1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send PSPP bug reports to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.
7 Changes from 1.4.1 to 1.5.2:
9 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
10 contrasts tests has been corrected.
12 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
14 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
15 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
17 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
18 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
19 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
21 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
22 graphical output examples and screenshots.
24 * Output improvements:
26 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
28 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
29 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
31 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
32 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
34 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
35 as a "table of contents" for the file.
37 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
39 * New features in pspp-output:
41 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
43 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
45 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
49 * Translation updates.
51 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
53 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
55 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
57 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
58 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
59 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
61 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
62 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
63 which is surprising to some users.
65 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
66 use to save the contents of its output editor:
68 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
70 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
72 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
73 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
74 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
77 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
78 invalid syntax has been fixed.
80 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
82 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
83 rarely printed on paper.
85 * pspp-convert improvements:
87 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
88 encrypted file's password.
90 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
92 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
93 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
96 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
98 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
100 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
101 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
103 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
104 one or more plots are requested.
106 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
107 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
109 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
110 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
111 from the cluster centre to the active file.
113 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
115 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
118 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
120 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
121 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
124 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
129 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
133 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
135 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
137 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
141 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
143 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
145 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
146 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
148 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
149 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
151 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
153 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
154 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
156 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
158 * Translation updates.
160 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
162 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
163 regression through the origin.
165 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
167 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
169 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
171 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
173 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
176 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
177 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
179 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
181 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
182 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
185 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
187 * Graphical user interface changes:
189 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
191 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
193 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
195 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
197 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
199 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
201 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
203 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
206 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
209 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
210 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
211 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
213 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
214 Now it can paste multiple variables.
216 * Bug fixes, including the following:
218 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
219 type variable as group variable.
221 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
222 superimposed with the currently selected one.
224 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
227 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
229 * Bug fixes, including the following:
231 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
234 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
237 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
239 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
241 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
242 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
243 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
244 as to produce better separated clusters.
246 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
248 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
250 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
251 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
253 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
255 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
256 somewhat different look and feel.
258 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
260 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
261 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
263 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
264 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
265 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
266 and will generate syntax accordingly.
268 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
269 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
270 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
277 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
279 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
281 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
283 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
285 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
286 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
287 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
288 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
290 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
292 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
293 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
296 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
297 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
298 default and only supported behavior.
300 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
303 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
304 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
305 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
307 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
310 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
312 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
314 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
316 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
317 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
318 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
319 format is not supported.
321 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
324 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
325 when an empty dataset was presented.
327 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
328 scatterplots and histograms.
330 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
331 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
332 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
333 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
335 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
337 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
339 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
341 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
342 introduced in 0.8.2.)
344 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
345 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
348 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
349 subcommand has been corrected.
351 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
354 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
357 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
359 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
361 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
362 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
363 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
365 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
366 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
368 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
369 by the current FILTER settings.
371 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
373 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
374 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
376 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
379 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
380 encoding to be selected.
382 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
384 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
385 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
387 * System file related improvements:
389 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
390 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
393 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
394 character encoding of string data in the system file.
396 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
397 truncation (bug #41863).
399 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
400 read successfully (bug #41475).
402 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
404 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
405 of fully saturated primaries.
407 * Support for new system file variants:
409 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
410 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
411 files. (The older format is still supported.)
413 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
414 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
415 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
416 do not directly read or write this format.
418 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
419 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
421 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
422 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
423 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
424 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
426 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
427 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
428 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
429 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
433 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
435 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
441 * Changes to existing commands:
443 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
444 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
446 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
448 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
450 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
451 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
452 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
454 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
458 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
460 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
463 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
466 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
472 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
479 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
483 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
487 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
489 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
491 * Changes to existing commands:
493 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
495 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
497 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
499 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
500 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
501 applied to the included file.
503 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
505 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
507 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
510 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
513 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
515 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
516 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
517 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
519 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
520 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
522 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
525 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
528 * Other language changes:
530 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
531 extension, which is no longer supported.
533 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
534 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
535 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
536 expressed as U'1D11E'.
538 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
540 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
541 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
542 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
543 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
545 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
547 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
549 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
552 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
553 see different parts of a large data file.
555 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
556 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
557 clicking on an icon will open the file.
559 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
560 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
564 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
565 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
566 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
567 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
569 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
570 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
571 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
574 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
575 characters, including double-width characters and combining
578 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
580 - The HTML output is much improved.
582 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
583 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
584 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
585 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
586 of their intended syntax mode.
588 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
591 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
592 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
593 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
594 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
595 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
596 one the system file uses.
598 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
601 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
602 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
603 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
605 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
608 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
610 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
614 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
616 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
618 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
619 translationproject.org.
621 * Statistical bug fixes:
623 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
626 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
627 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
628 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
630 * Build fixes and changes:
632 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
634 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
635 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
637 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
639 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
641 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
642 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
643 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
646 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
648 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
650 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
651 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
652 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
655 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
657 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
658 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
660 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
662 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
663 with spaces as expected.
