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.
10 * The CTABLES command is now implemented.
12 * FREQUENCIES now honors the LAYERED setting on SPLIT FILE.
14 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
15 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
17 * The pspp-dump-sav program is no longer installed by default.
19 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
21 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
22 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
23 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
27 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
29 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
30 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
32 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
34 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
36 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
37 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
38 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
40 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
43 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
44 contrasts tests has been corrected.
46 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
48 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
49 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
51 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
52 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
53 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
55 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
56 graphical output examples and screenshots.
58 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
63 - Perl is no longer required to build.
65 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
66 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
69 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
71 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
73 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
75 * Output improvements:
77 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
79 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
80 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
82 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
83 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
85 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
86 as a "table of contents" for the file.
88 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
90 * New features in pspp-output:
92 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
94 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
96 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
100 * Translation updates.
102 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
104 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
106 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
108 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
109 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
110 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
112 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
113 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
114 which is surprising to some users.
116 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
117 use to save the contents of its output editor:
119 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
121 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
123 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
124 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
125 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
128 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
129 invalid syntax has been fixed.
131 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
133 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
134 rarely printed on paper.
136 * pspp-convert improvements:
138 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
139 encrypted file's password.
141 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
143 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
144 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
147 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
149 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
151 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
152 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
154 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
155 one or more plots are requested.
157 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
158 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
160 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
161 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
162 from the cluster centre to the active file.
164 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
166 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
169 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
171 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
172 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
175 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
180 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
184 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
186 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
188 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
192 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
194 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
196 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
197 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
199 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
200 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
202 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
204 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
205 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
207 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
209 * Translation updates.
211 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
213 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
214 regression through the origin.
216 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
218 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
220 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
222 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
224 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
227 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
228 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
230 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
232 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
233 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
236 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
238 * Graphical user interface changes:
240 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
242 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
244 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
246 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
248 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
250 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
252 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
254 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
257 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
260 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
261 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
262 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
264 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
265 Now it can paste multiple variables.
267 * Bug fixes, including the following:
269 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
270 type variable as group variable.
272 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
273 superimposed with the currently selected one.
275 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
278 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
280 * Bug fixes, including the following:
282 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
285 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
288 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
290 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
292 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
293 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
294 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
295 as to produce better separated clusters.
297 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
299 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
301 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
302 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
304 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
306 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
307 somewhat different look and feel.
309 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
311 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
312 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
314 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
315 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
316 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
317 and will generate syntax accordingly.
319 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
320 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
321 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
328 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
330 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
332 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
334 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
336 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
337 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
338 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
339 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
341 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
343 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
344 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
347 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
348 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
349 default and only supported behavior.
351 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
354 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
355 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
356 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
358 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
361 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
363 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
365 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
367 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
368 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
369 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
370 format is not supported.
372 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
375 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
376 when an empty dataset was presented.
378 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
379 scatterplots and histograms.
381 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
382 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
383 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
384 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
386 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
388 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
390 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
392 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
393 introduced in 0.8.2.)
395 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
396 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
399 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
400 subcommand has been corrected.
402 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
405 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
408 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
410 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
412 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
413 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
414 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
416 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
417 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
419 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
420 by the current FILTER settings.
422 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
424 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
425 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
427 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
430 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
431 encoding to be selected.
433 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
435 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
436 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
438 * System file related improvements:
440 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
441 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
444 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
445 character encoding of string data in the system file.
447 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
448 truncation (bug #41863).
450 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
451 read successfully (bug #41475).
453 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
455 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
456 of fully saturated primaries.
458 * Support for new system file variants:
460 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
461 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
462 files. (The older format is still supported.)
464 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
465 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
466 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
467 do not directly read or write this format.
469 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
470 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
472 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
473 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
474 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
475 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
477 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
478 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
479 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
480 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
484 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
486 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
492 * Changes to existing commands:
494 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
495 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
497 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
499 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
501 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
502 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
503 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
505 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
509 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
511 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
514 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
517 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
523 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
530 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
534 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
538 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
540 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
542 * Changes to existing commands:
544 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
546 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
548 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
550 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
551 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
552 applied to the included file.
554 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
556 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
558 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
561 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
564 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
566 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
567 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
568 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
570 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
571 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
573 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
576 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
579 * Other language changes:
581 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
582 extension, which is no longer supported.
584 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
585 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
586 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
587 expressed as U'1D11E'.
589 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
591 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
592 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
593 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
594 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
596 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
598 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
600 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
603 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
604 see different parts of a large data file.
606 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
607 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
608 clicking on an icon will open the file.
610 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
611 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
615 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
616 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
617 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
618 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
620 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
621 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
622 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
625 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
626 characters, including double-width characters and combining
629 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
631 - The HTML output is much improved.
633 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
634 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
635 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
636 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
637 of their intended syntax mode.
639 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
642 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
643 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
644 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
645 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
646 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
647 one the system file uses.
649 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
652 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
653 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
654 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
656 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
659 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
661 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
665 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
667 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
669 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
670 translationproject.org.
