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 0.10.2 to 0.10.5pre1:
9 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
10 regression through the origin.
12 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
14 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
16 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
18 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
21 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
22 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
24 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
26 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
27 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
30 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
32 * Graphical user interface changes:
34 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
36 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
38 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
40 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
42 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
44 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
46 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
49 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
52 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
53 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
54 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
56 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
57 Now it can paste multiple variables.
59 * Bug fixes, including the following:
61 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
62 type variable as group variable.
64 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
65 superimposed with the currently selected one.
67 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
70 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
72 * Bug fixes, including the following:
74 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
77 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
80 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
82 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
84 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
85 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
86 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
87 as to produce better separated clusters.
89 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
91 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
93 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
94 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
96 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
98 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
99 somewhat different look and feel.
101 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
103 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
104 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
106 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
107 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
108 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
109 and will generate syntax accordingly.
111 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
112 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
113 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
120 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
122 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
124 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
126 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
128 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
129 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
130 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
131 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
133 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
135 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
136 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
139 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
140 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
141 default and only supported behavior.
143 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
146 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
147 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
148 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
150 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
153 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
155 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
157 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
159 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
160 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
161 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
162 format is not supported.
164 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
167 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
168 when an empty dataset was presented.
170 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
171 scatterplots and histograms.
173 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
174 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
175 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
176 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
178 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
180 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
182 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
184 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
185 introduced in 0.8.2.)
187 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
188 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
191 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
192 subcommand has been corrected.
194 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
197 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
200 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
202 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
204 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
205 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
206 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
208 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
209 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
211 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
212 by the current FILTER settings.
214 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
216 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
217 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
219 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
222 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
223 encoding to be selected.
225 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
227 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
228 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
230 * System file related improvements:
232 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
233 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
236 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
237 character encoding of string data in the system file.
239 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
240 truncation (bug #41863).
242 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
243 read successfully (bug #41475).
245 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
247 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
248 of fully saturated primaries.
250 * Support for new system file variants:
252 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
253 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
254 files. (The older format is still supported.)
256 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
257 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
258 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
259 do not directly read or write this format.
261 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
262 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
264 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
265 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
266 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
267 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
269 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
270 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
271 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
272 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
276 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
278 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
284 * Changes to existing commands:
286 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
287 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
289 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
291 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
293 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
294 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
295 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
297 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
301 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
303 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
306 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
309 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
315 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
322 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
326 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
330 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
332 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
334 * Changes to existing commands:
336 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
338 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
340 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
342 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
343 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
344 applied to the included file.
346 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
348 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
350 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
353 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
356 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
358 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
359 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
360 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
362 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
363 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
365 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
368 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
371 * Other language changes:
373 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
374 extension, which is no longer supported.
376 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
377 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
378 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
379 expressed as U'1D11E'.
381 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
383 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
384 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
385 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
386 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
388 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
390 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
392 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
395 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
396 see different parts of a large data file.
398 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
399 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
400 clicking on an icon will open the file.
402 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
403 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
407 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
408 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
409 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
410 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
412 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
413 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
414 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
417 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
418 characters, including double-width characters and combining
421 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
423 - The HTML output is much improved.
425 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
426 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
427 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
428 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
429 of their intended syntax mode.
431 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
434 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
435 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
436 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
437 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
438 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
439 one the system file uses.
441 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
444 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
445 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
446 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
448 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
451 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
453 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
457 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
459 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
461 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
462 translationproject.org.
464 * Statistical bug fixes:
466 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
469 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
470 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
471 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
473 * Build fixes and changes:
475 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
477 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
478 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
480 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
482 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
484 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
485 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
486 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
489 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
491 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
493 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
494 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
495 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
498 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
500 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
501 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
503 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
505 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
506 with spaces as expected.
508 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
509 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
510 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
512 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
514 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
516 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
517 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
518 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
519 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
521 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
522 that does not exist (bug #24569).
524 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
527 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
529 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
531 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
533 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
534 instead of the current directory, to better match user
537 - Some data editor fixes.
541 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
543 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
545 * Statistical bug fixes:
547 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
548 regression output (bug #23567).
550 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
552 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
554 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
556 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
558 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
560 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
561 disk accesses on modern machines.
