1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021,
3 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
8 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.5.3:
10 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
11 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
12 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
14 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
17 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
18 contrasts tests has been corrected.
20 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
22 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
23 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
25 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
26 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
27 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
29 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
30 graphical output examples and screenshots.
34 - Perl is no longer required to build.
36 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
37 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
40 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
42 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
44 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
46 * Output improvements:
48 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
50 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
51 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
53 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
54 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
56 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
57 as a "table of contents" for the file.
59 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
61 * New features in pspp-output:
63 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
65 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
67 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
71 * Translation updates.
73 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
75 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
77 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
79 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
80 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
81 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
83 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
84 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
85 which is surprising to some users.
87 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
88 use to save the contents of its output editor:
90 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
92 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
94 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
95 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
96 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
99 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
100 invalid syntax has been fixed.
102 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
104 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
105 rarely printed on paper.
107 * pspp-convert improvements:
109 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
110 encrypted file's password.
112 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
114 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
115 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
118 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
120 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
122 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
123 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
125 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
126 one or more plots are requested.
128 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
129 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
131 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
132 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
133 from the cluster centre to the active file.
135 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
137 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
140 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
142 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
143 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
146 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
151 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
155 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
157 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
159 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
163 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
165 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
167 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
168 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
170 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
171 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
173 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
175 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
176 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
178 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
180 * Translation updates.
182 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
184 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
185 regression through the origin.
187 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
189 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
191 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
193 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
195 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
198 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
199 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
201 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
203 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
204 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
207 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
209 * Graphical user interface changes:
211 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
213 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
215 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
217 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
219 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
221 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
223 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
225 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
228 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
231 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
232 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
233 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
235 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
236 Now it can paste multiple variables.
238 * Bug fixes, including the following:
240 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
241 type variable as group variable.
243 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
244 superimposed with the currently selected one.
246 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
249 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
251 * Bug fixes, including the following:
253 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
256 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
259 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
261 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
263 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
264 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
265 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
266 as to produce better separated clusters.
268 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
270 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
272 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
273 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
275 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
277 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
278 somewhat different look and feel.
280 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
282 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
283 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
285 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
286 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
287 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
288 and will generate syntax accordingly.
290 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
291 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
292 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
299 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
301 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
303 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
305 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
307 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
308 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
309 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
310 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
312 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
314 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
315 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
318 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
319 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
320 default and only supported behavior.
322 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
325 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
326 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
327 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
329 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
332 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
334 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
336 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
338 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
339 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
340 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
341 format is not supported.
343 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
346 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
347 when an empty dataset was presented.
349 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
350 scatterplots and histograms.
352 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
353 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
354 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
355 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
357 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
359 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
361 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
363 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
364 introduced in 0.8.2.)
366 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
367 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
370 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
371 subcommand has been corrected.
373 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
376 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
379 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
381 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
383 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
384 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
385 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
387 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
388 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
390 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
391 by the current FILTER settings.
393 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
395 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
396 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
398 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
401 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
402 encoding to be selected.
404 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
406 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
407 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
409 * System file related improvements:
411 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
412 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
415 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
416 character encoding of string data in the system file.
418 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
419 truncation (bug #41863).
421 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
422 read successfully (bug #41475).
424 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
426 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
427 of fully saturated primaries.
429 * Support for new system file variants:
431 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
432 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
433 files. (The older format is still supported.)
435 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
436 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
437 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
438 do not directly read or write this format.
440 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
441 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
443 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
444 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
445 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
446 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
448 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
449 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
450 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
451 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
455 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
457 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
463 * Changes to existing commands:
465 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
466 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
468 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
470 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
472 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
473 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
474 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
476 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
480 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
482 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
485 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
488 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
494 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
501 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
505 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
509 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
511 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
513 * Changes to existing commands:
515 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
517 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
519 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
521 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
522 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
523 applied to the included file.
525 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
527 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
529 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
532 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
535 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
537 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
538 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
539 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
541 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
542 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
544 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
547 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
550 * Other language changes:
552 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
553 extension, which is no longer supported.
555 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
556 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
557 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
558 expressed as U'1D11E'.
560 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
562 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
563 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
564 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
565 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
567 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
569 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
571 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
574 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
575 see different parts of a large data file.
577 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
578 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
579 clicking on an icon will open the file.
581 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
582 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
586 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
587 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
588 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
589 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
591 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
592 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
593 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
596 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
597 characters, including double-width characters and combining
600 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
602 - The HTML output is much improved.
604 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
605 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
606 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
607 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
608 of their intended syntax mode.
610 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
613 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
614 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
615 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
616 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
617 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
618 one the system file uses.
620 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
623 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
624 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
625 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
627 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
630 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
632 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
636 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
638 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
640 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
641 translationproject.org.
