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.
16 - New aggregation functions CGT, CLT, CIN, and COUT.
18 - Break variables are now optional.
20 * Removed the MODIFY VARS command, which is not in SPSS.
22 * Building from a Git repository, which previously required GIMP, now
23 requires rsvg-convert from librsvg2 instead.
25 * The pspp-dump-sav program is no longer installed by default.
27 Changes from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2:
29 * Previously, numeric variables defaulted to "scale" measurement
30 level. Now, the default is "unknown", with a better guess chosen
31 based on heuristics the first time the data is read.
35 Changes from 1.6.0 to 1.6.1:
37 * The SET command now supports LEADZERO for controlling output of a
38 leading zero in F, COMMA, and DOT format.
40 * Bug fixes and translation updates.
42 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.6.0:
44 * In the Kruskal-Wallis test, a misleading result could occur
45 if the lower bound specified by the user was in fact higher
46 than the upper bound specified. This has been fixed.
48 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
51 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
52 contrasts tests has been corrected.
54 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
56 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
57 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
59 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
60 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
61 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
63 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
64 graphical output examples and screenshots.
66 * New command SHOW SYSTEM to easily print system information useful
71 - Perl is no longer required to build.
73 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
74 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
77 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
79 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
81 - gtksourceview 4.x is now supported (3.x also remains supported).
83 * Output improvements:
85 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
87 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
88 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
90 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
91 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
93 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
94 as a "table of contents" for the file.
96 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
98 * New features in pspp-output:
100 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
102 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
104 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
108 * Translation updates.
110 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
112 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
114 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
116 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
117 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
118 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
120 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
121 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
122 which is surprising to some users.
124 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
125 use to save the contents of its output editor:
127 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
129 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
131 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
132 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
133 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
136 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
137 invalid syntax has been fixed.
139 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
141 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
142 rarely printed on paper.
144 * pspp-convert improvements:
146 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
147 encrypted file's password.
149 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
151 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
152 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
155 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
157 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
159 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
160 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
162 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
163 one or more plots are requested.
165 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
166 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
168 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
169 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
170 from the cluster centre to the active file.
172 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
174 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
177 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
179 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
180 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
183 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
188 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
192 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
194 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
196 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
200 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
202 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
204 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
205 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
207 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
208 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
210 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
212 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
213 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
215 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
217 * Translation updates.
219 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
221 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
222 regression through the origin.
224 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
226 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
228 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
230 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
232 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
235 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
236 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
238 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
240 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
241 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
244 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
246 * Graphical user interface changes:
248 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
250 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
252 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
254 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
256 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
258 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
260 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
262 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
265 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
268 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
269 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
270 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
272 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
273 Now it can paste multiple variables.
275 * Bug fixes, including the following:
277 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
278 type variable as group variable.
280 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
281 superimposed with the currently selected one.
283 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
286 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
288 * Bug fixes, including the following:
290 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
293 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
296 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
298 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
300 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
301 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
302 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
303 as to produce better separated clusters.
305 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
307 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
309 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
310 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
312 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
314 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
315 somewhat different look and feel.
317 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
319 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
320 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
322 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
323 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
324 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
325 and will generate syntax accordingly.
327 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
328 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
329 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
336 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
338 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
340 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
342 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
344 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
345 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
346 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
347 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
349 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
351 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
352 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
355 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
356 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
357 default and only supported behavior.
359 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
362 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
363 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
364 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
366 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
369 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
371 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
373 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
375 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
376 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
377 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
378 format is not supported.
380 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
383 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
384 when an empty dataset was presented.
386 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
387 scatterplots and histograms.
389 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
390 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
391 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
392 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
394 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
396 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
398 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
400 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
401 introduced in 0.8.2.)
403 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
404 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
407 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
408 subcommand has been corrected.
410 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
413 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
416 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
418 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
420 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
421 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
422 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
424 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
425 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
427 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
428 by the current FILTER settings.
430 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
432 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
433 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
435 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
438 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
439 encoding to be selected.
441 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
443 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
444 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
446 * System file related improvements:
448 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
449 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
452 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
453 character encoding of string data in the system file.
455 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
456 truncation (bug #41863).
458 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
459 read successfully (bug #41475).
461 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
463 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
464 of fully saturated primaries.
466 * Support for new system file variants:
468 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
469 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
470 files. (The older format is still supported.)
472 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
473 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
474 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
475 do not directly read or write this format.
477 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
478 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
480 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
481 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
482 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
483 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
485 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
486 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
487 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
488 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
492 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
494 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
500 * Changes to existing commands:
502 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
503 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
505 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
507 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
509 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
510 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
511 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
513 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
517 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
519 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
522 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
525 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
531 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
538 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
542 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
546 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
548 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
550 * Changes to existing commands:
552 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
554 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
556 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
558 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
559 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
560 applied to the included file.
562 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
564 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
566 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
569 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
572 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
574 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
575 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
576 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
578 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
579 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
581 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
584 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
587 * Other language changes:
589 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
590 extension, which is no longer supported.
592 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
593 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
594 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
595 expressed as U'1D11E'.
597 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
599 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
600 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
601 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
602 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
604 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
606 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
608 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
611 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
612 see different parts of a large data file.
614 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
615 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
616 clicking on an icon will open the file.
618 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
619 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
623 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
624 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
625 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
626 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
628 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
629 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
630 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
633 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
634 characters, including double-width characters and combining
637 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
639 - The HTML output is much improved.
