These
release notes are current as of December 2005. This file contains the following
information:
· Changes to Language Functions
· Supported Platforms and System Requirements
· Contact Information for Feedback
S-PLUS 7 is a major release of the S-PLUS
Product Family, with a focus on providing a robust environment for creating
statistical applications applied to very large data sets. S-PLUS 7.0.6 is a
maintenance update, providing fixes to bugs discovered after the release of
S-PLUS 7. This maintenance update also includes enhancements related to data
import and export, which were implemented in S-PLUS 7.0.5.
NOTE S-PLUS 7.0.5 was a version
of the S-PLUS language engine that shipped only with Insightful Miner 7. It was
not available as an independent patch to S-PLUS. Changes between S-PLUS 7.0.5
and S-PLUS 7.0.6 are ancillary bug fixes to S-PLUS. For more information, see Bugs Fixed in S-PLUS 7.0.5 and 7.0.6.
S-PLUS
7 is available in two editions: S-PLUS 7 Professional Developer and S-PLUS 7
Enterprise Developer, and improves upon S-Plus
6.2 in the following main areas:
S-PLUS
7
· Big Data library
· S-Plus Workbench developer tools
S-PLUS
7
· New correlatedData library
· Improvements to timeSeries objects
· Improved GUI responsiveness
· Support for 4GT RAM tuning
· FLEXnet license management system
· New functions and other minor new capabilities
There
are also a number of enhancements to existing functions, and improvements to
quality in several areas.
S-PLUS
7 includes support for the following S-PLUS modules. These modules are
unchanged in S-PLUS 7.0.6.
These
modules require a license to use.
|
Module |
Version |
Platform |
|
|
2.0.4 |
Windows |
|
|
2.0.1 |
Windows, Solaris, Linux 32-bit |
|
|
1.6.2.0b |
Windows, Solaris, Linux 32-bit |
|
S+Wavelets |
2.0.2 |
Windows, Solaris, Linux 32-bit, HP, and AIX |
|
S-PLUS for ArcView GIS Link |
1.1.1 |
Windows |
|
|
2.0.3 |
Windows |
|
|
2.0.3 |
Windows |
|
|
1.5.7 |
Windows, Solaris, Linux 32-bit, HP, AIX |
The
following modules were not changed in S-PLUS 7.0.
· S-PLUS for ArcView GIS Link
·
·
·
S-PLUS 7.0.6 includes bug fixes in S-PLUS
7.0.5, which was included with Insightful Miner 7, and bug fixes since S-PLUS
7.0 was released. For more detailed information, see the section Bugs Fixed in S-PLUS 7.0.5 and 7.0.6 or the file SHOME/help/FIXEDBUG.TXT, included on the product CD.
Support for
reading and writing longer strings
S-PLUS 7.0.6 now supports reading and writing longer strings for
a variety of data types. These improvements include the following:
|
Data Type |
Import
character string length (max)* |
Export
character string length (max) |
|
ASCII |
32K |
32K |
|
Oracle-Direct |
3999 (varchar2) 2000 (nchar) 1000 (nvarchar2) |
< 4000 (varchar2) >= 4000 (CLOB) |
|
Oracle via ODBC* |
1999 (char) 2000 (nchar) 1000 (nvarchar2) |
<= 255 (char) > 255 (long) |
|
Excel |
32K |
32K |
|
Access 2000 |
32K Memo field |
32K Memo field |
|
SQL Server 2000-Direct |
4096 (TXT) 255 (varchar -DRIVER
ISSUE) 255 (nvarchar) 255 (char) 255 (nchar) |
< 8000 (varchar) >= 8000 (text) |
|
SQL Server 2000 - ODBC |
7999 (TXT) 7999 (varchar) 3999 (nvarchar) 7999 (char) 3999 (nchar) |
<= 255 (varchar) > 255 (text) |
*Note the following issues for writing
long strings:
· Oracle-Direct: If you have two or more columns of long strings, either with strings over 1,333 characters, S-PLUS writes empty rows to the database.
· Oracle via ODBC: If you have two or more columns of long strings, either with strings over 255 characters, S-PLUS writes empty rows to the database.
· SQL Server 2000 Direct: If you export data with strings over 255 characters, the string is truncated. The longer the string, the greater the truncation. For example, for strings of length 3999, they are truncated and inserted into the database as 159-character strings. For strings of length 7999, they are truncated and inserted into the database as 63-character strings.
· DB2: Previously, S-PLUS created fixed-length strings when exporting data to a DB2 database; however, this design did not allow for long strings to be exported. Now, when you export data to a DB2 database, S-PLUS creates the columns as varchar, rather than CHAR, to accommodate up to 32,672 characters in a string.
