1 PSPP NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996-2000, 2008-2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 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 1.5.3:
9 * The DEFINE, MATRIX, MCONVERT, and MATRIX DATA commands are now
12 * An error in the displayed signficance of oneway anova
13 contrasts tests has been corrected.
15 * Added Drag-N-Drop in output view.
17 * The Explore GUI dialog supports the "Plots" subdialog. Boxplots, Q-Q Plots
18 and Spreadlevel plots are now also available via the GUI.
20 * The graphical user interface for importing spreadsheets has been improved.
21 The new interface provides the user with a preview of the data to be imported
22 and interactive methods to select the desired ranges.
24 * The user manual, in its Info and HTML versions, now includes
25 graphical output examples and screenshots.
29 - Perl is no longer required to build.
31 - Build now requires Python 3.4 or later. (Building PSPP 1.4.0
32 also required Python, but it wasn't properly documented at the
35 - The Cairo and Pango libraries are now required.
37 - gettext 0.20 or later is now required.
39 * Output improvements:
41 - New drivers for output to TeX source files and to PNG files.
43 - Table output styles may now be set with the new option
44 --table-look and the new SET TLOOK command.
46 - New driver option "trim" to remove empty space from PDF,
47 PostScript, SVG, and PNG output files.
49 - The PDF output driver now adds an outline to allow PDF viewers to display
50 as a "table of contents" for the file.
52 - The HTML output driver has a new option "bare".
54 * New features in pspp-output:
56 - New --table-look and --nth-commands options.
58 - New get-table-look and convert-table-look commands.
60 Changes from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1:
64 * Translation updates.
66 * HTML output is now HTML5 instead of HTML4.0 Transitional.
68 * The HOST command has been reimplemented. It now supports TIMELIMIT.
70 Changes from 1.2.0 to 1.4.0:
72 * The file pspp-mode.el (the pspp-mode for Emacs) is no longer distributed
73 with PSPP. Instead, it can be installed directly in emacs and is available
74 from https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/pspp-mode.html
76 * The Find dialog box, when searching for numeric values, will match only
77 to the precision of the variable's print format. This avoids behaviour
78 which is surprising to some users.
80 * PSPP now supports the SPSS viewer (.spv) format that SPSS 16 and later
81 use to save the contents of its output editor:
83 - PSPP and PSPPIRE can write output to .spv files.
85 - The new utility pspp-output can convert .spv files to other formats.
87 - The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted .spv files. The
88 encrypted viewer file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
89 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
92 * A bug where the Data|Select Cases|Random Sample menu would generate
93 invalid syntax has been fixed.
95 * FREQUENCIES will emit a warning if one or more weight values are missing.
97 * Plain text output is no longer divided into pages, since it is now
98 rarely printed on paper.
100 * pspp-convert improvements:
102 - New "-a", "-l", "--password-list" options to search for an
103 encrypted file's password.
105 - New "--keep" and "--drop" options to output only selected variables.
107 - New "--recode", "--no-var-name", "--labels", "--print-formats",
108 "--decimal", "--delimiter", and "--qualifier" options to control
111 * Improvements to SAVE DATA COLLECTION support for MDD files.
113 * Bug fix for CVE-2018-20230.
115 * The /RENAME subcommand in SAVE TRANSLATE et al. has been extended
116 to support the syntax also accepted by other software.
118 * The EXAMINE command will now perform the Shapiro-Wilk test when
119 one or more plots are requested.
121 * The REGRESSION command now supports the /STATISTICS=TOL option which
122 outputs tolerance and variance inflation factor metrics for the data.
124 * The QUICK CLUSTER command now supports the /SAVE option which can
125 be used to save the cases' cluster membership and/or their distance
126 from the cluster centre to the active file.
128 * The MEANS command has been re-implemented.
130 * The GUI now has a sub-dialog for post-hoc tests of the oneway
133 * Gtk+3.22.0 or later must now be used when building.
135 * GRAPH: Categorical barcharts displaying percentages now show the
136 sub-category as a percentage of the primary category instead of the
139 * The Syntax Window now has a Find function to perform simple text
144 - The PRINT subcommand is now implemented.
148 Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.2.0:
150 * New experimental command SAVE DATA COLLECTION to save MDD files.
152 * MTIME and YMDHMS variable formats now supported.
156 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
158 - Gtk+3.18.0 or later must now be used when building.
160 - The code implementing the sheet rendering has been removed. Instead we
161 use a third party library: spread-sheet-widget.
163 * The "NOMISSING" keyword when generating syntax for piecharts in the
164 frequencies command was omitted. This has been corrected.
166 Changes from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1:
168 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-12958, CVE-2017-12959,
169 CVE-2017-12960, and CVE-2017-12961.
171 Changes from 0.11.0 to 1.0.0:
173 * Translation updates.
175 Changes from 0.10.2 to 0.11.0:
177 * The REGRESSION command now has a /ORIGIN subcommand to perform
178 regression through the origin.
