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.
8 ** The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
9 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
11 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
13 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
14 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
16 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
18 * Translation updates.
20 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
22 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
23 regression through the origin.
25 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
27 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
29 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
31 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
33 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
36 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
37 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
39 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
41 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
42 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
45 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
47 * Graphical user interface changes:
49 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
51 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
53 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
55 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
57 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
59 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
61 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
63 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
66 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
69 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
70 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
71 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
73 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
74 Now it can paste multiple variables.
76 * Bug fixes, including the following:
78 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
79 type variable as group variable.
81 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
82 superimposed with the currently selected one.
84 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
87 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
89 * Bug fixes, including the following:
91 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
94 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
97 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
99 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
101 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
102 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
103 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
104 as to produce better separated clusters.
106 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
108 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
110 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
111 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
113 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
115 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
116 somewhat different look and feel.
118 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
120 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
121 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
123 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
124 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
125 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
126 and will generate syntax accordingly.
128 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
129 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
130 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
137 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
139 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
141 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
143 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
145 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
146 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
147 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
148 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
150 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
152 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
153 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
156 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
157 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
158 default and only supported behavior.
160 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
163 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
164 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
165 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
167 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
170 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
172 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
174 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
176 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
177 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
178 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
179 format is not supported.
181 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
184 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
185 when an empty dataset was presented.
187 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
188 scatterplots and histograms.
190 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
191 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
192 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
193 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
195 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
197 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
199 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
201 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
202 introduced in 0.8.2.)
204 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
205 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
208 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
209 subcommand has been corrected.
211 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
214 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
217 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
219 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
221 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
222 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
223 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
225 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
226 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
228 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
229 by the current FILTER settings.
231 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
233 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
234 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
236 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
239 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
240 encoding to be selected.
242 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
244 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
245 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
247 * System file related improvements:
249 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
250 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
253 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
254 character encoding of string data in the system file.
256 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
257 truncation (bug #41863).
259 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
260 read successfully (bug #41475).
262 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
264 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
265 of fully saturated primaries.
267 * Support for new system file variants:
269 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
270 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
271 files. (The older format is still supported.)
273 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
274 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
275 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
276 do not directly read or write this format.
278 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
279 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
281 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
282 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
283 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
284 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
286 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
287 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
288 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
289 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
293 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
295 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
301 * Changes to existing commands:
303 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
304 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
306 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
308 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
310 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
311 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
312 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
314 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
318 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
320 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
323 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
326 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
332 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
339 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
343 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
347 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
349 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
351 * Changes to existing commands:
353 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
355 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
357 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
359 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
360 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
361 applied to the included file.
363 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
365 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
367 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
370 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
373 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
375 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
376 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
377 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
379 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
380 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
382 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
385 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
388 * Other language changes:
390 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
391 extension, which is no longer supported.
393 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
394 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
395 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
396 expressed as U'1D11E'.
398 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
400 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
401 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
402 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
403 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
405 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
407 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
409 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
412 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
413 see different parts of a large data file.
415 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
416 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
417 clicking on an icon will open the file.
419 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
420 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
424 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
425 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
426 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
427 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
429 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
430 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
431 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
434 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
435 characters, including double-width characters and combining
438 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
440 - The HTML output is much improved.
442 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
443 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
444 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
445 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
446 of their intended syntax mode.
448 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
451 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
452 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
453 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
454 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
455 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
456 one the system file uses.
458 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
461 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
462 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
463 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
465 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
468 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
470 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
474 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
476 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
478 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
479 translationproject.org.
481 * Statistical bug fixes:
483 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
486 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
487 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
488 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
490 * Build fixes and changes:
492 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
494 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
495 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
497 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
499 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
501 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
502 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
503 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
506 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
508 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
510 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
511 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
512 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
515 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
517 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
518 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
520 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
522 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
523 with spaces as expected.
525 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
526 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
527 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
529 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
531 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
533 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
534 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
535 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
536 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
538 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
539 that does not exist (bug #24569).
541 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
544 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
546 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
548 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
550 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
551 instead of the current directory, to better match user
554 - Some data editor fixes.
558 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
560 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
562 * Statistical bug fixes:
564 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
565 regression output (bug #23567).
567 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
569 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
571 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
573 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
575 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
577 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
578 disk accesses on modern machines.
