1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.3.0:
9 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
11 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
12 rarely printed on paper.
14 * pspp-convert: New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search
15 for an encrypted file's password.
17 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
19 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
21 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
22 one or more plots are requested.
24 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL which
25 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
27 * A bug where the GUI would crash when T-TEST was executed whilst
28 a filter was set has been fixed.
30 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
33 * GRAPH: A categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
34 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
37 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
39 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
41 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
45 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
47 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
49 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
50 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
52 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
53 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
55 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
57 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
58 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
60 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
62 * Translation updates.
64 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
66 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
67 regression through the origin.
69 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
71 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
73 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
75 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
77 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
80 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
81 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
83 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
85 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
86 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
89 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
91 * Graphical user interface changes:
93 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
95 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
97 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
99 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
101 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
103 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
105 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
107 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
110 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
113 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
114 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
115 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
117 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
118 Now it can paste multiple variables.
120 * Bug fixes, including the following:
122 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
123 type variable as group variable.
125 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
126 superimposed with the currently selected one.
128 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
131 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
133 * Bug fixes, including the following:
135 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
138 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
141 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
143 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
145 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
146 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
147 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
148 as to produce better separated clusters.
150 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
152 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
154 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
155 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
157 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
159 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
160 somewhat different look and feel.
162 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
164 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
165 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
167 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
168 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
169 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
170 and will generate syntax accordingly.
172 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
173 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
174 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
181 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
183 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
185 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
187 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
189 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
190 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
191 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
192 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
194 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
196 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
197 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
200 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
201 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
202 default and only supported behavior.
204 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
207 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
208 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
209 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
211 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
214 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
216 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
218 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
220 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
221 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
222 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
223 format is not supported.
225 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
228 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
229 when an empty dataset was presented.
231 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
232 scatterplots and histograms.
234 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
235 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
236 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
237 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
239 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
241 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
243 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
245 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
246 introduced in 0.8.2.)
248 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
249 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
252 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
253 subcommand has been corrected.
255 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
258 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
261 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
263 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
265 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
266 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
267 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
269 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
270 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
272 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
273 by the current FILTER settings.
275 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
277 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
278 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
280 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
283 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
284 encoding to be selected.
286 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
288 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
289 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
291 * System file related improvements:
293 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
294 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
297 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
298 character encoding of string data in the system file.
300 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
301 truncation (bug #41863).
303 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
304 read successfully (bug #41475).
306 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
308 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
309 of fully saturated primaries.
311 * Support for new system file variants:
313 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
314 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
315 files. (The older format is still supported.)
317 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
318 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
319 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
320 do not directly read or write this format.
322 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
323 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
325 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
326 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
327 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
328 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
330 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
331 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
332 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
333 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
337 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
339 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
345 * Changes to existing commands:
347 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
348 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
350 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
352 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
354 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
355 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
356 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
358 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
362 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
364 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
367 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
370 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
376 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
383 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
387 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
391 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
393 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
395 * Changes to existing commands:
397 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
399 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
401 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
403 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
404 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
405 applied to the included file.
407 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
409 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
411 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
414 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
417 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
419 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
420 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
421 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
423 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
424 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
426 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
429 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
432 * Other language changes:
434 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
435 extension, which is no longer supported.
437 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
438 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
439 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
440 expressed as U'1D11E'.
442 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
444 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
445 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
446 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
447 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
449 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
451 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
453 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
456 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
457 see different parts of a large data file.
459 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
460 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
461 clicking on an icon will open the file.
463 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
464 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
468 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
469 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
470 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
471 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
473 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
474 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
475 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
478 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
479 characters, including double-width characters and combining
482 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
484 - The HTML output is much improved.
486 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
487 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
488 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
489 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
490 of their intended syntax mode.
492 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
495 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
496 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
497 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
498 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
499 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
500 one the system file uses.
502 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
505 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
506 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
507 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
509 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
512 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
514 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
518 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
520 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
522 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
523 translationproject.org.
525 * Statistical bug fixes:
527 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
530 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
531 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
532 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
534 * Build fixes and changes:
536 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
538 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
539 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
541 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
543 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
545 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
546 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
547 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
550 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
552 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
554 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
555 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
556 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
559 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
561 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
562 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
564 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
566 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
567 with spaces as expected.
569 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
570 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
571 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
573 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
575 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
577 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
578 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
579 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
580 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
582 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
583 that does not exist (bug #24569).
585 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
588 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
590 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
592 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
594 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
595 instead of the current directory, to better match user
598 - Some data editor fixes.