180 * The FACTOR command can now analyse matrix files prepared with MATRIX DATA.
182 * The FACTOR command can now print the anti-image matrices.
184 * The MATRIX DATA command has been added.
186 * Some inappropriate properties in selection dialogs have been corrected.
188 * A bug which could cause the HTML driver to go into a tight loop
191 * An error in the FREQUENCIES procedure, where the word "Mean" was
192 printed when "Variance" was appropriate has been fixed.
194 * The ncurses library is no longer required or used.
196 * A bug where the Mann-Whitney test would give misleading results
197 if run on multiple variables and MISSING=ANALAYSIS was specified
200 * Gtk+3.14.5 or later must now be used when building.
202 * Graphical user interface changes:
204 ** There is a new menu: Edit|Options
206 ** The Non Parametric Statistics Menu has a new item: "K Independent Samples".
208 ** Dialog boxes can now be canceled using the <Escape> key.
210 * The AUTORECODE command now accepts an optional / before INTO.
212 * The short form of the VECTOR command can now create string variables.
214 * Bug fixes, including fixes for CVE-2017-10791 and CVE-2017-10792.
216 Changes from 0.10.1 to 0.10.2:
218 * CROSSTABS implements a new COUNT subcommand to round case or cell
221 * Help will be opened as HTML in default browser if yelp
224 * When plotting scatterplots with only one dataset (the simple case)
225 the colour used for the dataset is now black. The previous default
226 from the Tango palette was too faint to see easily.
228 * The varible info dialog could previously only paste a single variable.
229 Now it can paste multiple variables.
231 * Bug fixes, including the following:
233 - T-test with independent samples GUI crashed with string
234 type variable as group variable.
236 - The variable info dialog showed the previous selected variable
237 superimposed with the currently selected one.
239 - The GLM command did not properly deal with missing values. This
242 Changes from 0.10.0 to 0.10.1:
244 * Bug fixes, including the following:
246 - A bug where certain dialog boxes could not be properly populated
249 - Various commands have been hardened against errors when called
252 * Translation updates. Thanks to our translators!
254 Changes from 0.8.5 to 0.10.0:
256 * The QUICK CLUSTER command has a /PRINT subcommand which shows
257 the initial cluster centres and the final cluster membership of
258 each case. The clustering algorithm has also been updated, so
259 as to produce better separated clusters.
261 * A Russian localisation has been contributed.
263 * The GRAPH command now has a /BAR subcommand to draw barcharts.
265 * If the DECIMAL character is set to COMMA then the ',' character
266 will not be treated as a separator by DATA LIST.
268 * The graphical user interface (psppire) has been changed as follows:
270 - It now uses Gtk+ version 3 instead of version 2. Accordingly, it has a
271 somewhat different look and feel.
273 - There is now a Graphs menu to access the GRAPH command.
275 - The status of dialog box widgets are now preserved between calls
276 to the same dialog box for the same dataset.
278 - The dialog box for the Logistic Regression command will now
279 infer that string variables or any varible with a "measure"
280 of Nominal or Ordinal are to be treated as categorical variables
281 and will generate syntax accordingly.
283 * The pspp-convert utility can now decrypt encrypted syntax files.
284 The encrypted syntax file format is unacceptably insecure, so to
285 discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE do not directly read or write
292 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
294 - REPLACE, for search-and-replace of one string with another.
296 - STRUNC, to truncate a string and trim trailing spaces.
298 - MEDIAN, to compute the median of its arguments.
300 - The TRUNC function in expressions now supports additional arguments
301 for truncating to values other than integers and to indicate a level
302 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
303 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
305 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
307 - The correlation coefficient in the paired samples t-test
308 procedure is now correctly calculated when presented with
311 - The ESCAPE subcommand has been removed from GET DATA /TYPE=TXT.
312 For compatibility, the behavior that ESCAPE enabled is now the
313 default and only supported behavior.
315 - Rendering of the variable and data sheets in right-to-left locales
318 - The Mann-Whitney test, when run on a dataset containing values
319 of the group variable, other than those defining the test groups,
320 would incorrectly calculate the ranks. This has been corrected.
322 * The IMPORTCASES subcommand on GET DATA is now ignored, for
325 Changes from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5:
327 * The FREQUENCIES and CROSSTABS commands can now generate barcharts.
329 * The FACTOR command can now perform PROMAX rotations.
331 * SPSS/PC+ system files are now supported on GET and other commands
332 that read SPSS system files. The pspp-convert program can now read
333 SPSS/PC+ system files. Writing the obsolete SPSS/PC+ system file
334 format is not supported.
336 * SYSFILE INFO can now read SPSS/PC+ system files and SPSS portable
339 * FREQUENCIES: A bug was fixed where an assertion failure occurred
340 when an empty dataset was presented.
342 * The GRAPH command is now available. Initially it supports
343 scatterplots and histograms.
