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 2.0.0 to 2.0.1:
12 * Translation updates.
14 Changes from 1.6.2 to 2.0.0:
16 * The CTABLES command is now implemented.
18 * FREQUENCIES now honors the LAYERED setting on SPLIT FILE.
22 - New aggregation functions CGT, CLT, CIN, and COUT.
24 - Break variables are now optional.
26 * ADD FILES, MATCH FILES, and UPDATE now allow string variables with
27 the same name to have different widths.
29 * CROSSTABS now calculates significance of Pearson and Spearman
30 correlations in symmetric measures.
32 * DISPLAY MACROS is now implemented.
34 * SET SUMMARY is now implemented.
36 * SHOW ENVIRONMENT is now implemented.
38 * Removed the MODIFY VARS command, which is not in SPSS.
40 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
41 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
43 * The pspp-dump-sav program is no longer installed by default.
45 * Improved the search options in the syntax editor.
47 * Localisations for the ar (Arabic) and ta (Tamil) locales have been
48 added. Other translations have been updated.
50 * Journaling is now enabled by default when PSPP or PSPPIRE is
51 started interactively. In PSPPIRE, use Edit|Options to override
54 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
56 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
57 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
58 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
62 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
64 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
65 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
67 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
69 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
71 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
72 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
73 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
75 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
78 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
79 contrasts tests has been corrected.
81 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
83 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
84 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
86 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
87 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
88 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
90 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
91 graphical output examples and screenshots.
93 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
98 - Perl is no longer required to build.
100 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
101 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
104 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
106 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
108 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
110 * Output improvements:
112 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
114 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
115 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
117 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
118 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
120 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
121 as a "table of contents" for the file.
123 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
125 * New features in pspp-output:
127 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
129 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
131 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
135 * Translation updates.
137 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
139 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
141 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
143 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
144 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
145 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
147 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
148 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
149 which is surprising to some users.
151 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
152 use to save the contents of its output editor:
154 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
156 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
158 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
159 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
160 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
163 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
164 invalid syntax has been fixed.
166 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
168 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
169 rarely printed on paper.
171 * pspp-convert improvements:
173 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
174 encrypted file's password.
176 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
178 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
179 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
182 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
184 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
186 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
187 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
189 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
190 one or more plots are requested.
192 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
193 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
195 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
196 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
197 from the cluster centre to the active file.
199 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
201 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
204 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
206 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
207 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
210 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
215 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
219 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
221 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
223 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
227 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
229 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
231 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
232 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
234 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
235 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
237 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
239 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
240 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
242 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
244 * Translation updates.
246 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
248 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
249 regression through the origin.
251 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
253 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
255 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
257 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
259 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
262 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
263 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
265 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
267 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
268 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
271 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
273 * Graphical user interface changes:
275 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
277 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
279 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
281 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
283 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
285 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
287 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
289 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
292 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
295 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
296 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
297 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
299 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
300 Now it can paste multiple variables.
302 * Bug fixes, including the following:
304 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
305 type variable as group variable.
307 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
308 superimposed with the currently selected one.
310 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
313 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
315 * Bug fixes, including the following:
317 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
320 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
323 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
325 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
327 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
328 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
329 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
330 as to produce better separated clusters.
332 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
334 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
336 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
337 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
339 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
341 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
342 somewhat different look and feel.
344 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
346 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
347 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
349 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
350 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
351 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
352 and will generate syntax accordingly.
354 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
355 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
356 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
363 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
365 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
367 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
369 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
371 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
372 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
373 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
374 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
376 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
378 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
379 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
382 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
383 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
384 default and only supported behavior.
386 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
389 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
390 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
391 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
393 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
396 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
398 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
400 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
402 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
403 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
404 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
405 format is not supported.
407 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
410 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
411 when an empty dataset was presented.
413 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
414 scatterplots and histograms.
416 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
417 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
418 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
419 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
421 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
423 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
425 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
427 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
428 introduced in 0.8.2.)
430 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
431 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
434 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
435 subcommand has been corrected.
437 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
440 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
443 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
445 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
447 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
448 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
449 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
451 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
452 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
454 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
455 by the current FILTER settings.
457 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
459 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
460 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
462 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
465 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
466 encoding to be selected.
468 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
470 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
471 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
473 * System file related improvements:
475 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
476 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
479 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
480 character encoding of string data in the system file.
482 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
483 truncation (bug #41863).
485 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
486 read successfully (bug #41475).
488 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
490 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
491 of fully saturated primaries.
493 * Support for new system file variants:
495 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
496 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
497 files. (The older format is still supported.)
499 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
500 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
501 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
502 do not directly read or write this format.
504 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
505 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
507 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
508 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
509 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
510 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
512 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
513 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
514 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
515 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
519 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
521 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
527 * Changes to existing commands:
529 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
530 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
532 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
534 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
536 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
537 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
538 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
540 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
544 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
546 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
549 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
552 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
558 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
565 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
569 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
573 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
575 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
577 * Changes to existing commands:
579 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
581 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
583 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
585 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
586 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
587 applied to the included file.
589 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
591 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
593 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
596 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
599 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
601 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
602 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
603 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
605 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
606 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
608 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
611 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
614 * Other language changes:
616 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
617 extension, which is no longer supported.
619 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
620 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
621 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
622 expressed as U'1D11E'.
624 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
626 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
627 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
628 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
629 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
631 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
633 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
635 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
638 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
639 see different parts of a large data file.
641 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
642 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
643 clicking on an icon will open the file.
