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 0.10.5-pre2:
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 FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
16 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
18 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
20 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
23 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
24 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
26 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
28 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
29 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
32 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
34 * Graphical user interface changes:
36 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
38 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
40 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
42 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
44 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
46 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
48 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
51 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
54 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
55 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
56 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
58 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
59 Now it can paste multiple variables.
61 * Bug fixes, including the following:
63 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
64 type variable as group variable.
66 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
67 superimposed with the currently selected one.
69 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
72 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
74 * Bug fixes, including the following:
76 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
79 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
82 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
84 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
86 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
87 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
88 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
89 as to produce better separated clusters.
91 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
93 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
95 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
96 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
98 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
100 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
101 somewhat different look and feel.
103 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
105 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
106 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
108 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
109 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
110 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
111 and will generate syntax accordingly.
113 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
114 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
115 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
122 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
124 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
126 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
128 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
130 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
131 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
132 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
133 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
135 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
137 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
138 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
141 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
142 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
143 default and only supported behavior.
145 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
148 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
149 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
150 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
152 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
155 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
157 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
159 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
161 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
162 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
163 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
164 format is not supported.
166 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
169 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occured
170 when an empty dataset was presented.
172 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
173 scatterplots and histograms.
175 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
176 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
177 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
178 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
180 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
182 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
184 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
186 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
187 introduced in 0.8.2.)
189 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
190 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
193 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
194 subcommand has been corrected.
196 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
199 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
202 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
204 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
206 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
207 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
208 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
210 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
211 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
213 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
214 by the current FILTER settings.
216 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
218 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
219 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
221 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
224 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
225 encoding to be selected.
227 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
229 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
230 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
232 * System file related improvements:
234 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
235 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
238 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
239 character encoding of string data in the system file.
241 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
242 truncation (bug #41863).
244 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
245 read successfully (bug #41475).
247 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
249 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
250 of fully saturated primaries.
252 * Support for new system file variants:
254 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
255 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
256 files. (The older format is still supported.)
258 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
259 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
260 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
261 do not directly read or write this format.
263 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
264 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
266 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
267 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
268 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
269 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
271 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
272 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
273 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
274 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
278 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
280 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
286 * Changes to existing commands:
288 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
289 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
291 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
293 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
295 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
296 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
297 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
299 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
303 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
305 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
308 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
311 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
317 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
324 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
328 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
332 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
334 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
336 * Changes to existing commands:
338 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
340 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
342 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
344 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
345 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
346 applied to the included file.
348 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
350 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
352 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
355 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
358 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
360 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
361 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
362 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
364 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
365 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
367 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
370 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
373 * Other language changes:
375 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
376 extension, which is no longer supported.
378 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
379 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
380 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
381 expressed as U'1D11E'.
383 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
385 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
386 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
387 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
388 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
390 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
392 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
394 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
397 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
398 see different parts of a large data file.
400 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
401 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
402 clicking on an icon will open the file.
404 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
405 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
409 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
410 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
411 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
412 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
414 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
415 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
416 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
419 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
420 characters, including double-width characters and combining
423 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
425 - The HTML output is much improved.
427 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
428 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
429 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
430 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
431 of their intended syntax mode.
433 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
436 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
437 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
438 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
439 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
440 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
441 one the system file uses.
443 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
446 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
447 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
448 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
450 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
453 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
455 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
459 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
461 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
463 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
464 translationproject.org.
466 * Statistical bug fixes:
468 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
471 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
472 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
473 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
475 * Build fixes and changes:
477 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
479 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
480 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
482 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
484 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
486 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
487 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
488 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
491 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
493 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
495 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
496 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
497 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
500 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
502 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
503 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
505 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
507 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
508 with spaces as expected.
510 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
511 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
512 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
514 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
516 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
518 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
519 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
520 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
521 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
523 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
524 that does not exist (bug #24569).
526 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
529 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
531 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
533 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
535 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
536 instead of the current directory, to better match user
539 - Some data editor fixes.
543 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
545 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
547 * Statistical bug fixes:
549 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
550 regression output (bug #23567).
552 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
554 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
556 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
558 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
560 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
562 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
563 disk accesses on modern machines.
