
794 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
796 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
797 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
798 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
799 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
802 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
803 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
804 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
806 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
807 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
808 reassigned to new files.
810 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
811 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
812 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
813 documentation on those particular commands.
817 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
818 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
819 format of these files.
821 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
822 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
823 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
824 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
827 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
828 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
829 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
830 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
831 native floating point format.
833 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
834 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
835 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
837 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
838 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
840 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
841 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
842 subcommands has been added.
844 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
845 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
846 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
849 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
850 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
852 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
853 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
854 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
858 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
859 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
862 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
863 have been extensively revised and improved.
865 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
868 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
870 Changes in build dependencies:
872 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
875 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
876 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
877 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
879 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
881 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
883 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
885 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
893 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
894 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
897 * T-TEST (re-written).
899 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
900 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
903 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
904 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
905 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
906 third-party software.
908 * SET EPOCH implemented.
910 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
913 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
915 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
916 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
917 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
919 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
920 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
922 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
923 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
925 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
926 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
927 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
930 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
931 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
934 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
937 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
940 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
941 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
942 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
944 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
946 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
948 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
951 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
952 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
955 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
956 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
958 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
962 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
965 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
966 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
968 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
969 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
971 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
974 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
977 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
980 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
981 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
982 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
984 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
986 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
988 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
992 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
994 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
998 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
999 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1001 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1003 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1005 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1009 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1011 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1013 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1014 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1016 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1017 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1019 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1020 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1021 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1022 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1024 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1025 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1026 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1028 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1029 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1030 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1032 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1033 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1034 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1037 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1038 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1041 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1042 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1044 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1045 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1046 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1048 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1049 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1050 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1052 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1053 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1054 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1057 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1058 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1061 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1062 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1064 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1067 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1068 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1069 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1071 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1072 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1076 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1077 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1079 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1080 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1081 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1083 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1085 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1089 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1091 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1093 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1094 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1096 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1098 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1099 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1101 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1102 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1104 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1105 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1108 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1109 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1114 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1115 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1116 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1118 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1122 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1124 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1125 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1128 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1129 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1130 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1132 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1134 Procedures now implemented:
1135 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1137 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1140 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1141 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1152 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1153 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1156 New command-line features:
1157 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1158 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1159 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1160 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1161 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1163 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1165 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1167 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1169 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1170 reinstall your `devices' file.
1172 New output driver for HTML.
1174 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1176 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1178 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1179 * PSPP system file format
1180 * PSPP portable file format
1181 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1184 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1185 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1187 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1189 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1190 versions, please see ONEWS.
1192 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1193 Copyright information:
1195 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1196 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1197 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1198 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1200 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1201 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1202 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1206 version-control: never