S-PLUS now supports importing and
reading 64-bit SAS files and compressed SAS files.
S-PLUS 7.0.4 includes and bug fixes since
S-PLUS 7.0.3 was released. For more detailed information, see the section Bugs Fixed in S-PLUS 7.0.4 or the file SHOME/FIXEDBUG.TXT, included on the product CD.
S-PLUS 7.0.3 includes and bug fixes since S-PLUS
7 and 7.0.2 were released. For more detailed information, see the section Bugs Fixed in S-PLUS 7.0.3 or the file SHOME/FIXEDBUG.TXT, included on the product CD.
S-PLUS 7.0.2 includes and bug fixes since S-PLUS 7 was released. For more detailed information, see the section Bugs Fixed in S-PLUS 7.0.2 and the file SHOME/FIXEDBUG.TXT, included on the product CD.
S-PLUS 7 includes a variety of new
features that extend S-Plus
capabilities. Major additions include:
· New Big Data library (Enterprise Developer only)
· S-Plus Eclipse Workbench developer tools (Enterprise Developer only)
· Updated Winjava Library to use JRE 1.4.2
· Improved responsiveness of Windows GUI
· New Model Type: Cox Mixed Effects Models
· New Color Scheme for Graphics Devices
· Higher Quality Graphlet Printing Capability
(
The Big Data library loads only by default in the
Windows S-Plus GUI and the S-Plus Workbench on Windows. The Big
Data library is not loaded by default when you start S-Plus from the Windows Command line, from BATCH mode, as a Console
application. Always load the Big Data library if you work with big data
projects. (If you start a big data project without having loaded the Big Data
library, you will see errors when you run your script.)
(
Find help for the S-Plus
Workbench in the S-Plus
Enterprise Developer User’s Guide, Chapter 2, which is available by
navigating to Help > Online Manuals in S-PLUS 7.
In
response to demand from commercial customers seeking an industry-standard
system for managing software licenses, the S-PLUS Product Family now uses the
FLEXnet system from Macrovision (previously known as FlexLM) for license
management. The interface for managing licenses and monitoring license usage
will be familiar to many systems administrators, and offers a much greater
degree of flexibility and reliability than the license management system used
in previous releases of S-PLUS.
Note
that all editions of S-PLUS, including single-user desktop licenses, now
require validation of an active license at install time. For most installations
this process should be completely transparent. Further information about the
license management system can be found in the Installation and Administration
Guide, found by navigating the Help > Online Manuals.
By using Microsoft 4GT RAM Tuning,
S-PLUS 7 for Windows supports the ability to address larger amounts of RAM than
the earlier versions were capable of. This capability was first available in
S-PLUS 6.2 Server. It is now provided in all variations of the S-PLUS 7 for
Windows engine.
Operating systems based on
Microsoft® Windows NT® provide applications with a 4 GB virtual address
space. The virtual address space is divided such that 2 GB is available to the
application, and the remaining 2 GB is available only to the system. The 4GT
RAM Tuning feature increases the memory available to the application to 3 GB,
and reduces the amount available to the system to 1 GB. While this feature benefits
applications that run on computers with more than 2 GB of physical memory, it
also increases the RAM available to applications when less RAM is present.
This feature enables applications
to use the first 3 GB of the address space on the following systems:
· Windows Server 2003 family
· Windows 2000 Advanced Server
· Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
The following is required to take
advantage of 4GT RAM Tuning:
· The machine must have at least 4GB of RAM.
· The /3GB switch must be specified in the operating system’s boot.ini file. (The installer does not change the boot.ini file. You must add the switch.)
Note: The
additional RAM is not available if S-PLUS is called from an executable that is
not 4GT RAM Tuning-enabled. This situation occurs when S-PLUS is called via
Connect/C++ or Connect/Java. An example of this is calling the S-PLUS engine
from a java application such as Insightful Miner.
Boot.ini is a text file located at the root of the system
partition, typically c:\boot.ini. It stores boot options for computers
with BIOS firmware, namely, computers with x86 and x64-based processors. When
the computer starts, the Windows boot loader, Ntldr, reads the boot.ini
file and displays the entries for each operating system in the boot menu. Then,
Ntldr loads the selected operating system in accordance with settings in
the boot.ini file.
By default, on NTFS drives, the
system, hidden, archived, and read-only attributes are set to protect the boot.ini
file; however, members of the Administrators group can change these attributes.
The file attributes do not affect the operation of boot loader.