582 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
585 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
588 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
589 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
592 * Build fixes and changes:
594 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
595 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
597 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
600 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
601 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
603 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
604 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
606 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
608 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
610 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
611 found them too poor to be useful.
613 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
615 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
616 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
618 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
619 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
620 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
621 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
624 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
627 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
631 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
632 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
633 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
635 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
636 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
637 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
639 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
640 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
642 Statistical procedure changes:
644 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
645 via least-squares estimation.
647 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
648 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
650 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
653 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
654 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
656 User interface changes:
658 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
659 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
661 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
664 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
665 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
666 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
669 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
670 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
671 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
672 executed as if `+' had been specified.
674 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
675 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
676 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
678 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
679 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
680 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
681 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
686 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
687 manual for a full description of the available options.
689 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
690 "make install" will do this for you.
692 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
693 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
695 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
696 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
697 Previously, by default output was written only to file
698 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
699 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
704 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
705 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
706 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
707 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
709 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
710 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
711 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
715 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
716 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
717 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
718 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
719 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
721 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
722 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
725 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
726 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
727 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
728 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
730 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
731 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
732 longer needed, or supported.
734 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
735 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
736 no longer needed, or supported.
740 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
741 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
742 is no longer needed, or supported.
744 Command language changes:
746 * The following commands are new:
748 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
749 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
750 types of foreign data.
752 - CD, to change the current directory.
754 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
756 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
759 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
761 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
763 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
766 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
768 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
770 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
772 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
774 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
777 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
779 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
780 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
781 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
783 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
784 re-implemented in a later release:
786 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
792 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
793 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
794 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
796 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
797 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
799 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
801 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
802 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
803 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
804 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
807 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
808 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
809 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
811 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
812 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
813 reassigned to new files.
815 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
816 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
817 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
818 documentation on those particular commands.
822 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
823 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
824 format of these files.
826 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
827 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
828 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
829 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
832 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
833 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
834 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
835 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
836 native floating point format.
838 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
839 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
840 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
842 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
843 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
845 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
846 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
847 subcommands has been added.
849 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
850 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
851 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
854 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
855 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
857 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
858 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
859 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
863 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
864 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
867 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
868 have been extensively revised and improved.
870 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
873 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
875 Changes in build dependencies:
877 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
880 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
881 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
882 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
884 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
886 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
888 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
890 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
898 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
899 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
902 * T-TEST (re-written).
904 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
905 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
908 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
909 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
910 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
911 third-party software.
913 * SET EPOCH implemented.
915 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
918 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
920 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
921 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
922 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
924 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
925 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
927 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
928 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
930 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
931 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
932 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
935 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
936 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
939 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
942 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
945 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
946 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
947 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
949 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
951 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
953 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
956 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
957 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
960 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
961 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
963 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
967 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
970 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
971 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
973 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
974 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
976 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
979 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
982 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
985 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
986 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
987 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
989 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
991 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
993 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
997 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
999 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1003 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1004 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1006 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1008 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1010 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1014 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1016 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1018 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1019 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1021 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1022 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1024 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1025 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1026 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1027 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1029 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1030 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1031 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1033 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1034 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1035 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1037 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1038 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1039 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1042 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1043 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1046 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1047 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1049 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1050 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1051 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1053 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1054 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1055 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1057 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1058 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1059 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1062 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1063 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1066 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1067 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1069 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1072 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1073 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1074 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1076 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1077 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1081 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1082 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1084 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1085 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1086 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1088 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1090 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1094 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1096 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1098 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1099 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1101 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1103 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1104 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1106 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1107 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1109 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1110 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1113 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1114 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1119 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1120 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1121 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1123 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1127 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1129 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1130 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1133 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1134 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1135 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1137 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1139 Procedures now implemented:
1140 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1142 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1145 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1146 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1157 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1158 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1161 New command-line features:
1162 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1163 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1164 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1165 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1166 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1168 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1170 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1172 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1174 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1175 reinstall your `devices' file.
1177 New output driver for HTML.
1179 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1181 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1183 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1184 * PSPP system file format
1185 * PSPP portable file format
1186 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1189 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1190 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1192 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1194 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1195 versions, please see ONEWS.
1197 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1198 Copyright information:
1200 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1201 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1202 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1203 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1205 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1206 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1207 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1211 version-control: never