345 * The RND operator in expressions now supports additional operands
346 for rounding to values other than integers and to indicate a level
347 of rounding fuzz. The default rounding fuzz may now be controlled
348 and displayed with SET FUZZBITS and SHOW FUZZBITS, respectively.
350 Changes from 0.8.3 to 0.8.4:
352 * Formatting of SYSFILE INFO output was made easier to read.
354 * Bug fixes, including the following notable ones:
356 - FREQUENCIES works properly for string variables. (This bug was
357 introduced in 0.8.2.)
359 - CROSSTABS now correctly computes all of the measures that it
360 offers. Some measures have been removed because they were not
363 - The NPAR TESTS calculation of significance for the RUNS
364 subcommand has been corrected.
366 - Planned comparisons in ONEWAY ANOVA now correctly handle negative
369 - The COUNT command now correctly treats missing values as
372 - Conformance fixes to Open Document output format.
374 Changes from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3:
376 * Independent T-Tests displayed the standard error of the difference
377 and the confidence interval for the unequal variances case, where
378 the equal variances case should have been. This has been fixed.
380 * REGRESSION now recognises /STATISTICS=CI(x) which causes confidence
381 intervals for the coefficients to be printed.
383 * When DESCRIPTIVES calculates Z scores, it now omits cases filtered
384 by the current FILTER settings.
386 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
388 - Dialog boxes with source variable lists can now choose the sort
389 order; right click and select from the popup menu.
391 - File|Open now allows an encoding to be selected for opening
394 - File|Display Data File Information|External File... now allows an
395 encoding to be selected.
397 - A problem with the Means dialog has been resolved (bug #41433).
399 - Several problems related to the input of spreadsheets have been
400 fixed (bug #41657, #41620
402 * System file related improvements:
404 - With ENCODING="DETECT", SYSFILE INFO can now help the user to
405 pick an encoding for reading a system file that does not identify
408 - SYSFILE INFO now accepts an ENCODING subcommand to specify the
409 character encoding of string data in the system file.
411 - Variable labels over 255 bytes long are now accepted without
412 truncation (bug #41863).
414 - System files that contain duplicate variable names may now be
415 read successfully (bug #41475).
417 Changes from 0.8.1 to 0.8.2:
419 * Charts are now rendered with colours from the Tango palette instead
420 of fully saturated primaries.
422 * Support for new system file variants:
424 - PSPP can now read and write ZCOMPRESSED system files, which
425 compress data much more effectively than older "compressed"
426 files. (The older format is still supported.)
428 - PSPP can now decrypt encrypted system files, using the new
429 pspp-convert utility. The encrypted system file format is
430 unacceptably insecure, so to discourage its use PSPP and PSPPIRE
431 do not directly read or write this format.
433 * Missing values for long string variables are now read from and
434 written to system files in an SPSS-compatible fashion.
436 (Earlier versions of PSPP that supported missing values for long
437 string variables wrote them to system files in an SPSS-incompatible
438 way. To fix the problem, read the system file with this version of
439 PSPP and then save a new copy of it.)
441 * pspp-convert, a new standalone utility for converting SPSS system
442 and portable files to other formats, is now included. The initial
443 version supports comma-separated value files as output format.
444 pspp-convert can also decrypt encrypted system files.
448 - zlib is now a required dependency. (Previously it was optional.)
450 Changes from 0.8.0 to 0.8.1:
456 * Changes to existing commands:
458 - CROSSTABS: The requirement that one expected count must be less than five
459 before Fishers Exact Test will be reported has been removed.
461 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
463 - A new set of icons has been contributed.
465 - Syntax windows now parse syntax in "auto" mode, which in practice
466 should mean that both "batch" and "interactive" syntax now works,
467 instead of just "interactive" syntax.
469 - The variable pane of data windows now include a Role column.
473 - System files written by IBM SPSS 21 are now read without warnings.
475 - System files written by "VOXCO INTERVIEWER 4.3" are now read
478 - PSPPIRE should now more gracefully handle syntax files that contain
481 Changes from 0.6.2 to 0.8.0:
487 - DATAFILE ATTRIBUTES
494 - LOGISTIC REGRESSION
498 - PRESERVE and RESTORE
502 - SAVE TRANSLATE to CSV and tab-delimited files
504 - VARIABLE ATTRIBUTES
506 * Changes to existing commands:
508 - AUTORECODE has a new GROUP subcommand.
510 - CROSSTABS has been re-implemented to fix numerous bugs.
512 - EXAMINE: /MISSING=LISTWISE is now the default.
514 - DO REPEAT command has been reimplemented. Now, when DO REPEAT
515 contains an INCLUDE or INSERT command, substitutions are not
516 applied to the included file.
518 - FILE HANDLE has a new ENDS subcommand to select CR or CRLF new-lines.
520 - HOST has been updated to use more modern syntax.
522 - Most commands that work with data files now support a new
525 - MISSING VALUES can now assign missing values to long string
528 - ONEWAY: the POSTHOC subcommand is now implemented.