641 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
642 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
643 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
644 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
645 of their intended syntax mode.
647 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
650 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
651 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
652 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
653 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
654 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
655 one the system file uses.
657 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
660 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
661 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
662 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
664 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
667 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
669 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
673 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
675 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
677 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
678 translationproject.org.
680 * Statistical bug fixes:
682 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
685 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
686 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
687 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
689 * Build fixes and changes:
691 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
693 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
694 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
696 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
698 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
700 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
701 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
702 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
705 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
707 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
709 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
710 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
711 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
714 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
716 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
717 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
719 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
721 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
722 with spaces as expected.
724 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
725 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
726 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
728 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
730 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
732 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
733 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
734 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
735 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
737 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
738 that does not exist (bug #24569).
740 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
743 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
745 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
747 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
749 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
750 instead of the current directory, to better match user
753 - Some data editor fixes.
757 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
759 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
761 * Statistical bug fixes:
763 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
764 regression output (bug #23567).
766 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
768 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
770 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
772 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
774 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
776 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
777 disk accesses on modern machines.
781 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
784 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
787 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
788 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
791 * Build fixes and changes:
793 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
794 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
796 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
799 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
800 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
802 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
803 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
805 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
807 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
809 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
810 found them too poor to be useful.
812 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
814 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
815 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
817 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
818 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
819 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
820 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
823 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
826 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
830 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
831 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
832 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
834 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
835 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
836 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
838 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
839 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
841 Statistical procedure changes:
843 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
844 via least-squares estimation.
846 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
847 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
849 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
852 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
853 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
855 User interface changes:
857 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
858 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
860 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
863 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
864 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
865 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
868 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
869 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
870 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
871 executed as if `+' had been specified.
873 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
874 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
875 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
877 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
878 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
879 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
880 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
885 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
886 manual for a full description of the available options.
888 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
889 "make install" will do this for you.
891 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
892 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
894 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
895 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
896 Previously, by default output was written only to file
897 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
898 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
903 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
904 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
905 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
906 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
908 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
909 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
910 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
914 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
915 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
916 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
917 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
918 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
920 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
921 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
924 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
925 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
926 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
927 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
929 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
930 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
931 longer needed, or supported.
933 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
934 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
935 no longer needed, or supported.
939 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
940 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
941 is no longer needed, or supported.
943 Command language changes:
945 * The following commands are new:
947 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
948 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
949 types of foreign data.
951 - CD, to change the current directory.
953 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
955 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
958 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
960 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
962 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
965 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
967 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
969 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
971 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
973 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
976 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
978 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
979 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
980 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
982 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
983 re-implemented in a later release:
985 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
991 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
992 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
993 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
995 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
996 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
998 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
1000 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
1001 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
1002 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
1003 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
1006 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
1007 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
1008 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
1010 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
1011 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
1012 reassigned to new files.
1014 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
1015 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
1016 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
1017 documentation on those particular commands.
1019 Data access changes:
1021 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
1022 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
1023 format of these files.
1025 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
1026 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
1027 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
1028 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
1031 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
1032 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
1033 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
1034 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
1035 native floating point format.
1037 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
1038 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
1039 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
1041 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
1042 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1044 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1045 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1046 subcommands has been added.
1048 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1049 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1050 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1053 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1054 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1056 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1057 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1058 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1062 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1063 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1066 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1067 have been extensively revised and improved.
1069 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1072 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1074 Changes in build dependencies:
1076 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1079 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1080 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1081 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1083 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1085 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1087 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1089 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1097 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1098 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1101 * T-TEST (re-written).
1103 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1104 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1107 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1108 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1109 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1110 third-party software.
1112 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1114 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1117 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1119 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1120 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1121 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1123 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1124 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1126 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1127 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1129 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1130 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1131 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1134 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1135 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1138 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1141 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1144 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1145 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1146 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1148 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1150 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1152 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1155 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1156 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1159 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1160 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1162 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1166 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1169 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1170 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1172 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1173 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1175 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1178 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1181 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1184 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1185 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1186 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1188 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1190 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1192 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1196 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1198 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1202 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1203 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1205 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1207 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1209 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1213 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1215 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1217 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1218 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1220 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1221 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1223 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1224 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1225 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1226 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1228 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1229 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1230 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1232 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1233 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1234 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1236 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1237 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1238 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1241 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1242 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1245 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1246 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1248 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1249 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1250 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1252 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1253 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1254 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1256 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1257 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1258 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1261 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1262 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1265 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1266 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1268 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1271 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1272 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1273 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1275 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1276 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1280 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1281 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1283 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1284 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1285 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1287 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1289 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1293 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1295 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1297 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1298 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1300 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1302 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1303 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1305 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1306 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1308 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1309 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1312 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1313 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1318 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1319 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1320 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1322 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1326 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1328 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1329 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1332 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1333 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1334 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1336 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1338 Procedures now implemented:
1339 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1341 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1344 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1345 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1356 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1357 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1360 New command-line features:
1361 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1362 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1363 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1364 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1365 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1367 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1369 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1371 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1373 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1374 reinstall your `devices' file.
1376 New output driver for HTML.
1378 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1380 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1382 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1383 * PSPP system file format
1384 * PSPP portable file format
1385 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1388 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1389 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1391 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1393 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1394 versions, please see ONEWS.
1396 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1397 Copyright information:
1399 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1400 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1401 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1402 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1404 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1405 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1406 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1410 version-control: never