Release Notes for TIBCO Spotfire S+® 8.1 for Windows®
(November 2008)

Supported Platforms and System Requirements
What's New in Spotfire S+ 8.1
Improvements in Spotfire S+ 8.1
Known Issues in Spotfire S+ 8.1
R Compatibility
Module Support
Getting Help in Spotfire S+
Compilers/Linkers
Technical Support
Appendix: New Functions in Spotfire S+ 8.1

Supported Platforms and System Requirements

You can use Spotfire S+® 8.1 on the following 32-bit Microsoft Windows® platforms:

Overview of Spotfire S+ 8.1

S-PLUS is now TIBCO Spotfire S+. For more information on this change, please visit http://spotfire.tibco.com/iful/.

This version of Spotfire S+ introduces new packages, expanded package features, and improvements to the Spotfire S+ language, the Big Data library, and other libraries. We have added features to support working remotely with the Spotfire S+ Server. Also, we have updated third-party components, such as Java and Eclipse.

These release notes are intended to provide you with a high-level view of changes. We encourage you to read more detailed descriptions of the new and changed features in the Spotfire S+ documentation.

What's New for Spotfire S+ 8.1

Packages

New FlexBayes Package

Spotfire S+ now offers the FlexBayes package. FlexBayes provides tools for modeling data using the Bayesian paradigm for statistical inference. Bayesian modeling offers the following advantages over classical or frequentist modeling:

New resample Package

Spotfire S+ now offers the new resample package, which was previously available as a package from CSAN or from the Insightful research download site. The package is now included with Spotfire S+ 8.1. To load the package, use library(resample).

New sjdbc Package

The sjdbc package, formerly available on CSAN, now ships with Spotfire S+. The sjdbc package provides an interface to databases using Java's JDBC connectivity. For more information, from the Spotfire S+ prompt, type

library(sjdbc)
help(sjdbc)
New rtftools Package

The rtftools package contains Spotfire S+ functions for writing out RTF files, including initialization, writing paragraphs, modifying text styles, writing tables, and writing WMF files to RTF. See RTFCodeExample.ssc for examples of some of the package functionality.

Wavelets, Environmental Statistics, and Spatial Statistics Now Included As Packages

The Wavelets, Environmental Statistics, and Spatial Statistics modules are now included with core Spotfire S+ as packages.

New Sweave Package

Spotfire S+ now offers on the CSAN Website (http://spotfire.tibco.com/csan) the Sweave package. Sweave is a convenient way for package authors to integrate Spotfire S+ code and Latex documentation for vignettes, analyses, and reports.

Finding and Updating Packages in the Spotfire S+ Workbench and the Spotfire S+ GUI for Windows

The Spotfire S+ Workbench and the Spotfire S+ Windows GUI now provide user interface support for finding packages from a Web server (via URL) or from a specified local repository. They also provide support for updating packages that you currently have on your system. (The Spotfire S+ Workbench also provides support for exporting a package.) See the Spotfire S+ Workbench User's Guide and the Spotfire S+ User's Guide for more information.

Creating Spotfire S+ GUIs for Packages

The Guide to Packages is updated to include information about creating grapical user interfaces for packages on Windows. The pkgutils package has been enhanced to support building these on Windows.

Support for Remote Script Execution

The Spotfire S+ Workbench now supports sending a remote script request to a Spotfire S+ Server. Using the interface provided in the Workbench, you can send:

You must have access to a Spotfire S+ Server to use remote script execution. For more information about using this new feature, see the Spotfire S+ Workbench User's Guide.

Support for Association Rules ("Market Basket Analysis") in the Big Data Library

The Big Data library now includes three functions:

These functions support finding interesting association rules within a set of transactions. See their Help files and the Big Data User's Guide for more information.

Obsolete and Deprecated Features and Functions

Improvements in Spotfire S+ 8.1

For a list of bugs fixed since the last release (S-PLUS 8.0.4), see the file FIXEDBUG.TXT in the help directory of your installation.

JRE Updated for Spotfire S+ 8.1

Spotfire S+ now ships with version 1.6 of the JRE.

java.graph() now interprets file extension

In previous versions of Spotfire S+, java.graph() required the format argument for file types other than JPEG. Now, if you specify a file extension in the file argument, java.graph() interprets that extension to produce the specified format. If no extension, or an unsupported extension is specified, java.graph() defaults to JPEG.

Graphics Display Improvements

You can set the graphics display to open or close multiple tabbed graph windows programmatically using the new Spotfire S+ function java.new.plot.action(). (Previously, to change to or from tabbed graphics, you had to use the Graph Options dialog.)

Multiple Random Number Generators Now Supported

Spotfire S+ now includes the function RNGkind() for specifying the type of random number generator to use. Also, Spotfire S+ supports using the Mersenne-Twister random number generator. See the RNGkind Help file for details.

Support for EMF graphics

The function emf.graph() was added to Spotfire S+ for creating EMF graphics. This is an alternative to using wmf.graph().