530 - The following new subcommands to NPAR TESTS have been implemented:
531 COCHRAN, FRIEDMAN, JONCKHEERE-TERPSTRA, KENDALL, KRUSKAL-WALLIS, MANN-WHITNEY,
532 MCNEMAR, SIGN, WILCOXON, and RUNS
534 - SET and SHOW no longer have ENDCMD, NULLINE, PROMPT, CPROMPT, and
535 DPROMPT subcommands. The defaults are now fixed values.
537 - SHOW now has a JOURNAL subcommand, to show the location of the
540 - VALUE LABELS can now assign value labels to long string
543 * Other language changes:
545 - The new DATASET commands replace the "scratch file" PSPP
546 extension, which is no longer supported.
548 - Strings may now include arbitrary Unicode code points specified
549 in hexadecimal, using the syntax U'hhhh'. For example, Unicode
550 code point U+1D11E, the musical G clef character, may be
551 expressed as U'1D11E'.
553 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
555 - In previous versions of PSPP, in a string expressed in
556 hexadecimal with X'hh' syntax, the hexadecimal digits expressed
557 bytes in the locale encoding. In this version of PSPP, X'hh'
558 syntax always expresses bytes in UTF-8 encoding.
560 See the "Tokens" section in the PSPP manual for more information.
562 * PSPPIRE graphical user interface improvements:
564 - Added support for non-ASCII characters in strings, labels and
567 - A "Split Window" function is available, which makes it easier to
568 see different parts of a large data file.
570 - Data files can now be opened by specifing their name as the first
571 argument. This means that on a properly configured desktop, double
572 clicking on an icon will open the file.
574 - Foreign formats, such as Gnumeric, OpenDocument and CSV can be imported
575 via using an "intelligent" application assistant dialog.
579 - The new "cairo" output driver supports output in PostScript, PDF,
580 and SVG formats. Its functionality is a superset of that of the
581 "postscript" driver, which has been removed. You must have Cairo
582 and Pango installed to build the "cairo" driver.
584 - Charts are now produced with Cairo and Pango, instead of libplot.
585 Without them, the new graphing features will not work. If you do
586 not have Cairo and Pango installed, you must run `configure' with
589 - The plain text output driver now properly supports multibyte UTF-8
590 characters, including double-width characters and combining
593 - Output to OpenDocument format is now supported.
595 - The HTML output is much improved.
597 * The "pspp" program has a new option --batch (or -b) that selects
598 "batch" syntax mode. In previous versions of PSPP this syntax mode
599 was the default. Now a new "auto" syntax mode is the default. In
600 "auto" mode, PSPP interprets most syntax files correctly regardless
601 of their intended syntax mode.
603 See the "Syntax Variants" section in the PSPP manual for more
606 * The "pspp" program has a new option --syntax-encoding that
607 specifies the encoding for syntax files listed on the command line,
608 as well as the default encoding for syntax files included with
609 INCLUDE or INSERT. The default is to accept the system locale
610 encoding, UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32, automatically detecting which
611 one the system file uses.
613 See the documentation for the INSERT command in the PSPP manual for
616 * Text data files that PRINT and WRITE creates now use the system
617 native line ends by default (CRLF on Windows, LF only elsewhere).
618 Use the new ENDS subcommand on FILE HANDLE to override the default.
620 * A new Perl module allows Perl programs to read and write PSPP
623 * A tutorial chapter has been added to the user manual.
625 Changes from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2:
629 - Dutch, thanks to Harry Thijssen.
631 - Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Michel Boaventura.
633 Thanks for translations are also due to the coordinators at
634 translationproject.org.
636 * Statistical bug fixes:
638 - REGRESSION: Report correct standard error of the estimate (bug
641 - T-TEST: Report correct significance of paired sample T-test in
642 the common case (bug #26936) and corner cases. Thanks to Mike
643 Griffiths and Matej Cepl for reporting these bugs.
645 * Build fixes and changes:
647 - Fix build with GTK+ 2.17.4 and later.
649 - Make running "make" after running "configure" with different
650 settings reliably rebuild version.c.
652 - Cygwin and MinGW build fixes.
654 - Fixes for building with recent gnulib.
656 - The Makefile now honors two new variables, PSPP_LDFLAGS and
657 PSPPIRE_LDFLAGS, that affect linking of the PSPP and PSPPIRE
658 binaries, respectively. This makes building easier for some
661 - Fixes for "configure --enable-relocatable" (bug #25508).
663 * Data file bug fixes and changes:
665 - Fix reading text data files that contain a mix of white space
666 and commas. Now "a ,b" is treated as two fields containing "a"
667 and "b"; previously it was treated as three, with an empty field
670 - Fix writing corrupted .sav files on Windows.
672 - Fix writing variable labels longer than 252 bytes to save files.
673 Thanks to Robert Westlund for reporting this bug.
675 - Fix writing corrupted .por files (bug #26034).
677 - Fix reading .por files whose initial lines are not padded out
678 with spaces as expected.
