1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
9 * Bug fixes, including the following:
11 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
14 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
17 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
19 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
21 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
22 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
23 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
24 as to produce better separated clusters.
26 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
28 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
30 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
31 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
33 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
35 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
36 somewhat different look and feel.
38 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
40 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
41 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
43 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
44 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
45 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
46 and will generate syntax accordingly.
48 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
49 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
50 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
57 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
59 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
61 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
63 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
65 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
66 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
67 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
68 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
70 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
72 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
73 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
76 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
77 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
78 default and only supported behavior.
80 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
83 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
84 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
85 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
87 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
90 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
92 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
94 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
96 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
97 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
98 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
99 format is not supported.
101 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
104 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
105 when an empty dataset was presented.
107 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
108 scatterplots and histograms.
110 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
111 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
112 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
113 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
115 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
117 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
119 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
121 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
122 introduced in 0.8.2.)
124 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
125 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
128 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
129 subcommand has been corrected.
131 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
134 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
137 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
139 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
141 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
142 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
143 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
145 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
146 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
148 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
149 by the current FILTER settings.
151 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
153 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
154 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
156 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
159 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
160 encoding to be selected.
162 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
164 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
165 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
167 * System file related improvements:
169 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
170 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
173 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
174 character encoding of string data in the system file.
176 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
177 truncation (bug #41863).
179 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
180 read successfully (bug #41475).
182 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
184 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
185 of fully saturated primaries.
187 * Support for new system file variants:
189 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
190 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
191 files. (The older format is still supported.)
193 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
194 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
195 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
196 do not directly read or write this format.
198 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
199 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
201 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
202 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
203 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
204 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
206 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
207 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
208 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
209 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
213 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
215 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
221 * Changes to existing commands:
223 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
224 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
226 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
228 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
230 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
231 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
232 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
234 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
238 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
240 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
243 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
246 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
252 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
259 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
263 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
267 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
269 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
271 * Changes to existing commands:
273 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
275 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
277 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
279 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
280 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
281 applied to the included file.
283 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
285 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
287 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
290 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
293 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
295 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
296 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
297 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
299 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
300 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
302 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
305 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
308 * Other language changes:
310 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
311 extension, which is no longer supported.
313 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
314 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
315 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
316 expressed as U'1D11E'.
318 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
320 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
321 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
322 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
323 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
325 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
327 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
329 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
332 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
333 see different parts of a large data file.
335 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
336 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
337 clicking on an icon will open the file.
339 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
340 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
344 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
345 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
346 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
347 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
349 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
350 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
351 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
354 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
355 characters, including double-width characters and combining
358 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
360 - The HTML output is much improved.
362 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
363 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
364 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
365 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
366 of their intended syntax mode.
368 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
371 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
372 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
373 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
374 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
375 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
376 one the system file uses.
378 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
381 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
382 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
383 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
385 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
388 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
390 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
394 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
396 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
398 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
399 translationproject.org.
401 * Statistical bug fixes:
403 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
406 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
407 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
408 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
410 * Build fixes and changes:
412 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
414 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
415 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
417 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
419 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
421 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
422 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
423 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
426 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
428 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
430 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
431 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
432 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
435 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
437 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
438 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
440 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
442 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
443 with spaces as expected.
445 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
446 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
447 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
449 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
451 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
453 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
454 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
455 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
456 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
458 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
459 that does not exist (bug #24569).
461 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
464 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
466 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
468 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
470 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
471 instead of the current directory, to better match user
474 - Some data editor fixes.
478 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
480 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
482 * Statistical bug fixes:
484 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
485 regression output (bug #23567).
487 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
489 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
491 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
493 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
495 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
497 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
498 disk accesses on modern machines.
502 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
505 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
508 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
509 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
512 * Build fixes and changes:
514 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
515 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
517 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
520 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
521 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
523 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
524 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
526 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
528 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
530 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
531 found them too poor to be useful.