643 * Statistical bug fixes:
645 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
648 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
649 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
650 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
652 * Build fixes and changes:
654 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
656 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
657 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
659 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
661 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
663 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
664 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
665 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
668 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
670 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
672 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
673 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
674 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
677 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
679 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
680 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
682 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
684 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
685 with spaces as expected.
687 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
688 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
689 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
691 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
693 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
695 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
696 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
697 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
698 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
700 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
701 that does not exist (bug #24569).
703 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
706 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
708 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
710 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
712 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
713 instead of the current directory, to better match user
716 - Some data editor fixes.
720 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
722 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
724 * Statistical bug fixes:
726 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
727 regression output (bug #23567).
729 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
731 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
733 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
735 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
737 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
739 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
740 disk accesses on modern machines.
744 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
747 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
750 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
751 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
754 * Build fixes and changes:
756 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
757 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
759 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
762 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
763 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
765 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
766 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
768 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
770 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
772 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
773 found them too poor to be useful.
775 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
777 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
778 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
780 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
781 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
782 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
783 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
786 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
789 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
793 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
794 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
795 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
797 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
798 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
799 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
801 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
802 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
804 Statistical procedure changes:
806 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
807 via least-squares estimation.
809 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
810 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
812 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
815 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
816 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
818 User interface changes:
820 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
821 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
823 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
826 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
827 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
828 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
831 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
832 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
833 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
834 executed as if `+' had been specified.
836 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
837 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
838 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
840 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
841 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
842 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
843 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
848 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
849 manual for a full description of the available options.
851 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
852 "make install" will do this for you.
854 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
855 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
857 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
858 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
859 Previously, by default output was written only to file
860 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
861 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
866 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
867 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
868 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
869 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
871 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
872 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
873 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
877 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
878 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
879 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
880 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
881 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
883 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
884 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
887 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
888 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
889 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
890 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
892 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
893 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
894 longer needed, or supported.
896 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
897 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
898 no longer needed, or supported.
902 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
903 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
904 is no longer needed, or supported.
906 Command language changes:
908 * The following commands are new:
910 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
911 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
912 types of foreign data.
914 - CD, to change the current directory.
916 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
918 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
921 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
923 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
925 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
928 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
930 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
932 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
934 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
936 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
939 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
941 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
942 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
943 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
945 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
946 re-implemented in a later release:
948 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
954 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
955 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
956 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
958 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
959 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
961 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
963 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
964 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
965 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
966 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
969 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
970 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
971 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
973 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
974 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
975 reassigned to new files.
977 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
978 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
979 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
980 documentation on those particular commands.
984 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
985 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
986 format of these files.
988 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
989 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
990 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
991 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
994 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
995 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
996 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
997 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
998 native floating point format.
1000 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1001 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1002 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1004 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1005 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1007 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1008 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1009 subcommands has been added.
1011 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1012 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1013 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1016 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1017 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1019 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1020 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1021 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1025 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1026 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1029 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1030 have been extensively revised and improved.
1032 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1035 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1037 Changes in build dependencies:
1039 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1042 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1043 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1044 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1046 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1048 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1050 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1052 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1060 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1061 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1064 * T-TEST (re-written).
1066 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1067 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1070 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1071 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1072 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1073 third-party software.
1075 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1077 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1080 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1082 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1083 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1084 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1086 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1087 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1089 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1090 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1092 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1093 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1094 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1097 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1098 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1101 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1104 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1107 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1108 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1109 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1111 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1113 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1115 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1118 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1119 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1122 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1123 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1125 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1129 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1132 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1133 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1135 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1136 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1138 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1141 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1144 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1147 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1148 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1149 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1151 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1153 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1155 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1159 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1161 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1165 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1166 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1168 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1170 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1172 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1176 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1178 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1180 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1181 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1183 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1184 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1186 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1187 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1188 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1189 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1191 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1192 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1193 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1195 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1196 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1197 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1199 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1200 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1201 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1204 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1205 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1208 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1209 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1211 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1212 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1213 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1215 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1216 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1217 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1219 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1220 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1221 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1224 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1225 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1228 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1229 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1231 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1234 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1235 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1236 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1238 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1239 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1243 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1244 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1246 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1247 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1248 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1250 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1252 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1256 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1258 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1260 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1261 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1263 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1265 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1266 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1268 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1269 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1271 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1272 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1275 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1276 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1281 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1282 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1283 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1285 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1289 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1291 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1292 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1295 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1296 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1297 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1299 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1301 Procedures now implemented:
1302 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1304 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1307 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1308 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1319 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1320 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1323 New command-line features:
1324 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1325 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1326 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1327 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1328 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1330 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1332 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1334 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1336 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1337 reinstall your `devices' file.
1339 New output driver for HTML.
1341 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1343 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1345 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1346 * PSPP system file format
1347 * PSPP portable file format
1348 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1351 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1352 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1354 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1356 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1357 versions, please see ONEWS.
1359 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1360 Copyright information:
1362 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1363 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1364 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1365 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1367 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1368 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1369 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1373 version-control: never