680 - PSPP will no longer issue warnings about some .sav file records
681 or values that it does not understand. These warnings were
682 harmless, but needlessly alarmed some users.
684 - Fix crash reading empty string fields from PostgreSQL databases.
686 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
688 - Users may now control precision of output statistics. Instead
689 of hard coding the width and decimals of output numbers, respect
690 the default format in most instances. Counts are now normally
691 displayed with the format of the weight variable, if any.
693 - Fix crash when an INSERT command specifies the name of a file
694 that does not exist (bug #24569).
696 - Fix crash when CROSSTABS specifies a long-string variable (bugs
699 - Fix crash drawing pie charts with many segments.
701 - Fix crash when NUMERIC specifies an invalid format.
703 * PSPPIRE bug fixes and changes:
705 - On Windows, write the output file to the user's home directory
706 instead of the current directory, to better match user
709 - Some data editor fixes.
713 - Fix typo in BINOMIAL section of user manual (bug #25892).
715 Changes from 0.6.0 to 0.6.1:
717 * Statistical bug fixes:
719 - Report correct standardized regression coefficients in linear
720 regression output (bug #23567).
722 * Bug fixes that affect PSPP and PSPPIRE:
724 - Avoid crash with pie charts (bug #24014).
726 - Don't append % to count totals (bug #24003).
728 - Don't crash on bad input (bug #24031).
730 - Don't crash if "end data." is not left aligned (bug #24115).
732 - Change default workspace value to 64 MB, to avoid unnecessary
733 disk accesses on modern machines.
737 - Add ".sav" or ".por" suffix to filename when saving with Save_As
740 - Make it possible to reopen the output window on Windows (bug
743 - A POSIX regular expression library is now included and used
744 automatically if the host does not have one or has one that is
747 * Build fixes and changes:
749 - Work around bug in GSL that prevented build with recent GCC
750 versions without manually adding -fgnu89-inline to CFLAGS.
752 - Also warn about missing prerequisites as we encounter them (bug
755 - Distribute necessary files to allow users working from the
756 distributed tarball to configure with --enable-gui-tools.
758 - Append $(EXEEXT_FOR_BUILD) to output file name when building
759 q2c, fixing build problems on Windows.
761 - GSL 1.8 or later is now required.
763 - Build errors with --enable-relocatable were fixed.
765 * The German translations were removed, since native German speakers
766 found them too poor to be useful.
768 Changes from 0.4.0 to 0.6.0:
770 * The PSPP license is now version 3 or later of the GNU General
771 Public License. Previously, it was version 2 or later.
773 * PSPP now has a graphical interface, called PSPPIRE. This
774 interface allows you to enter data and variable definitions
775 interactively. Commands may be executed in syntax form, or by
776 using the interactive dialog boxes available from the dropdown
779 * A few sample syntax files are now included in the `examples'
782 * Numerous major and minor bugs have been fixed.
786 * The INSTALL file now reflects the details of how to install
787 PSPP. It is a tailored version of the generic installation
788 instructions, instead of a verbatim copy.
790 * iconv, which is ordinarily installed as part of a Unix-like
791 system, is now required. If you don't have it already, you can
792 install GNU libiconv (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/).
794 * libxml2 and zlib are new optional dependencies. They are
795 required to use PSPP's support for reading Gnumeric files.
797 Statistical procedure changes:
799 * REGRESSION is a new procedure for fitting linear models to data
800 via least-squares estimation.
802 * NPAR TESTS is a new procedure for non-parametric tests. In this
803 release, it supports binomial and chi-square tests.
805 * RANK is a new procedure to rank variables. It supports numerous
808 * FREQUENCIES can now output histograms and pie charts. These
809 features were present in earlier releases, but not documented.
811 User interface changes:
813 * In many situations where PSPP once terminated with a fatal
814 error, PSPP now recovers and continues execution.
816 * PSPP is now able to start up and run even if it cannot find its
819 * Journaling of interactive commands to a disk file is now
820 implemented. By default, journaling is enabled, to a file named
821 `pspp.jnl' in the current directory. SET JOURNAL may be used to
824 * The use of `+' between syntax file names on the command line to
825 prevent the dictionary from being cleared between their
826 executions is no longer supported. All syntax files are now
827 executed as if `+' had been specified.
829 * The -d/--define and -u/--undef command line options are no
830 longer supported. Instead, use /usr/bin/env or shell primitives
831 to define or clear environment variables before invoking PSPP.
833 * If a syntax file named named `rc' is found in a configuration
834 directory (such as $HOME/.pspp), it is executed before any
835 syntax file specified on the command line. The -r or
836 --no-statrc command line option may be used to disable this
841 * Output configuration options have changed. Please refer to the
842 manual for a full description of the available options.
844 In consequence, you will need to reinstall your "devices" file.
845 "make install" will do this for you.
847 * Most error messages are now written to PSPP output files by
848 default. SET ERROR can be used to disable this behavior.
