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 0.8.5 to 0.9.0:
9 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
10 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
11 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
12 as to produce better separated clusters.
14 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
16 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
18 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
19 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
21 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
23 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
24 somewhat different look and feel.
26 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
28 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
29 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
31 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
32 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
33 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
34 and will generate syntax accordingly.
36 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
37 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
38 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
41 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
43 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
45 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
47 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
49 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
50 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
53 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
54 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
55 default and only supported behavior.
57 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
60 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
61 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
62 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
64 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
67 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
69 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
71 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
73 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
74 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
75 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
76 format is not supported.
78 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
81 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
82 when an empty dataset was presented.
84 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
85 scatterplots and histograms.
87 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
88 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
89 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
90 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
92 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
94 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
96 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
98 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
101 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
102 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
105 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
106 subcommand has been corrected.
108 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
111 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
114 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
116 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
118 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
119 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
120 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
122 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
123 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
125 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
126 by the current FILTER settings.
128 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
130 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
131 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
133 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
136 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
137 encoding to be selected.
139 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
141 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
142 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
144 * System file related improvements:
146 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
147 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
150 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
151 character encoding of string data in the system file.
153 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
154 truncation (bug #41863).
156 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
157 read successfully (bug #41475).
159 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
161 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
162 of fully saturated primaries.
164 * Support for new system file variants:
166 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
167 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
168 files. (The older format is still supported.)
170 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
171 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
172 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
173 do not directly read or write this format.
175 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
176 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
178 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
179 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
180 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
181 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
183 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
184 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
185 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
186 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
190 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
192 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
198 * Changes to existing commands:
200 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
201 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
203 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
205 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
207 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
208 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
209 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
211 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
215 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
217 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
220 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
223 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
229 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
236 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
240 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
244 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
246 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
248 * Changes to existing commands:
250 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
252 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
254 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
256 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
257 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
258 applied to the included file.
260 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
262 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
264 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
267 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
270 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
272 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
273 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
274 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
276 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
277 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
279 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
282 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
285 * Other language changes:
287 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
288 extension, which is no longer supported.
290 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
291 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
292 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
293 expressed as U'1D11E'.
295 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
297 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
298 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
299 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
300 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
302 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
304 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
306 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
309 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
310 see different parts of a large data file.
312 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
313 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
314 clicking on an icon will open the file.
316 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
317 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
321 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
322 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
323 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
324 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
326 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
327 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
328 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
331 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
332 characters, including double-width characters and combining
335 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
337 - The HTML output is much improved.
339 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
340 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
341 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
342 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
343 of their intended syntax mode.
345 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
348 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
349 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
350 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
351 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
352 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
353 one the system file uses.
355 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
358 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
359 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
360 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
362 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
365 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
367 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
371 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
373 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
375 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
376 translationproject.org.
378 * Statistical bug fixes:
380 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
383 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
384 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
385 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
387 * Build fixes and changes:
389 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
391 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
392 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
394 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
396 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
398 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
399 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
400 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
403 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
405 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
407 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
408 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
409 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
412 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
414 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
415 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
417 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
419 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
420 with spaces as expected.
422 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
423 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
424 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
426 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
428 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
430 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
431 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
432 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
433 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
435 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
436 that does not exist (bug #24569).
438 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
441 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
443 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
445 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
447 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
448 instead of the current directory, to better match user
451 - Some data editor fixes.
455 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
457 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
459 * Statistical bug fixes:
461 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
462 regression output (bug #23567).
464 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
466 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
468 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
470 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
472 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
474 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
475 disk accesses on modern machines.
479 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
482 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
485 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
486 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
489 * Build fixes and changes:
491 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
492 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
494 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
497 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
498 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
500 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
501 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
503 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
505 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
507 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
508 found them too poor to be useful.
510 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
512 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
513 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
515 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
516 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
517 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
518 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
521 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
524 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
528 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
529 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
530 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
532 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
533 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
534 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
536 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
537 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
539 Statistical procedure changes:
541 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
542 via least-squares estimation.