602 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
604 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
606 * Statistical bug fixes:
608 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
609 regression output (bug #23567).
611 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
613 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
615 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
617 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
619 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
621 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
622 disk accesses on modern machines.
626 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
629 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
632 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
633 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
636 * Build fixes and changes:
638 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
639 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
641 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
644 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
645 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
647 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
648 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
650 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
652 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
654 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
655 found them too poor to be useful.
657 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
659 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
660 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
662 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
663 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
664 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
665 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
668 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
671 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
675 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
676 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
677 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
679 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
680 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
681 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
683 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
684 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
686 Statistical procedure changes:
688 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
689 via least-squares estimation.
691 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
692 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
694 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
697 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
698 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
700 User interface changes:
702 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
703 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
705 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
708 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
709 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
710 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
713 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
714 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
715 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
716 executed as if `+' had been specified.
718 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
719 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
720 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
722 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
723 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
724 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
725 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
730 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
731 manual for a full description of the available options.
733 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
734 "make install" will do this for you.
736 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
737 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
739 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
740 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
741 Previously, by default output was written only to file
742 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
743 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
748 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
749 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
750 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
751 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
753 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
754 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
755 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
759 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
760 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
761 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
762 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
763 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
765 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
766 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
769 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
770 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
771 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
772 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
774 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
775 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
776 longer needed, or supported.
778 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
779 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
780 no longer needed, or supported.
784 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
785 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
786 is no longer needed, or supported.
788 Command language changes:
790 * The following commands are new:
792 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
793 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
794 types of foreign data.
796 - CD, to change the current directory.
798 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
800 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
803 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
805 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
807 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
810 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
812 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
814 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
816 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
818 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
821 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
823 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
824 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
825 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
827 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
828 re-implemented in a later release:
830 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
836 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
837 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
838 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
840 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
841 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
843 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
845 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
846 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
847 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
848 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
851 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
852 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
853 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
855 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
856 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
857 reassigned to new files.
859 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
860 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
861 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
862 documentation on those particular commands.
866 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
867 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
868 format of these files.
870 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
871 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
872 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
873 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
876 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
877 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
878 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
879 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
880 native floating point format.
882 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
883 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
884 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
886 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
887 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
889 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
890 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
891 subcommands has been added.
893 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
894 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
895 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
898 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
899 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
901 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
902 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
903 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
907 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
908 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
911 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
912 have been extensively revised and improved.
914 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
917 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
919 Changes in build dependencies:
921 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
924 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
925 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
926 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
928 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
930 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
932 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
934 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
942 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
943 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
946 * T-TEST (re-written).
948 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
949 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
952 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
953 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
954 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
955 third-party software.
957 * SET EPOCH implemented.
959 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
962 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
964 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
965 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
966 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
968 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
969 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
971 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
972 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
974 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
975 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
976 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
979 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
980 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
983 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
986 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
989 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
990 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
991 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
993 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
995 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
997 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1000 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1001 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1004 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1005 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1007 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1011 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1014 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1015 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1017 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1018 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1020 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1023 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1026 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1029 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1030 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1031 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1033 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1035 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1037 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1041 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1043 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1047 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1048 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1050 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1052 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1054 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1058 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1060 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1062 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1063 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1065 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1066 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1068 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1069 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1070 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1071 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1073 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1074 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1075 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1077 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1078 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1079 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1081 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1082 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1083 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1086 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1087 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1090 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1091 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1093 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1094 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1095 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1097 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1098 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1099 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1101 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1102 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1103 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1106 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1107 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1110 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1111 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1113 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1116 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1117 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1118 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1120 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1121 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1125 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1126 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1128 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1129 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1130 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1132 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1134 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1138 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1140 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1142 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1143 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1145 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1147 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1148 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1150 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1151 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1153 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1154 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1157 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1158 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1163 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1164 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1165 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1167 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1171 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1173 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1174 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1177 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1178 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1179 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1181 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1183 Procedures now implemented:
1184 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1186 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1189 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1190 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1201 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1202 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1205 New command-line features:
1206 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1207 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1208 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1209 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1210 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1212 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1214 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1216 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1218 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1219 reinstall your `devices' file.
1221 New output driver for HTML.
1223 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1225 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1227 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1228 * PSPP system file format
1229 * PSPP portable file format
1230 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1233 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1234 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1236 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1238 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1239 versions, please see ONEWS.
1241 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1242 Copyright information:
1244 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1245 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1246 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1247 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1249 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1250 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1251 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1255 version-control: never