672 * Statistical bug fixes:
674 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
677 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
678 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
679 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
681 * Build fixes and changes:
683 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
685 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
686 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
688 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
690 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
692 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
693 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
694 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
697 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
699 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
701 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
702 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
703 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
706 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
708 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
709 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
711 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
713 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
714 with spaces as expected.
716 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
717 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
718 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
720 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
722 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
724 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
725 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
726 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
727 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
729 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
730 that does not exist (bug #24569).
732 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
735 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
737 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
739 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
741 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
742 instead of the current directory, to better match user
745 - Some data editor fixes.
749 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
751 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
753 * Statistical bug fixes:
755 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
756 regression output (bug #23567).
758 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
760 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
762 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
764 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
766 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
768 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
769 disk accesses on modern machines.
773 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
776 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
779 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
780 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
783 * Build fixes and changes:
785 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
786 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
788 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
791 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
792 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
794 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
795 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
797 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
799 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
801 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
802 found them too poor to be useful.
804 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
806 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
807 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
809 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
810 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
811 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
812 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
815 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
818 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
822 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
823 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
824 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
826 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
827 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
828 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
830 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
831 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
833 Statistical procedure changes:
835 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
836 via least-squares estimation.
838 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
839 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
841 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
844 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
845 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
847 User interface changes:
849 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
850 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
852 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
855 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
856 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
857 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
860 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
861 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
862 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
863 executed as if `+' had been specified.
865 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
866 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
867 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
869 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
870 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
871 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
872 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
877 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
878 manual for a full description of the available options.
880 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
881 "make install" will do this for you.
883 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
884 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
886 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
887 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
888 Previously, by default output was written only to file
889 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
890 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
895 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
896 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
897 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
898 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
900 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
901 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
902 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
906 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
907 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
908 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
909 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
910 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
912 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
913 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
916 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
917 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
918 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
919 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
921 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
922 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
923 longer needed, or supported.
925 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
926 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
927 no longer needed, or supported.
931 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
932 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
933 is no longer needed, or supported.
935 Command language changes:
937 * The following commands are new:
939 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
940 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
941 types of foreign data.
943 - CD, to change the current directory.
945 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
947 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
950 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
952 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
954 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
957 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
959 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
961 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
963 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
965 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
968 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
970 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
971 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
972 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
974 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
975 re-implemented in a later release:
977 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
983 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
984 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
985 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
987 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
988 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
990 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
992 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
993 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
994 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
995 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
998 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
999 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
1000 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
1002 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
1003 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1004 reassigned to new files.
1006 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1007 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1008 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1009 documentation on those particular commands.
1011 Data access changes:
1013 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1014 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1015 format of these files.
1017 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1018 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1019 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1020 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1023 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1024 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1025 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1026 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1027 native floating point format.
1029 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1030 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1031 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1033 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1034 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1036 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1037 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1038 subcommands has been added.
1040 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1041 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1042 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1045 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1046 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1048 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1049 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1050 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1054 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1055 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1058 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1059 have been extensively revised and improved.
1061 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1064 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1066 Changes in build dependencies:
1068 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1071 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1072 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1073 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1075 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1077 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1079 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1081 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1089 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1090 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1093 * T-TEST (re-written).
1095 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1096 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1099 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1100 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1101 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1102 third-party software.
1104 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1106 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1109 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1111 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1112 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1113 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1115 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1116 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1118 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1119 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1121 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1122 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1123 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1126 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1127 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1130 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1133 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1136 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1137 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1138 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1140 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1142 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1144 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1147 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1148 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1151 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1152 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1154 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1158 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1161 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1162 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1164 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1165 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1167 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1170 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1173 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1176 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1177 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1178 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1180 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1182 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1184 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1188 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1190 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1194 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1195 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1197 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1199 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1201 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1205 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1207 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1209 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1210 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1212 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1213 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1215 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1216 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1217 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1218 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1220 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1221 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1222 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1224 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1225 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1226 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1228 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1229 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1230 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1233 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1234 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1237 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1238 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1240 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1241 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1242 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1244 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1245 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1246 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1248 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1249 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1250 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1253 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1254 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1257 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1258 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1260 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1263 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1264 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1265 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1267 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1268 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1272 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1273 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1275 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1276 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1277 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1279 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1281 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1285 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1287 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1289 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1290 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1292 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1294 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1295 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1297 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1298 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1300 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1301 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1304 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1305 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1310 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1311 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1312 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1314 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1318 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1320 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1321 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1324 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1325 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1326 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1328 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1330 Procedures now implemented:
1331 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1333 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1336 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1337 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1348 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1349 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1352 New command-line features:
1353 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1354 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1355 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1356 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1357 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1359 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1361 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1363 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1365 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1366 reinstall your `devices' file.
1368 New output driver for HTML.
1370 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1372 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1374 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1375 * PSPP system file format
1376 * PSPP portable file format
1377 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1380 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1381 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1383 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1385 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1386 versions, please see ONEWS.
1388 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1389 Copyright information:
1391 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1392 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1393 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1394 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1396 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1397 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1398 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1402 version-control: never