1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.1.0:
9 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
13 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
15 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
17 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
18 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
20 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
21 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
23 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
25 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
26 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
28 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
30 * Translation updates.
32 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
34 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
35 regression through the origin.
37 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
39 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
41 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
43 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
45 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
48 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
49 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
51 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
53 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
54 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
57 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
59 * Graphical user interface changes:
61 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
63 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
65 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
67 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
69 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
71 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
73 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
75 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
78 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
81 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
82 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
83 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
85 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
86 Now it can paste multiple variables.
88 * Bug fixes, including the following:
90 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
91 type variable as group variable.
93 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
94 superimposed with the currently selected one.
96 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
99 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
101 * Bug fixes, including the following:
103 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
106 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
109 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
111 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
113 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
114 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
115 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
116 as to produce better separated clusters.
118 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
120 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
122 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
123 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
125 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
127 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
128 somewhat different look and feel.
130 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
132 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
133 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
135 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
136 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
137 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
138 and will generate syntax accordingly.
140 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
141 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
142 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
149 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
151 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
153 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
155 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
157 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
158 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
159 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
160 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
162 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
164 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
165 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
168 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
169 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
170 default and only supported behavior.
172 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
175 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
176 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
177 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
179 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
182 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
184 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
186 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
188 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
189 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
190 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
191 format is not supported.
193 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
196 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
197 when an empty dataset was presented.
199 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
200 scatterplots and histograms.
202 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
203 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
204 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
205 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
207 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
209 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
211 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
213 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
214 introduced in 0.8.2.)
216 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
217 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
220 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
221 subcommand has been corrected.
223 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
226 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
229 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
231 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
233 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
234 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
235 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
237 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
238 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
240 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
241 by the current FILTER settings.
243 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
245 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
246 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
248 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
251 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
252 encoding to be selected.
254 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
256 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
257 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
259 * System file related improvements:
261 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
262 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
265 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
266 character encoding of string data in the system file.
268 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
269 truncation (bug #41863).
271 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
272 read successfully (bug #41475).
274 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
276 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
277 of fully saturated primaries.
279 * Support for new system file variants:
281 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
282 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
283 files. (The older format is still supported.)
285 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
286 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
287 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
288 do not directly read or write this format.
290 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
291 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
293 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
294 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
295 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
296 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
298 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
299 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
300 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
301 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
305 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
307 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
313 * Changes to existing commands:
315 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
316 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
318 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
320 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
322 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
323 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
324 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
326 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
330 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
332 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
335 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
338 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
344 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
351 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
355 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
359 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
361 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
363 * Changes to existing commands:
365 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
367 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
369 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
371 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
372 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
373 applied to the included file.
375 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
377 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
379 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
382 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
385 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
387 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
388 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
389 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
391 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
392 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
394 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
397 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
400 * Other language changes:
402 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
403 extension, which is no longer supported.
405 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
406 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
407 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
408 expressed as U'1D11E'.
410 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
412 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
413 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
414 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
415 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
417 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
419 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
421 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
424 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
425 see different parts of a large data file.
427 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
428 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
429 clicking on an icon will open the file.
431 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
432 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
436 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
437 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
438 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
439 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
441 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
442 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
443 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
446 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
447 characters, including double-width characters and combining
450 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
452 - The HTML output is much improved.
454 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
455 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
456 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
457 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
458 of their intended syntax mode.
460 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
463 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
464 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
465 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
466 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
467 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
468 one the system file uses.
470 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
473 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
474 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
475 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
477 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
480 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
482 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
486 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
488 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
490 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
491 translationproject.org.
493 * Statistical bug fixes:
495 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
498 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
499 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
500 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
502 * Build fixes and changes:
504 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
506 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
507 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
509 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
511 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
513 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
514 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
515 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
518 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
520 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
522 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
523 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
524 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
527 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
529 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
530 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
532 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
534 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
535 with spaces as expected.
537 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
538 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
539 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
541 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
543 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
545 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
546 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
547 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
548 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
550 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
551 that does not exist (bug #24569).
553 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
556 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
558 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
560 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
562 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
563 instead of the current directory, to better match user
566 - Some data editor fixes.
570 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
572 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
574 * Statistical bug fixes:
576 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
577 regression output (bug #23567).
579 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
581 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
583 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
585 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
587 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
589 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
590 disk accesses on modern machines.
