Re: PSPP-BUG: bugs in PSPP 1.4.1 for Windows

[matt]

Thanks for the quick reply.
The two examples are relating to commands using the syntax editor, not to 
commands using pull-down menus in the data editor, if that's what you meant by 
your question about the GUI.
I've tried one space, two spaces, five spaces, and indenting (which I believe 
added 4 spaces) on the second line and none of them work.
I have a friend who uses PSPP in Windows who does NOT have the same issue, so 
I'm not sure what's causing it in my case.
Yes, my final comments about copying/pasting were about editing variables not 
data. I use this all the time within SPSS to save time (copying decimal length, 
identical value labels, identical missing values like -99, etc.), and in 
conjunction with Excel (using concatenate and other formulas to change variable 
names, like adding a letter "b" in front of variable names from posttest data 
sets), so it's an important ability for me.

Matt


-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> 
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2021 2:13 PM
To: matt@evansevaluation.com
Cc: bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org
Subject: Re: PSPP-BUG: bugs in PSPP 1.4.1 for Windows

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 12:29 PM <matt@evansevaluation.com> wrote:
> Commands (or at least a number of commands I’ve tried) don’t work if there 
> are hard returns / carriage returns in them.
>
>
>
> EXAMPLE 1: THIS DOES NOT WORK
>
> variable labels
> gender 'This is the gender variable'.
>
>
> HOWEVER THIS DOES WORK:
> variable labels gender 'This is the gender variable'.

Thanks for using PSPP.

Is this in the GUI? I am a bit surprised. The GUI should be tolerant of 
multiple kinds of syntax, including this one. I cannot check the source code 
right now, but I'll do so later and fix it if I see that it's not doing what I 
think it should.

Given that it's not actually working as I would expect, I think that you can 
make it work by indenting the second and subsequent lines of a command, for 
example by adding a space before "gender" on the second line above.
That should not be needed, but given the behavior you report, it can be a way 
to work around the problem.

> I also can't manually copy and paste anything in the data editor—e.g., 
> variable names or variable labels or value labels—either from outside PSPP, 
> like Excel, or from inside PSPP, like copying a set of value labels from one 
> variable onto another long list of variables that use the same value labels 
> (e.g., all common Likert scales like 1=Strongly Disagree to 5=Strongly 
> Agree). I know these things can be done using syntax but it’s MUCH easier to 
> just copy and paste them. Please save me from spending $3,000 on an SPSS 
> perpetual license. That’s not bearable, but neither are these inconveniences 
> in PSPP over the long run!    Thanks much,

I think that these are genuinely missing features in the GUI.

I'm not sure whether you're talking about editing data or variables or both. 
I'm going to assume it's about editing variables. Most of what you're talking 
about is straightforward in concept, especially cutting and pasting from one 
variable in the dictionary to another. The one I'm not sure about is cutting 
and pasting from a spreadsheet to a set of value labels. It's not obvious to me 
how that would work. Does SPSS support that? Is it documented? It would be good 
to know what to implement here.