850 * When invoked interactively, PSPP now by default produces output
851 on the terminal, piping it through the "more" program.
852 Previously, by default output was written only to file
853 pspp.list. On most terminals, the page length used for output
854 automatically adapts to the terminal size, even if the terminal
859 - This driver now supports charts in output. Charts are written
860 as separate files that the main output file refers to. By
861 default, charts are written in PNG format to files named
862 pspp-1.png, pspp-2.png, and so on.
864 - Configurations are provided that use VT100 (and xterm)
865 line-drawing characters in tables. The option "-o list-vt100"
866 requests use of this device for output to pspp.list.
870 - The default paper size is now determined using the PAPERSIZE
871 environment variable, or the LC_PAPER locale category on
872 systems that support it. If these are not set, the default is
873 now A4, instead of US letter. To make US letter the default,
874 set PAPERSIZE to "letter" in your environment.
876 - Font metrics are now read from AFM files, instead of
877 Groff-format metrics files. PostScript fonts can now be
880 In consequence, you will need to install an AFM file for each
881 font used in PostScript output. "make install" will install
882 AFM files for the standard PostScript fonts, including the
883 ones that the PostScript driver uses by default.
885 - Standard paper sizes no longer need to be specified through a
886 configuration file. The "papersize" configuration file is no
887 longer needed, or supported.
889 - The PostScript prologue is no longer obtained from the
890 "ps-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file is
891 no longer needed, or supported.
895 - The HTML prologue is no longer obtained from the
896 "html-prologue" configuration file. This configuration file
897 is no longer needed, or supported.
899 Command language changes:
901 * The following commands are new:
903 - GET DATA, which currently supports reading Gnumeric files and
904 text data files. It will be extended later to read other
905 types of foreign data.
907 - CD, to change the current directory.
909 - INSERT, to execute a syntax file.
911 - DELETE VARIABLES, to remove variables from the active file
914 - ADD DOCUMENT, to add text to active file documents.
916 - CLOSE FILE HANDLE (a PSPP extension; see below).
918 - XEXPORT, a PSPP extension that is a transformation equivalent
921 * The following functions for transformation expressions are new:
923 - DATEDIFF, for computing the difference of two dates.
925 - DATESUM, for advancing a date by a specified duration.
927 - VALUELABEL, to obtain the value label for a value.
929 * PSPP now supports very long string variables (over 255 bytes
932 * MATCH FILES now supports the FIRST and LAST subcommands.
934 * Previous versions of PSPP prohibited using commands to both read and
935 write a single file at the same time. Now, PSPP allows this, and
936 the new version of the file atomically replaces the old version.
938 * The following commands are no longer available. They will be
939 re-implemented in a later release:
941 - CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
947 * The PROCESS IF command, which was deprecated, has been removed.
948 You may replace any usage of it by SELECT IF following
949 TEMPORARY, which has the same effect.
951 * The output format for variables created by VECTOR may now be
952 specified as part of the VECTOR syntax.
954 "Scratch files", a new PSPP extension:
956 A scratch file, like a system file, consists of a dictionary and
957 any number of cases. Small scratch files are stored in memory;
958 one that grows too large is written to disk. By default, any file
959 handle whose name begins with # is assumed to refer to a scratch
962 Scratch files can be used just about anywhere a system or portable
963 file can be used. Also, portable files are now allowed in most
964 places that system files were allowed in previous PSPP version.
966 A new CLOSE FILE HANDLE command allows the storage associated with
967 scratch files to be freed. It also allows file handles to be
968 reassigned to new files.
970 For more information on scratch files, refer to the "File Handles"
971 section in the PSPP manual. For specifics of what commands now
972 allow what kinds of files to be specified, refer to the
973 documentation on those particular commands.
977 * Binary formats and IBM/360 formats, including ASCII/EBCDIC
978 translation, are now supported. Use FILE HANDLE to specify the
979 format of these files.
981 * Little-endian, big-endian, and VAX-endian formats are now
982 supported for integer binary formats when reading and writing
983 data files. The new RIB and WIB subcommands on the SET command
984 control endianness of integer data. The default is the host's
987 * IEEE 754, VAX, and IBM hexadecimal formats are now supported for
988 floating point binary formats when reading and writing data
989 files. The new RRB and WRB subcommands on the SET command
990 control the floating point format. The default is the host's
991 native floating point format.
993 * DATA LIST now supports the SKIP subcommand, to skip records at
994 the beginning of a file. For compatibility, DATA LIST now
995 treats N format as F format for FREE and LIST format input.
997 * The SAVE and XSAVE commands now support the UNSELECTED,
998 PERMISSIONS, NAMES, and MAP subcommands.
1000 * The EXPORT command has been re-implemented to obtain better
1001 results. Support for the UNSELECTED, DIGITS, and TYPE
1002 subcommands has been added.