594 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
597 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
600 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
601 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
604 * Build fixes and changes:
606 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
607 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
609 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
612 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
613 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
615 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
616 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
618 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
620 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
622 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
623 found them too poor to be useful.
625 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
627 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
628 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
630 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
631 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
632 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
633 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
636 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
639 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
643 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
644 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
645 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
647 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
648 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
649 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
651 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
652 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
654 Statistical procedure changes:
656 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
657 via least-squares estimation.
659 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
660 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
662 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
665 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
666 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
668 User interface changes:
670 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
671 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
673 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
676 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
677 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
678 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
681 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
682 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
683 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
684 executed as if `+' had been specified.
686 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
687 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
688 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
690 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
691 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
692 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
693 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
698 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
699 manual for a full description of the available options.
701 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
702 "make install" will do this for you.
704 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
705 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
707 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
708 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
709 Previously, by default output was written only to file
710 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
711 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
716 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
717 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
718 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
719 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
721 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
722 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
723 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
727 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
728 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
729 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
730 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
731 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
733 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
734 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
737 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
738 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
739 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
740 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
742 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
743 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
744 longer needed, or supported.
746 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
747 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
748 no longer needed, or supported.
752 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
753 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
754 is no longer needed, or supported.
756 Command language changes:
758 * The following commands are new:
760 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
761 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
762 types of foreign data.
764 - CD, to change the current directory.
766 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
768 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
771 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
773 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
775 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
778 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
780 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
782 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
784 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
786 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
789 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
791 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
792 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
793 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
795 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
796 re-implemented in a later release:
798 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
804 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
805 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
806 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
808 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
809 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
811 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
813 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
814 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
815 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
816 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
819 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
820 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
821 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
823 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
824 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
825 reassigned to new files.
827 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
828 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
829 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
830 documentation on those particular commands.
834 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
835 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
836 format of these files.
838 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
839 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
840 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
841 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
844 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
845 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
846 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
847 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
848 native floating point format.
850 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
851 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
852 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
854 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
855 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
857 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
858 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
859 subcommands has been added.
861 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
862 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
863 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
866 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
867 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
869 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
870 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
871 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
875 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
876 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
879 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
880 have been extensively revised and improved.
882 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
885 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
887 Changes in build dependencies:
889 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
892 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
893 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
894 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
896 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
898 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
900 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
902 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
910 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
911 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
914 * T-TEST (re-written).
916 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
917 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
920 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
921 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
922 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
923 third-party software.
925 * SET EPOCH implemented.
927 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
930 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
932 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
933 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
934 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
936 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
937 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
939 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
940 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
942 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
943 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
944 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
947 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
948 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
951 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
954 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
957 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
958 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
959 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
961 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
963 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
965 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
968 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
969 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
972 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
973 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
975 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
979 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
982 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
983 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
985 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
986 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
988 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
991 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
994 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
997 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
998 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
999 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1001 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1003 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1005 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1009 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1011 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1015 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1016 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1018 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1020 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1022 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1026 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1028 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1030 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1031 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1033 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1034 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1036 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1037 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1038 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1039 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1041 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1042 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1043 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1045 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1046 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1047 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1049 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1050 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1051 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1054 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1055 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1058 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1059 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1061 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1062 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1063 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1065 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1066 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1067 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1069 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1070 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1071 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1074 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1075 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1078 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1079 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1081 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1084 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1085 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1086 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1088 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1089 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1093 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1094 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1096 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1097 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1098 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1100 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1102 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1106 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1108 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1110 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1111 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1113 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1115 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1116 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1118 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1119 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1121 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1122 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1125 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1126 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1131 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1132 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1133 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1135 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1139 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1141 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1142 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1145 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1146 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1147 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1149 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1151 Procedures now implemented:
1152 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1154 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1157 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1158 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1169 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1170 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1173 New command-line features:
1174 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1175 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1176 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1177 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1178 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1180 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1182 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1184 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1186 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1187 reinstall your `devices' file.
1189 New output driver for HTML.
1191 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1193 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1195 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1196 * PSPP system file format
1197 * PSPP portable file format
1198 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1201 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1202 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1204 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1206 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1207 versions, please see ONEWS.
1209 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1210 Copyright information:
1212 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1213 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1214 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1215 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1217 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1218 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1219 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1223 version-control: never