You can edit the boot.ini
file on a computer with BIOS firmware (x86 or x64) by using Bootcfg (bootcfg.exe),
a tool included in Windows XP and later versions of Windows, or by using a text
editor such as Notepad.
Caution: Because Bootcfg protects certain attributes
of the boot.ini file, and because manual editing using a text editor is prone
to error, you should use Notepad only if Bootcfg is not available.
Microsoft provides instructions
articles on 4GT tuning, and for editing the boot.ini, on the Microsoft MSDN Web
site, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library.
· To find information about 4GT RAM Tuning, at this site, search for “4GT RAM Tuning.”
· To find information about editing the boot.ini file, at this site, search for boot.ini.
· To find information about the /3GB switch, at this site, search for /3GB.
The
Java Runtime Environment has been updated to version 1.4.2 for the Winjava
library. The updated Java Runtime Environment is also used for the Big Data
library (Enterprise Developer only), which loads Winjava.
The
S-PLUS GUI on Windows no longer blocks when the S engine is performing
computations. This means that you can move windows or edit files while
computations take place. Note than menu items and other features that require
the S engine for computation will be disabled until the current computation
completes.
The
S-PLUS GUI now features a progress bar displaying the status of the current
computation. The progress bar is especially useful when you import large data
sets using functions available in the Enterprise Developer edition.
The
new S-Plus installation program
is now fully compliant with Microsoft’s Windows Installer technology, so
you can use features of the Windows Installer to customize how you install and
deploy the S-Plus installation.
Further,
the new S-Plus installation
supports improved automation via our own automate.ini script file. You
now have more control over target paths, application startup settings, network
license management settings, and whether various install dialogs appear or not
during the installation.
For
more information on how to automate the S-Plus
installation or how to run a quiet installation, see the comments in the script
file called automate_sample.ini, located at the top level of your S-PLUS
Windows CD.
·
Use the following new functions to compute minimum,
maximum, or range by row or column:
· colMins
· colMaxs
· colRanges
· rowMins
· rowMaxs
· rowRanges
·
Use the new function allTrue in combination with all.equal
for writing automated tests to be
called by do.test.
·
Use the new function expectWarnings to write your own automated tests (i.e., to be run using "do.test"). Using expectWarnings, you can
suppress unavoidable warnings and test that warnings your functions should produce
do occur. (This function has no Help topic in this release.)
·
Use the new function pedigree for support for pedigree plotting. See its
Help topic in the Language Reference for more information.
·
Use the new function bdsmatrix for support for sparse block diagonal matrix objects. See its Help
topic in the Language Reference for more information.
·
Use the new
function unname, which
removes names or dimnames from a object. This can make calculations run much
faster (see example in the help file)
The new function coxme allows you to fit a Cox model with random effects to censored data.
Random effects can be specified with a syntax similar to that used for linear
mixed-effects models with lme().
·
More powerful
column-wise summary statistics for timeSeries objects are now available:
·
{col,
row} {means,
sums, vars, stdevs, mins,
maxs, ranges}
·
col {products, medians, quantiles}
etc.
·
New powerful
functionalities to compute the length of time series, lags of time series,
differences of time series, sort time series, and random sample time series:
·
seriesLength(), seriesLag(), diff method, sort, sample
method
·
New function
to detect month end dates:
·
is.monthend()
·
New method
functions for arima modeling and a new arima prediction function:
·
summary, coef, vcov, residuals, fitted, predict
·
New powerful
multiple timeDate, bdTimeDate and time
series-sensitive subscripting, such as
·
myTimeSeries[ timeEvent(
c("1/1/01", "1/1/02"), c("4/1/01",
"4/1/02") ), cols ]
·
myTimeSeries[ timeEvent(
"1/1/01", "1/1/02" ), cols ] <- myNewData
·
Improved delta t and frequency method for time series to accommodate end of month
regular time series and to be consistent with old style time series classes.
·
More functions
now work with time series objects:
·
apply,
lapply, hist, density,
pmin, pmax, order,
rank, chisq.gof, ks.gof,
cdf.compare, cor.test, var.test, t.test, wilcox.test, pairs, barplot, boxplot, lsfit, l1fit, rreg, lmsreg, ltsreg, location, ms, nls, nnls.fit
cov.mcd, cov.mve,
cov.wt, kmeans, dist, mclust, princomp, factanal, etc.
·
Improvements
to plot and trellisPlot (which also apply to signalSeries):
· xlim and ylim are now fully supported (they were not in previous releases).
· You can now use the at and labels arguments to axis.time and axis.numeric (via the x.axis