1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.1:
9 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
11 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
12 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
13 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
14 as to produce better separated clusters.
16 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
18 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
20 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
21 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
23 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
25 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
26 somewhat different look and feel.
28 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
30 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
31 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
33 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
34 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
35 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
36 and will generate syntax accordingly.
38 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
39 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
40 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
47 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
49 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
51 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
53 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
55 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
56 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
57 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
58 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
60 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
62 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
63 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
66 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
67 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
68 default and only supported behavior.
70 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
73 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
74 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
75 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
77 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
80 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
82 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
84 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
86 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
87 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
88 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
89 format is not supported.
91 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
94 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
95 when an empty dataset was presented.
97 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
98 scatterplots and histograms.
100 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
101 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
102 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
103 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
105 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
107 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
109 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
111 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
112 introduced in 0.8.2.)
114 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
115 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
118 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
119 subcommand has been corrected.
121 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
124 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
127 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
129 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
131 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
132 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
133 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
135 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
136 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
138 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
139 by the current FILTER settings.
141 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
143 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
144 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
146 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
149 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
150 encoding to be selected.
152 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
154 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
155 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
157 * System file related improvements:
159 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
160 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
163 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
164 character encoding of string data in the system file.
166 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
167 truncation (bug #41863).
169 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
170 read successfully (bug #41475).
172 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
174 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
175 of fully saturated primaries.
177 * Support for new system file variants:
179 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
180 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
181 files. (The older format is still supported.)
183 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
184 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
185 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
186 do not directly read or write this format.
188 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
189 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
191 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
192 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
193 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
194 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
196 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
197 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
198 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
199 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
203 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
205 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
211 * Changes to existing commands:
213 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
214 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
216 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
218 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
220 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
221 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
222 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
224 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
228 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
230 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
233 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
236 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
242 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
249 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
253 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
257 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
259 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
261 * Changes to existing commands:
263 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
265 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
267 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
269 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
270 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
271 applied to the included file.
273 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
275 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
277 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
280 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
283 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
285 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
286 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
287 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
289 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
290 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
292 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
295 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
298 * Other language changes:
300 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
301 extension, which is no longer supported.
303 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
304 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
305 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
306 expressed as U'1D11E'.
308 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
310 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
311 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
312 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
313 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
315 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
317 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
319 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
322 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
323 see different parts of a large data file.
325 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
326 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
327 clicking on an icon will open the file.
329 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
330 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
334 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
335 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
336 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
337 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
339 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
340 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
341 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
344 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
345 characters, including double-width characters and combining
348 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
350 - The HTML output is much improved.
352 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
353 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
354 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
355 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
356 of their intended syntax mode.
358 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
361 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
362 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
363 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
364 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
365 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
366 one the system file uses.
368 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
371 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
372 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
373 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
375 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
378 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
380 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
384 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
386 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
388 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
389 translationproject.org.
391 * Statistical bug fixes:
393 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
396 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
397 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
398 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
400 * Build fixes and changes:
402 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
404 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
405 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
407 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
409 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
411 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
412 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
413 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
416 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
418 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
420 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
421 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
422 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
425 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
427 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
428 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
430 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
432 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
433 with spaces as expected.
435 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
436 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
437 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
439 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
441 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
443 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
444 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
445 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
446 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
448 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
449 that does not exist (bug #24569).
451 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
454 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
456 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
458 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
460 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
461 instead of the current directory, to better match user
464 - Some data editor fixes.
468 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
470 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
472 * Statistical bug fixes:
474 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
475 regression output (bug #23567).
477 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
479 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
481 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
483 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
485 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
487 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
488 disk accesses on modern machines.
492 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
495 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
498 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
499 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
502 * Build fixes and changes:
504 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
505 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
507 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
510 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
511 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
513 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
514 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
516 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
518 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
520 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
521 found them too poor to be useful.
523 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
525 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
526 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
528 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
529 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
530 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
531 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
534 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
537 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
541 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
542 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
543 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
545 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
546 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
547 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
549 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
550 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
552 Statistical procedure changes:
554 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
555 via least-squares estimation.
