Release Notes
for CLASP 1.4.3
February 8, 1995
1 Platform
CLASP runs on all of the following platforms:
Hardware Lisp GUI
Sun SparcStation Allegro CL 4.2 CLIM 2.0
Sun SparcStation Lucid 4.1 CLIM 1.1
Sun SparcStation Lucid 4.1 CLIM 2.0
DEC Alpha Lispworks 3.2 CLIM 2.0
Macintosh MCL 2.0.1 Mac
The CLIM-based versions also require SciGraph from Bolt, Beranek and
Newman (BBN). SciGraph is included in the distribution.
2 Support
If you have any problems, questions, or suggestions, contact us at:
clasp-support@cs.umass.edu
There is also a CLASP mailing list. To subscribe send a message with
subscribe clasp in the body to majordomo@cs.umass.edu.
3 The Manual
The version of the manual included with this release of CLASP is slightly
out of date. The main inconsistencies will be found in the description of the
functional interface which has been changed and extended. We expect to have
a more current version ready by the end of January 1995.
4 Getting CLASP
CLASP for is available via anonymous ftp from ftp ftp.cs.umass.edu. It is in the directory
pub/eksl/clasp. Currently we have available only compressed tar format
files of the unix sources and documentation. Information about CLASP for the
Macintosh can be obtained by sending a request to clasp-support@cs.umass.edu.
CLASP can also be accessed on the WWW from the EKSL Web Server at
http://eksl-www.cs.umass.edu/clasp.html
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5 Getting Started on Macintosh
See the document Getting Started.
6 Getting Started on Unix
6.1 Installation
- Uncompress and unpack the tar file using the Unix uncompress and tar
- facilities
- uncompress clasp-1.4.3.tar.Z tar -xvf clasp-1.4.3.tar
- If you want to customize the location of files (for instance, if you already
have SciGraph and want to use that version,) edit the file clasp/clasp-1.4.3/load-utils.lisp.
- From lisp, load the file clasp/clasp-1.4.3/compile-clasp.lisp. That will compile and load CLASP.
6.2 Invocation
- From lisp, load the file clasp/clasp-1.4.3/load-clasp.lisp. This will load CLASP. (This step can be skipped immediately after compilation.)
- Execute the function `clasp-interface:clasp,' which starts the system.
6.3 Disabling the Interface
If you need to disable the interface set the variable clasp-suppress-loading-interface
to a non-nil value before you load.
7 Change List
7.1 Changes from 1.4.2
· The Plotter now supports zooming with the mouse. Wow.
7.2 Changes from 1.3.6
· multiple-linear-regression has been renamed to multiple-linear-regression-normal
and deprecated which reflects the fact that it uses the normal equations
method. Three new functions have been added multiple-linear-regression-minimal,
multiple-linear-regression-brief,2and multiple-linear-regression-verbose
all of which use the singular value decomposition method which deals with
colinearities better. multiple-linear-regression-verbose returns ex-
actly the same values as multiple-linear-regression-normal used to,
but it works in more cases. See the manual for more details.
· Some statistical functions have been altered to conditionally return rea-
sonable values instead of signalling and error when given unreasonable
inputs. One example of this is g-test which now accepts an optional
error-p argument which defaults to T.
7.3 Changes from 1.3.4
· Sorting by categorical variables is supported at a low level so many things
involving this work now.
· make-dataset, make-dataset-from-rows and make-dataset-from-columns
expect keyword arguments instead of optional and pass any unknown ar-
guments on as initialization args for the dataset.
· The Partial Correlation command has been added.
7.4 Changes from 1.3.3
· RTM syntax for partition expressions has been dropped in favor of plain
old lisp syntax. What used to be this:
(.and. (.<<. sd 120) (.==. success 1)) is now this:
(and (< sd 120) (= success 1))
· create-new-column-from-function has been renamed to create-new-column-from-expression.
A new create-new-column-from-function has been added which ac-
cepts a function and arguments.
· The new function partition-on has been added.
8 Known Problems
· File I/O functions currently do only minimal error checking (with respect
to data being of the proper type, and the correct number of data elements
per line.) Files should be checked carefully to insure correct data input.
The proper file format is described in the manual, under Data Manipula-
tion in the Functions chapter.
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8.1 Macintosh interface problems
- Code cut from the ribbon window for partioning datasets cannot be used.
- Statistical dialogs which allow multiple variables to be dropped on an X or Y slot and do not allow categorical variables will filter out the categorical variables. The user is warned that categorical variables are not allowed, but is not told about the filtering.
- Opening variables with the same name in different datasets does not work.
Opening the second one will do nothing.
8.2 Macintosh problems
- CLASP 1.4 is not compatible with the modern memory manager.
- CLASP should not be run from a network server. Performance will suffer.
8.3 CLIM interface problems
- Occasionally when working with multiple datasets selecting a variable in a particular dataset will actually get you a variable of the same name in a different dataset.
- When entering a lisp expression, clicking on a variable will insert its value, expressed as a list, into the expression. This also occurs when entering a partition clause (while executing the command :Partition Dataset) or a transformation expression (while executing the command :User Defined), which is unlikely to be the desired result. When entering these types of expressions, the user must type the name of the desired variable. (Since both commands work only on a single dataset, there is no problem with variable names not being unique.)
- The interface sometimes encounters an error from X which it can't handle. If CLASPseems frozen, check the shell or lisp process from which it is being run, if an error has occurred, choose the restart which indicates restarting clasp (usually continue or abort).
- Long results (like Chi Square or Multiple Linear Regression) in the interactor pane sometimes get erased because of an X refresh problem. To correct this, either resize the Clasp frame or scroll the interactor pane back one screen and then forward again.
- If a dataset has been opened (i.e.4contents are being displayed in a separate
window) and some change to the dataset occurs (such as deleting a variable
or renaming a variable), the change will not be reflected in the window (although it will be reflected in the Datasets Pane.)
- Under X, if windows which are created by CLASP are forcibly killed from
the window manager, then re-invoking CLASP from the same lisp session
will cause an error. If this happens, type (clasp-interface:clasp t)
to recreate a root window for CLASP.
8.4 Statistical Function Concerns
- Our implementation of two way analysis of variance, while absolutely correct,
produces slightly different results from other statistical packages we
have checked, for the case where the cell sizes are unequal. For more details
on this check the implementation methods appendix in the manual.
8.5 Specific platform problems
- CLASP can't be compiled using Lucid's "production" compiler, because
the compiler's default versions of make-load-forms for some of our classes
are declared to be "too complicated" to compile. Use the development
compiler instead.
8.6 SciGraph (CLIM interface) problems
- If you move an object on the graph (such as the title or legend) then it looses its mouse sensitivity. To correct this either select redraw graph from the main SciGraph menu (right click in the graph) or resize the graph window (if it is in a window).
9 Troubleshooting
Q: I am getting this error while compiling clasp:
Error: Cannot open file
"/usr/local/clasp/rtm/bin-mips-lucid-n/packages.mbin" - No such file or directory
A: Clasp stores its binaries in related directories, rather than in the same
directory as the source. "compile-clasp" is checking whether the binary file is
newer than the source, so it's looking in the binary directory for it. You should
just create the directory, and compile-clasp will then realize that packages.mbin
doesn't exist and compile packages.lisp, putting it in that directory. If you've
just installed clasp, you'll have to do a few such "mkdir"s, and then it shouldn't
bother you again. This generally will only occur if you are installing CLASP on
a platform that we do not support.
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