1004 * For compatibility, PRINT now inserts a space at the beginning of
1005 every output line, even lines that would otherwise be blank,
1006 when OUTFILE is specified. (The behavior of WRITE is
1009 * For compatibility, PRINT EJECT now inserts the digit `1' at the
1010 beginning of each line that should begin a new page.
1012 * For compatibility, WRITE now outputs the system-missing value as
1013 a field filled with spaces. Binary formats are an exception.
1014 (The behavior of PRINT is unchanged.)
1018 * Input and output format descriptions have been rewritten. They
1019 now precisely describe what is accepted on input and written on
1022 * The descriptions of the PSPP system and portable file formats
1023 have been extensively revised and improved.
1025 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.60 and
1028 Changes from 0.3.0 to 0.4.0:
1030 Changes in build dependencies:
1032 * The GNU Scientific Library (libgsl), version 1.6 or later, is
1035 * libplot from GNU plotutils is optional. Without it, the new
1036 graphing features will not work. If you do not have it
1037 installed, you must run `configure' with --without-libplot.
1039 * libgmp2 is no longer a dependency.
1041 Newly implemented commands and statistical features:
1043 * EXAMINE, including its graphing features.
1045 * FREQUENCIES now supports percentiles.
1053 * SORT CASES now sorts stably, that is, two cases with equal sort
1054 criteria will be in the same relative order before and after the
1057 * T-TEST (re-written).
1059 * DATE and USE. These commands are parsed but otherwise ignored,
1060 to enhance compatibility with certain command files that invoke
1063 * VARIABLE WIDTH, VARIABLE ALIGNMENT, and VARIABLE LEVEL. These
1064 currently have no effect on PSPP output, but their values are
1065 written to and read from system files and thus may affect
1066 third-party software.
1068 * SET EPOCH implemented.
1070 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST now support arbitrary field
1073 * FILE HANDLE now supports custom tab widths.
1075 Long variable names (and other identifiers) are now supported. Up
1076 to the first 64 bytes of each identifier is significant. PSPP now
1077 reads and writes system files compatible with SPSS version 12.
1079 New --algorithm and --syntax command line options allow
1080 SPSS-compatible or enhanced modes to be selected.
1082 Support for transformation expressions has been rewritten and
1083 significantly improved. Refer to the manual for details.
1085 Calculation of moments (mean, standard deviation, kurtosis,
1086 skewness) has been rewritten and should now be more accurate. In
1087 --algorithm=enhanced mode moments may be more accurate than SPSS in
1090 Numerous bugs have been fixed, too many to mention here. Many new
1091 tests have been added, leading to the discovery and fixing of many
1094 The ASCII output driver can now squeeze multiple blank lines into
1097 Much of the code has been rewritten and refactored. It is now much
1100 The FILE TYPE and REPEATING DATA commands have been disabled for
1101 this release because their implementations were deemed too buggy to
1102 be useful. They will be fixed and replaced in a future release.
1104 New pspp-mode for Emacs (in pspp-mode.el).
1106 Added rudimentary command-line completion for interactive input.
1108 lib/julcal and lib/dcdflib are no longer used, so they have been
1111 For developers, the build system now requires Autoconf 2.58 and
1112 Automake 1.7. The included gettext has been updated to version
1115 Some reports state that Texinfo 4.8, the latest version, may be
1116 necessary to successfully format the documentation on some systems.
1118 Version 0.3.0 changes since 0.2.3:
1122 * Using alphanumeric variables in functions under AGGREGATE
1125 * Under certain circumstances, the final case would be omitted
1126 from the results of an AGGREGATE operation. Fixed.
1128 * Undefined behavior was invoked by referencing a freed pointer
1129 under certain circumstances. Fixed.
1131 * A wrong record size was displayed when paging the active file to
1134 * Not having enough temporary space for sorting caused a core
1137 * Syntax errors in function descriptions on AGGREGATE caused core
1140 * A null pointer was dereferenced, causing a core dump, when
1141 PERCENTILES was specified on FREQUENCIES. This fixes the
1142 problem, but PSPP still doesn't calculate percentiles.
1144 * SORT always sorted in ascending order. Fixed.
1146 * Some minor memory leaks in the expression parser were removed.
1148 * Many assertions fixed for strict ANSI C compliance.
1152 * SET ECHO ON now implemented, but turned off by default.
1154 * PRINT specifier supported on END REPEAT.
1158 * System libgmp2 library is used if installed instead of
1159 unconditionally using the included libgmp2 subset.
1161 * Extensive code cleanup, which continues.
1163 * Added CORRELATIONS command parser, but not implemented.
1165 Version 0.2.3 changes since 0.2.2:
1169 * SPLIT FILE with a string variable caused a core dump. Fixed.
1171 * Nested INCLUDEs didn't work. Fixed.
1173 * The MATCH FILES procedure set the values of variables not present
1174 to 0. It should have been SYSMIS. This is now fixed.
1176 * The REMARK command was too aggressive about skipping lines. It
1177 didn't like being the last command in a file.