557 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
558 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
560 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
563 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
564 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
566 User interface changes:
568 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
569 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
571 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
574 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
575 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
576 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
579 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
580 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
581 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
582 executed as if `+' had been specified.
584 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
585 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
586 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
588 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
589 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
590 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
591 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
596 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
597 manual for a full description of the available options.
599 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
600 "make install" will do this for you.
602 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
603 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
605 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
606 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
607 Previously, by default output was written only to file
608 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
609 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
614 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
615 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
616 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
617 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
619 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
620 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
621 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
625 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
626 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
627 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
628 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
629 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
631 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
632 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
635 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
636 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
637 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
638 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
640 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
641 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
642 longer needed, or supported.
644 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
645 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
646 no longer needed, or supported.
650 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
651 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
652 is no longer needed, or supported.
654 Command language changes:
656 * The following commands are new:
658 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
659 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
660 types of foreign data.
662 - CD, to change the current directory.
664 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
666 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
669 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
671 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
673 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
676 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
678 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
680 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
682 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
684 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
687 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
689 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
690 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
691 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
693 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
694 re-implemented in a later release:
696 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
702 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
703 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
704 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
706 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
707 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
709 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
711 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
712 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
713 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
714 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
717 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
718 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
719 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
721 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
722 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
723 reassigned to new files.
725 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
726 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
727 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
728 documentation on those particular commands.
732 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
733 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
734 format of these files.
736 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
737 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
738 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
739 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
742 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
743 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
744 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
745 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
746 native floating point format.
748 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
749 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
750 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
752 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
753 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
755 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
756 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
757 subcommands has been added.
759 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
760 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
761 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
764 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
765 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
767 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
768 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
769 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
773 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
774 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
777 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
778 have been extensively revised and improved.
780 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
783 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
785 Changes in build dependencies:
787 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
790 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
791 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
792 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
794 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
796 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
798 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
800 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
808 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
809 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
812 * T-TEST (re-written).
814 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
815 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
818 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
819 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
820 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
821 third-party software.
823 * SET EPOCH implemented.
825 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
828 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
830 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
831 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
832 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
834 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
835 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
837 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
838 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
840 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
841 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
842 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
845 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
846 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
849 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
852 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
855 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
856 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
857 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
859 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
861 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
863 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
866 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
867 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
870 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
871 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
873 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
877 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
880 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
881 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
883 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
884 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
886 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
889 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
892 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
895 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
896 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
897 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
899 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
901 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
903 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
907 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
909 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
913 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
914 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
916 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
918 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
920 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
924 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
926 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
928 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
929 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
931 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
932 didn't like being the last command in a file.
934 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
935 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
936 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
937 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
939 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
940 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
941 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
943 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
944 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
945 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
947 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
948 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
949 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
952 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
953 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
956 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
957 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
959 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
960 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
961 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
963 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
964 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
965 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
967 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
968 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
969 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
972 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
973 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
976 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
977 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
979 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
982 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
983 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
984 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
986 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
987 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
991 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
992 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
994 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
995 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
996 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
998 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1000 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1004 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1006 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1008 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1009 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1011 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1013 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1014 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1016 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1017 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1019 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1020 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1023 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1024 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1029 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1030 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1031 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1033 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1037 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1039 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1040 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1043 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1044 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1045 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1047 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1049 Procedures now implemented:
1050 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1052 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1055 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1056 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1067 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1068 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1071 New command-line features:
1072 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1073 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1074 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1075 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1076 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1078 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1080 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1082 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1084 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1085 reinstall your `devices' file.
1087 New output driver for HTML.
1089 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1091 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1093 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1094 * PSPP system file format
1095 * PSPP portable file format
1096 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1099 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1100 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1102 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1104 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1105 versions, please see ONEWS.
1107 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1108 Copyright information:
1110 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1111 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1112 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1113 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1115 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1116 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1117 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1121 version-control: never