544 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
545 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
547 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
550 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
551 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
553 User interface changes:
555 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
556 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
558 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
561 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
562 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
563 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
566 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
567 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
568 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
569 executed as if `+' had been specified.
571 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
572 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
573 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
575 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
576 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
577 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
578 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
583 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
584 manual for a full description of the available options.
586 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
587 "make install" will do this for you.
589 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
590 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
592 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
593 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
594 Previously, by default output was written only to file
595 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
596 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
601 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
602 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
603 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
604 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
606 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
607 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
608 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
612 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
613 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
614 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
615 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
616 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
618 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
619 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
622 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
623 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
624 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
625 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
627 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
628 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
629 longer needed, or supported.
631 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
632 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
633 no longer needed, or supported.
637 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
638 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
639 is no longer needed, or supported.
641 Command language changes:
643 * The following commands are new:
645 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
646 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
647 types of foreign data.
649 - CD, to change the current directory.
651 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
653 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
656 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
658 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
660 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
663 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
665 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
667 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
669 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
671 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
674 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
676 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
677 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
678 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
680 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
681 re-implemented in a later release:
683 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
689 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
690 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
691 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
693 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
694 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
696 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
698 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
699 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
700 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
701 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
704 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
705 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
706 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
708 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
709 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
710 reassigned to new files.
712 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
713 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
714 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
715 documentation on those particular commands.
719 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
720 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
721 format of these files.
723 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
724 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
725 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
726 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
729 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
730 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
731 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
732 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
733 native floating point format.
735 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
736 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
737 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
739 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
740 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
742 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
743 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
744 subcommands has been added.
746 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
747 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
748 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
751 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
752 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
754 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
755 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
756 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
760 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
761 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
764 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
765 have been extensively revised and improved.
767 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
770 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
772 Changes in build dependencies:
774 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
777 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
778 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
779 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
781 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
783 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
785 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
787 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
795 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
796 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
799 * T-TEST (re-written).
801 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
802 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
805 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
806 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
807 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
808 third-party software.
810 * SET EPOCH implemented.
812 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
815 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
817 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
818 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
819 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
821 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
822 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
824 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
825 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
827 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
828 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
829 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
832 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
833 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
836 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
839 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
842 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
843 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
844 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
846 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
848 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
850 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
853 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
854 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
857 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
858 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
860 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
864 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
867 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
868 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
870 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
871 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
873 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
876 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
879 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
882 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
883 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
884 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
886 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
888 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
890 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
894 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
896 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
900 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
901 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
903 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
905 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
907 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
911 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
913 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
915 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
916 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
918 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
919 didn't like being the last command in a file.
921 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
922 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
923 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
924 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
926 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
927 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
928 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
930 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
931 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
932 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
934 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
935 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
936 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
939 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
940 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
943 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
944 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
946 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
947 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
948 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
950 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
951 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
952 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
954 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
955 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
956 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
959 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
960 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
963 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
964 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
966 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
969 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
970 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
971 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
973 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
974 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
978 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
979 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
981 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
982 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
983 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
985 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
987 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
991 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
993 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
995 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
996 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
998 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1000 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1001 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1003 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1004 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1006 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1007 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1010 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1011 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1016 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1017 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1018 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1020 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1024 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1026 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1027 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1030 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1031 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1032 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1034 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1036 Procedures now implemented:
1037 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1039 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1042 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1043 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1054 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1055 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1058 New command-line features:
1059 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1060 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1061 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1062 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1063 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1065 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1067 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1069 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1071 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1072 reinstall your `devices' file.
1074 New output driver for HTML.
1076 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1078 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1080 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1081 * PSPP system file format
1082 * PSPP portable file format
1083 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1086 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1087 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1089 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1091 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1092 versions, please see ONEWS.
1094 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1095 Copyright information:
1097 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1098 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1099 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1100 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1102 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1103 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1104 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1108 version-control: never