1179 * Comment parsing wasn't consistent with the rest of the code in its
1180 idea of where one command ends and another starts. This meant
1181 that sometimes commands would be mysteriously ignored. Thanks to
1182 Dr. Dirk Melcher <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1184 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1185 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1186 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1188 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1189 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1190 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1192 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1193 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1194 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1197 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1198 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1201 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1202 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1204 * The TABLE subcommand on MATCH FILES worked only erratically at
1205 best. This fixes it. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1206 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1208 * VARIABLE LABELS rejected a slash before the first variable
1209 specification, contradicting the documentation. Thanks to Walter
1210 M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for reporting this bug.
1212 * Because of an incorrect optimization in memory allocation,
1213 CROSSTABS sometimes segfaulted when asked to output multiple
1214 tables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1217 * CROSSTABS didn't display value labels for column and row
1218 variables. Thanks to Walter M. Gray <graywm@northernc.on.ca> for
1221 * WRITE didn't write line ends. Fixed. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1222 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1224 * MATCH FILES corrupted memory and dumped core on some syntax
1227 * MATCH FILES should set numeric values not available to the
1228 system-missing value, not to 0. Thanks to Dr. Dirk Melcher
1229 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1231 * KEEP didn't work properly on the SAVE procedure. Fixed. Thanks
1232 to Ralf Geschke <ralf@kuerbis.org> for reporting this bug.
1236 * Some systems didn't like the way open_file was coded. Thanks to
1237 Hankin <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for pointing this out.
1239 * The SAVE procedure didn't save long string variables properly.
1240 Fixed by this patch. Thanks to Hankin
1241 <hankin@rogue.consultco.com> for this patch.
1243 * Minor documentation fixes for MATCH FILES.
1245 Version 0.2.2 changes since 0.2.1:
1249 * Fix behavior of PRINT SPACE for negative arguments.
1251 * Fix reading some unusual system files.
1253 * Fix LIST problems with very long variables. Thanks to Hankin
1254 <hankin@dunno.com> for this bug report.
1256 * Fix problems with some string format specifiers.
1258 * Fix use of $CASENUM in expressions. Thanks to Dirk Melcher
1259 <BZN-mdksh@t-online.de> for reporting this bug.
1261 * Additional DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST fixes. Thanks to
1262 Hankin <hankin@dunno.com> again on this one.
1264 * Sometimes you may encounter a PSPP script that has to be
1265 interpreted in interactive mode. Now you can use the -i flag to
1268 * Warnings for egcs 1.1.1 cleaned up. (However you'll get lots of
1269 `unused variable' warnings under gcc 2.7.2.3, fixing this will
1274 * The files in gmp need the internationalization directory in
1275 their include path. Thanks to OKUJI Yoshinori
1276 <okuji@kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp> for pointing this out.
1278 Version 0.2.1 changes since 0.2.0:
1282 * Remember to include examples/ directory in distribution :-)
1284 * Fixed gmp compile problems for some non-i386 architectures.
1285 Thanks to Hans Olav Eggestad <olav@jordforsk.nlh.no> and others
1288 * DATA LIST FREE and DATA LIST LIST parsing of input files is now
1289 matches the documented behavior exactly, and error messages are
1290 more helpful. Thanks to Mark H. Wood <mwood@IUPUI.Edu>.
1292 Version 0.2.0 changes since 0.1.0:
1294 Procedures now implemented:
1295 * CROSSTABS. Please see documentation for caveats.
1297 Transformations and utilities now implemented:
1300 * CLEAR TRANSFORMATIONS
1301 * DISPLAY (all subcommands).
1312 Support for input and output through pipes: "|command" and
1313 "command|" filenames; support for special filenames "-", "stdin",
1316 New command-line features:
1317 * New option --testing-mode: Invoke heuristics to assist testing.
1318 * New option --safer, -s: Don't allow certain unsafe operations.
1319 * New option --command=CMD, -c CMD: Perform literal command CMD.
1320 * rc file ~/.pspp/rc is executed before any other files.
1321 * Now multiple syntax files can be specified.
1323 Operator LAG is now implemented.
1325 Added missing FILE subcommand to REREAD.
1327 Table output manager completely rewritten.
1329 Device configuration file syntax changed. You will need to
1330 reinstall your `devices' file.
1332 New output driver for HTML.
1334 PostScript driver and prologue simplified.
1336 Many bugs fixed. General source-code cleanup.
1338 Added Texinfo documentation for:
1339 * PSPP system file format
1340 * PSPP portable file format
1341 * How to write input for q2c parser generator
1344 PSPP language is now fully documented. Please report any
1345 inaccuracies or omissions in the documentation.
1347 Changes for version 0.1.0:
1349 First public release. For changes from unreleased development
1350 versions, please see ONEWS.
1352 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1353 Copyright information:
1355 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim
1356 copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that
1357 the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus
1358 giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
1360 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this
1361 document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions,
1362 provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last
1366 version-control: never