645 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
646 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
650 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
651 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
652 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
653 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
655 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
656 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
657 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
660 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
661 characters, including double-width characters and combining
664 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
666 - The HTML output is much improved.
668 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
669 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
670 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
671 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
672 of their intended syntax mode.
674 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
677 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
678 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
679 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
680 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
681 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
682 one the system file uses.
684 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
687 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
688 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
689 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
691 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
694 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
696 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
700 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
702 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
704 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
705 translationproject.org.
707 * Statistical bug fixes:
709 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
712 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
713 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
714 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
716 * Build fixes and changes:
718 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
720 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
721 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
723 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
725 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
727 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
728 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
729 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
732 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
734 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
736 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
737 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
738 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
741 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
743 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
744 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
746 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
748 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
749 with spaces as expected.
751 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
752 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
753 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
755 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
757 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
759 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
760 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
761 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
762 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
764 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
765 that does not exist (bug #24569).
767 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
770 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
772 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
774 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
776 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
777 instead of the current directory, to better match user
780 - Some data editor fixes.
784 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
786 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
788 * Statistical bug fixes:
790 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
791 regression output (bug #23567).
793 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
795 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
797 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
799 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
801 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
803 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
804 disk accesses on modern machines.
808 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
811 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
814 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
815 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
818 * Build fixes and changes:
820 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
821 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
823 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
826 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
827 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
829 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
830 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
832 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
834 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
836 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
837 found them too poor to be useful.
839 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
841 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
842 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
844 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
845 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
846 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
847 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
850 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
853 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
857 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
858 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
859 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
861 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
862 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
863 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
865 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
866 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
868 Statistical procedure changes:
870 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
871 via least-squares estimation.
873 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
874 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
876 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
879 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
880 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
882 User interface changes:
884 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
885 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
887 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
890 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
891 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
892 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
895 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
896 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
897 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
898 executed as if `+' had been specified.
900 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
901 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
902 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
904 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
905 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
906 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
907 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
912 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
913 manual for a full description of the available options.
915 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
916 "make install" will do this for you.
918 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
919 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
921 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
922 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
923 Previously, by default output was written only to file
924 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
925 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
930 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
931 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
932 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
933 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
935 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
936 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
937 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
941 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
942 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
943 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
944 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
945 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
947 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
948 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
951 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
952 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
953 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
954 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
956 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
957 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
958 longer needed, or supported.
960 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
961 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
962 no longer needed, or supported.
966 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
967 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
968 is no longer needed, or supported.
970 Command language changes:
972 * The following commands are new:
974 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
975 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
976 types of foreign data.
978 - CD, to change the current directory.
980 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
982 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
985 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
987 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
989 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
992 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
994 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
996 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
998 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
1000 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
1003 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
1005 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
1006 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
1007 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
1009 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
1010 re-implemented in a later release:
1012 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1018 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
1019 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
1020 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
1022 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
1023 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
1025 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
1027 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
1028 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
1029 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
1030 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
1033 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
1034 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
1035 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
1037 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
1038 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1039 reassigned to new files.
1041 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1042 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1043 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1044 documentation on those particular commands.
1046 Data access changes:
1048 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1049 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1050 format of these files.
1052 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1053 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1054 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1055 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1058 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1059 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1060 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1061 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1062 native floating point format.
1064 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1065 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1066 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1068 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1069 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1071 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1072 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1073 subcommands has been added.
1075 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1076 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1077 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1080 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1081 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1083 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1084 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1085 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1089 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1090 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1093 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1094 have been extensively revised and improved.
1096 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1099 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1101 Changes in build dependencies:
1103 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1106 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1107 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1108 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1110 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1112 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1114 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1116 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1124 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1125 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1128 * T-TEST (re-written).
1130 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1131 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1134 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1135 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1136 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1137 third-party software.
1139 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1141 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1144 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1146 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1147 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1148 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1150 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1151 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1153 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1154 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1156 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1157 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1158 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1161 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1162 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1165 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1168 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1171 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1172 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1173 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1175 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1177 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1179 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1182 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1183 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1186 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1187 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1189 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1193 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1196 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1197 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1199 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1200 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1202 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1205 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1208 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1211 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1212 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1213 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1215 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1217 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1219 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1223 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1225 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1229 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1230 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1232 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1234 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1236 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1240 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1242 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1244 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1245 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1247 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1248 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1250 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1251 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1252 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1253 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1255 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1256 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1257 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1259 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1260 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1261 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1263 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1264 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1265 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1268 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1269 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1272 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1273 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1275 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1276 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1277 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1279 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1280 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1281 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1283 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1284 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1285 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1288 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1289 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1292 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1293 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1295 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1298 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1299 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1300 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1302 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1303 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1307 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1308 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1310 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1311 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1312 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1314 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1316 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1320 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1322 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1324 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1325 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1327 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1329 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1330 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1332 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1333 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1335 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1336 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1339 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1340 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1345 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1346 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1347 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1349 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1353 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1355 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1356 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1359 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1360 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1361 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1363 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1365 Procedures now implemented:
1366 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1368 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1371 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1372 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1383 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1384 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1387 New command-line features:
1388 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1389 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1390 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1391 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1392 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1394 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1396 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1398 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1400 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1401 reinstall your `devices' file.
1403 New output driver for HTML.
1405 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1407 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1409 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1410 * PSPP system file format
1411 * PSPP portable file format
1412 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1415 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1416 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1418 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1420 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1421 versions, please see ONEWS.
1423 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1424 Copyright information:
1426 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1427 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1428 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1429 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1431 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1432 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1433 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1437 version-control: never