533 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
535 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
536 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
538 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
539 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
540 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
541 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
544 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
547 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
551 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
552 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
553 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
555 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
556 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
557 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
559 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
560 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
562 Statistical procedure changes:
564 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
565 via least-squares estimation.
567 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
568 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
570 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
573 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
574 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
576 User interface changes:
578 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
579 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
581 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
584 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
585 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
586 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
589 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
590 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
591 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
592 executed as if `+' had been specified.
594 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
595 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
596 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
598 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
599 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
600 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
601 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
606 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
607 manual for a full description of the available options.
609 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
610 "make install" will do this for you.
612 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
613 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
615 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
616 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
617 Previously, by default output was written only to file
618 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
619 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
624 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
625 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
626 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
627 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
629 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
630 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
631 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
635 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
636 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
637 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
638 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
639 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
641 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
642 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
645 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
646 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
647 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
648 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
650 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
651 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
652 longer needed, or supported.
654 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
655 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
656 no longer needed, or supported.
660 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
661 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
662 is no longer needed, or supported.
664 Command language changes:
666 * The following commands are new:
668 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
669 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
670 types of foreign data.
672 - CD, to change the current directory.
674 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
676 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
679 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
681 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
683 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
686 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
688 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
690 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
692 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
694 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
697 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
699 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
700 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
701 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
703 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
704 re-implemented in a later release:
706 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
712 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
713 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
714 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
716 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
717 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
719 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
721 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
722 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
723 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
724 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
727 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
728 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
729 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
731 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
732 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
733 reassigned to new files.
735 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
736 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
737 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
738 documentation on those particular commands.
742 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
743 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
744 format of these files.
746 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
747 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
748 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
749 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
752 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
753 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
754 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
755 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
756 native floating point format.
758 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
759 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
760 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
762 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
763 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
765 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
766 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
767 subcommands has been added.
769 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
770 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
771 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
774 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
775 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
777 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
778 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
779 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
783 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
784 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
787 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
788 have been extensively revised and improved.
790 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
793 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
795 Changes in build dependencies:
797 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
800 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
801 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
802 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
804 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
806 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
808 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
810 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
818 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
819 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
822 * T-TEST (re-written).
824 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
825 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
828 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
829 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
830 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
831 third-party software.
833 * SET EPOCH implemented.
835 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
838 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
840 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
841 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
842 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
844 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
845 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
847 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
848 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
850 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
851 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
852 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
855 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
856 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
859 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
862 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
865 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
866 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
867 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
869 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
871 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
873 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
876 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
877 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
880 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
881 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
883 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
887 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
890 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
891 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
893 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
894 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
896 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
899 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
902 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
905 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
906 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
907 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
909 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
911 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
913 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
917 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
919 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
923 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
924 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
926 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
928 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
930 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
934 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
936 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
938 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
939 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
941 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
942 didn't like being the last command in a file.
944 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
945 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
946 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
947 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
949 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
950 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
951 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
953 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
954 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
955 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
957 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
958 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
959 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
962 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
963 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
966 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
967 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
969 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
970 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
971 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
973 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
974 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
975 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
977 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
978 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
979 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
982 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
983 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
986 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
987 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
989 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
992 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
993 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
994 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
996 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
997 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1001 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1002 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1004 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1005 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1006 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1008 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1010 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1014 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1016 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1018 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1019 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1021 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1023 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1024 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1026 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1027 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1029 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1030 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1033 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1034 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1039 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1040 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1041 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1043 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1047 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1049 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1050 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1053 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1054 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1055 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1057 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1059 Procedures now implemented:
1060 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1062 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1065 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1066 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1077 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1078 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1081 New command-line features:
1082 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1083 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1084 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1085 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1086 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1088 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1090 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1092 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1094 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1095 reinstall your `devices' file.
1097 New output driver for HTML.
1099 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1101 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1103 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1104 * PSPP system file format
1105 * PSPP portable file format
1106 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1109 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1110 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1112 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1114 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1115 versions, please see ONEWS.
1117 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1118 Copyright information:
1120 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1121 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1122 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1123 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1125 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1126 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1127 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1131 version-control: never