565 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
568 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
571 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
572 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
575 * Build fixes and changes:
577 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
578 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
580 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
583 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
584 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
586 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
587 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
589 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
591 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
593 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
594 found them too poor to be useful.
596 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
598 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
599 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
601 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
602 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
603 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
604 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
607 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
610 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
614 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
615 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
616 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
618 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
619 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
620 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
622 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
623 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
625 Statistical procedure changes:
627 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
628 via least-squares estimation.
630 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
631 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
633 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
636 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
637 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
639 User interface changes:
641 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
642 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
644 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
647 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
648 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
649 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
652 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
653 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
654 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
655 executed as if `+' had been specified.
657 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
658 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
659 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
661 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
662 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
663 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
664 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
669 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
670 manual for a full description of the available options.
672 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
673 "make install" will do this for you.
675 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
676 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
678 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
679 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
680 Previously, by default output was written only to file
681 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
682 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
687 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
688 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
689 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
690 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
692 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
693 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
694 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
698 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
699 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
700 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
701 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
702 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
704 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
705 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
708 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
709 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
710 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
711 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
713 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
714 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
715 longer needed, or supported.
717 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
718 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
719 no longer needed, or supported.
723 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
724 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
725 is no longer needed, or supported.
727 Command language changes:
729 * The following commands are new:
731 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
732 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
733 types of foreign data.
735 - CD, to change the current directory.
737 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
739 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
742 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
744 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
746 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
749 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
751 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
753 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
755 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
757 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
760 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
762 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
763 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
764 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
766 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
767 re-implemented in a later release:
769 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
775 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
776 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
777 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
779 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
780 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
782 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
784 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
785 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
786 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
787 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
790 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
791 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
792 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
794 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
795 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
796 reassigned to new files.
798 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
799 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
800 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
801 documentation on those particular commands.
805 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
806 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
807 format of these files.
809 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
810 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
811 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
812 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
815 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
816 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
817 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
818 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
819 native floating point format.
821 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
822 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
823 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
825 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
826 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
828 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
829 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
830 subcommands has been added.
832 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
833 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
834 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
837 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
838 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
840 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
841 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
842 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
846 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
847 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
850 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
851 have been extensively revised and improved.
853 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
856 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
858 Changes in build dependencies:
860 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
863 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
864 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
865 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
867 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
869 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
871 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
873 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
881 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
882 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
885 * T-TEST (re-written).
887 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
888 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
891 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
892 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
893 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
894 third-party software.
896 * SET EPOCH implemented.
898 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
901 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
903 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
904 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
905 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
907 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
908 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
910 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
911 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
913 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
914 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
915 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
918 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
919 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
922 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
925 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
928 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
929 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
930 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
932 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
934 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
936 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
939 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
940 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
943 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
944 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
946 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
950 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
953 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
954 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
956 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
957 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
959 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
962 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
965 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
968 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
969 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
970 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
972 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
974 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
976 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
980 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
982 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
986 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
987 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
989 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
991 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
993 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
997 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
999 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1001 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1002 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1004 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1005 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1007 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1008 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1009 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1010 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1012 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1013 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1014 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1016 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1017 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1018 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1020 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1021 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1022 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1025 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1026 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1029 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1030 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1032 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1033 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1034 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1036 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1037 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1038 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1040 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1041 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1042 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1045 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1046 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1049 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1050 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1052 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1055 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1056 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1057 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1059 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1060 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1064 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1065 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1067 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1068 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1069 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1071 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1073 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1077 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1079 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1081 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1082 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1084 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1086 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1087 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1089 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1090 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1092 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1093 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1096 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1097 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1102 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1103 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1104 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1106 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1110 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1112 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1113 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1116 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1117 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1118 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1120 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1122 Procedures now implemented:
1123 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1125 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1128 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1129 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1140 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1141 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1144 New command-line features:
1145 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1146 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1147 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1148 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1149 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1151 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1153 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1155 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1157 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1158 reinstall your `devices' file.
1160 New output driver for HTML.
1162 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1164 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1166 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1167 * PSPP system file format
1168 * PSPP portable file format
1169 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1172 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1173 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1175 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1177 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1178 versions, please see ONEWS.
1180 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1181 Copyright information:
1183 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1184 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1185 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1186 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1188 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1189 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1190 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1194 version-control: never