567 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
570 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
573 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
574 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
577 * Build fixes and changes:
579 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
580 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
582 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
585 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
586 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
588 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
589 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
591 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
593 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
595 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
596 found them too poor to be useful.
598 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
600 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
601 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
603 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
604 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
605 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
606 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
609 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
612 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
616 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
617 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
618 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
620 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
621 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
622 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
624 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
625 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
627 Statistical procedure changes:
629 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
630 via least-squares estimation.
632 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
633 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
635 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
638 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
639 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
641 User interface changes:
643 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
644 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
646 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
649 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
650 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
651 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
654 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
655 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
656 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
657 executed as if `+' had been specified.
659 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
660 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
661 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
663 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
664 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
665 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
666 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
671 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
672 manual for a full description of the available options.
674 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
675 "make install" will do this for you.
677 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
678 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
680 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
681 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
682 Previously, by default output was written only to file
683 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
684 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
689 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
690 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
691 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
692 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
694 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
695 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
696 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
700 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
701 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
702 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
703 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
704 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
706 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
707 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
710 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
711 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
712 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
713 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
715 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
716 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
717 longer needed, or supported.
719 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
720 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
721 no longer needed, or supported.
725 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
726 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
727 is no longer needed, or supported.
729 Command language changes:
731 * The following commands are new:
733 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
734 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
735 types of foreign data.
737 - CD, to change the current directory.
739 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
741 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
744 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
746 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
748 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
751 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
753 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
755 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
757 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
759 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
762 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
764 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
765 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
766 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
768 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
769 re-implemented in a later release:
771 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
777 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
778 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
779 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
781 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
782 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
784 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
786 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
787 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
788 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
789 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
792 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
793 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
794 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
796 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
797 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
798 reassigned to new files.
800 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
801 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
802 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
803 documentation on those particular commands.
807 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
808 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
809 format of these files.
811 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
812 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
813 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
814 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
817 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
818 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
819 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
820 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
821 native floating point format.
823 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
824 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
825 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
827 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
828 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
830 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
831 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
832 subcommands has been added.
834 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
835 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
836 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
839 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
840 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
842 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
843 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
844 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
848 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
849 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
852 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
853 have been extensively revised and improved.
855 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
858 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
860 Changes in build dependencies:
862 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
865 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
866 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
867 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
869 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
871 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
873 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
875 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
883 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
884 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
887 * T-TEST (re-written).
889 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
890 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
893 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
894 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
895 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
896 third-party software.
898 * SET EPOCH implemented.
900 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
903 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
905 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
906 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
907 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
909 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
910 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
912 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
913 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
915 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
916 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
917 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
920 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
921 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
924 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
927 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
930 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
931 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
932 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
934 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
936 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
938 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
941 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
942 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
945 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
946 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
948 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
952 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
955 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
956 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
958 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
959 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
961 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
964 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
967 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
970 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
971 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
972 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
974 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
976 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
978 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
982 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
984 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
988 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
989 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
991 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
993 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
995 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
999 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1001 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1003 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1004 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1006 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1007 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1009 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1010 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1011 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1012 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1014 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1015 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1016 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1018 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1019 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1020 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1022 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1023 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1024 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1027 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1028 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1031 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1032 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1034 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1035 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1036 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1038 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1039 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1040 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1042 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1043 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1044 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1047 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1048 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1051 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1052 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1054 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1057 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1058 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1059 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1061 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1062 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1066 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1067 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1069 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1070 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1071 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1073 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1075 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1079 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1081 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1083 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1084 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1086 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1088 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1089 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1091 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1092 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1094 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1095 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1098 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1099 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1104 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1105 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1106 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1108 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1112 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1114 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1115 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1118 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1119 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1120 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1122 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1124 Procedures now implemented:
1125 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1127 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1130 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1131 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1142 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1143 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1146 New command-line features:
1147 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1148 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1149 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1150 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1151 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1153 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1155 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1157 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1159 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1160 reinstall your `devices' file.
1162 New output driver for HTML.
1164 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1166 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1168 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1169 * PSPP system file format
1170 * PSPP portable file format
1171 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1174 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1175 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1177 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1179 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1180 versions, please see ONEWS.
1182 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1183 Copyright information:
1185 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1186 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1187 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1188 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1190 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1191 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1192 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1196 version-control: never