665 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
666 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
667 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
669 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
671 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
673 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
674 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
675 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
676 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
678 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
679 that does not exist (bug #24569).
681 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
684 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
686 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
688 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
690 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
691 instead of the current directory, to better match user
694 - Some data editor fixes.
698 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
700 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
702 * Statistical bug fixes:
704 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
705 regression output (bug #23567).
707 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
709 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
711 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
713 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
715 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
717 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
718 disk accesses on modern machines.
722 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
725 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
728 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
729 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
732 * Build fixes and changes:
734 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
735 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
737 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
740 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
741 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
743 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
744 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
746 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
748 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
750 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
751 found them too poor to be useful.
753 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
755 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
756 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
758 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
759 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
760 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
761 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
764 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
767 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
771 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
772 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
773 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
775 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
776 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
777 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
779 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
780 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
782 Statistical procedure changes:
784 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
785 via least-squares estimation.
787 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
788 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
790 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
793 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
794 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
796 User interface changes:
798 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
799 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
801 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
804 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
805 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
806 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
809 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
810 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
811 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
812 executed as if `+' had been specified.
814 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
815 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
816 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
818 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
819 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
820 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
821 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
826 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
827 manual for a full description of the available options.
829 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
830 "make install" will do this for you.
832 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
833 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
835 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
836 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
837 Previously, by default output was written only to file
838 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
839 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
844 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
845 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
846 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
847 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
849 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
850 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
851 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
855 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
856 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
857 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
858 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
859 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
861 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
862 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
865 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
866 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
867 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
868 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
870 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
871 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
872 longer needed, or supported.
874 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
875 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
876 no longer needed, or supported.
880 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
881 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
882 is no longer needed, or supported.
884 Command language changes:
886 * The following commands are new:
888 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
889 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
890 types of foreign data.
892 - CD, to change the current directory.
894 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
896 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
899 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
901 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
903 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
906 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
908 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
910 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
912 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
914 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
917 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
919 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
920 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
921 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
923 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
924 re-implemented in a later release:
926 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
932 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
933 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
934 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
936 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
937 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
939 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
941 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
942 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
943 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
944 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
947 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
948 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
949 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
951 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
952 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
953 reassigned to new files.
955 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
956 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
957 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
958 documentation on those particular commands.
962 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
963 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
964 format of these files.
966 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
967 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
968 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
969 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
972 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
973 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
974 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
975 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
976 native floating point format.
978 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
979 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
980 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
982 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
983 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
985 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
986 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
987 subcommands has been added.
989 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
990 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
991 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
994 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
995 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
997 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
998 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
999 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1003 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1004 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1007 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1008 have been extensively revised and improved.
1010 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1013 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1015 Changes in build dependencies:
1017 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1020 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1021 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1022 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1024 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1026 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1028 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1030 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1038 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1039 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1042 * T-TEST (re-written).
1044 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1045 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1048 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1049 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1050 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1051 third-party software.
1053 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1055 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1058 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1060 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1061 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1062 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1064 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1065 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1067 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1068 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1070 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1071 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1072 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1075 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1076 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1079 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1082 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1085 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1086 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1087 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1089 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1091 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1093 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1096 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1097 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1100 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1101 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1103 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1107 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1110 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1111 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1113 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1114 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1116 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1119 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1122 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1125 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1126 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1127 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1129 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1131 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1133 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1137 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1139 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1143 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1144 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1146 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1148 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1150 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1154 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1156 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1158 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1159 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1161 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1162 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1164 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1165 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1166 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1167 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1169 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1170 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1171 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1173 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1174 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1175 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1177 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1178 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1179 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1182 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1183 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1186 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1187 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1189 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1190 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1191 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1193 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1194 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1195 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1197 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1198 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1199 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1202 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1203 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1206 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1207 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1209 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1212 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1213 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1214 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1216 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1217 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1221 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1222 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1224 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1225 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1226 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1228 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1230 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1234 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1236 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1238 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1239 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1241 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1243 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1244 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1246 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1247 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1249 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1250 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1253 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1254 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1259 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1260 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1261 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1263 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1267 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1269 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1270 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1273 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1274 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1275 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1277 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1279 Procedures now implemented:
1280 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1282 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1285 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1286 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1297 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1298 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1301 New command-line features:
1302 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1303 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1304 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1305 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1306 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1308 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1310 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1312 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1314 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1315 reinstall your `devices' file.
1317 New output driver for HTML.
1319 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1321 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1323 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1324 * PSPP system file format
1325 * PSPP portable file format
1326 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1329 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1330 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1332 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1334 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1335 versions, please see ONEWS.
1337 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1338 Copyright information:
1340 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1341 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1342 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1343 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1345 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1346 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1347 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1351 version-control: never