Importing and Exporting changes

Support for Access® and Excel® 2007 Files

You can use importData() and exportData() to import from and export to Microsoft© Access and Excel 2007 files. These file types also appear in the Spotfire S+ GUI dialog boxes for importing and exporting.

STATA version 10 data files are now supported for import and export.

Support for STATA export includes the new type STATASE, which can handle exporting datasets with up to 32,767 variables. (The number of observations is limited only by the amount of RAM in your computer.) Note that exporting using the type="STATA" limits the number of variables to 2,047.

When you import regular Stata or Stata/SE files, just use type="STATA". Specify type="STATASE" only when you call exportData to export data having more than 2,047 variables.

Changes and Updates to the Spotfire S+ Workbench

For more information on using these new features, see the Spotfire S+ Workbench User's Guide.

Changes to the Big Data Library

Spotfire S+ now contains discrete distribution functions.

The following functions have been added to Spotfire S+ to provide density, cumulative probability, quantiles, and random generation for a discrete distribution. See their Help topic for more information.

New Functions and Updates to Spotfire S+

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Known Issues in Spotfire S+ 8.1

Branding Update  In this version, you might see inconsistencies in product names, images, and branding as we migrate to our new name and identity. We appreciate your patience as we work though the name and branding processes.

Access 2007 requires ODBC  Windows® only: Note that if you import Access 2007® files, you must have ODBC drivers. These are available on the Microsoft Web site and installed by default with Windows Vista®.

Removing Spotfire S+ program group can result in empty TIBCO program group.  If you remove Spotfire S+ and have no remaining programs in the TIBCO program group, the TIBCO program group is not removed. That is, the empty TIBCO program group remains under Start > All Programs.

McAfee VirusScan slowdown.  Virus scanning software such as McAfee can easily slow down Spotfire S+, whether Spotfire S+ is run directly or from a Spotfire S+ node within Spotfire Miner. With System Scan enabled (the default), each time Spotfire S+ reads or writes to a file in its .Data directory, McAfee scans that file for viruses. How much Spotfire S+ is slowed depends on the number and types of processes Spotfire S+ is using at that time.

Big Data library does not convert variable names on import.  When you import data using the argument bigdata=T, variables containing characters considered "illegal" by the standard S language are retained. (That is, while the S language does not recognize any character other than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and period, the Big Data library allows all characters.) When standard Spotfire S+ converts input data to a data frame, it modifies any variable names containing an illegal character, replacing any illegal characters with a period (".") character. For example, if a variable name includes a space ("a b") or an underscore ("a_b"), then in standard Spotfire S+, a period replaces the space or underscore ("a.b"). The Big Data library does not follow this convention; rather, it retains variable names on import.

Backwards Compatibility Considerations in Spotfire S+ 8.1

If you are upgrading from S-PLUS version 8.0 to Spotfire S+ 8.1, the following items do not apply; however, certain improvements to Spotfire S+ 8.1 might result in scripts written for versions of S-PLUS prior to 8.0 not working as expected. This is especially true for workarounds for pre-existing issues, or for the new graphics enhancements.

The par("col") value is now a character string representing an RGB value.  Previously, par("col") was an integer. If you have code that did numeric operations on the par("col") value (for example, col=par("col")+1), the code now fails. Note that you can still set col to a number (for example, par(col=3)).

Changes to cex, font, and col  If you specify display characteristics using the cex, font, and col arguments, they apply only to the plot's data representation.

Setting color maps can produce unexpected results.  Device-specific colormap settings and manipulations apply only when use.device.palette(T) (or when use.legacy.graphics(T) because it sets use.device.palette(T)). Because of this issue, by default, setting Color Schemes from the Options menu does not affect command-line graphics. See the help topic for use.device.palette() for more information.

Big Data library section no longer loaded by default   The S-PLUS 7 Enterprise Developer edition included the Big Data library section, and this library section was loaded by default. In Spotfire S+ 8.1, it is no longer loaded automatically. To load it at startup, add library(bigdata) to your SHOME/local/S.init. Note that SHOME/S.init should not be used. Instructions for editing this S.init file are in SHOME/local/README.

Graphics functions no longer accept list values.  Previously, the graphics system accepted single-element lists as arguments for many functions. For example, the labels argument to the axis() function could be a list, such as the following:
   axis(side=3, at=c(2,6), labels=list(c("a","b")))

The new graphics system no longer supports this behavior, and the above example causes an error. If your existing code breaks because of this change, call the unlist() function to transform the list value.

Workarounds for importing missing columns could cause problems.  If you have implemented custom code to work around the pre-existing issues, you could encounter problems importing data in Spotfire S+ 8.1.

Changes to substituteString()'s replacement argument.  Treatment of backslashes (\\) in substituteString()'s replacement argument in Spotfire S+ 8.1 has changed, so it is no longer compatible with previous versions of S-PLUS (7.0 and earlier). This change accommodates R's implementation of string replacement. See the help for substituteString() for more information.

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R Compatibility

For a more thorough listing of R versus Spotfire S+ comparisons, see the TIBCO Spotfire support Web site FAQ.

aggregate.rts() has new arguments for R compatibility.

Previously, aggregate.rts() was defined as follows:

     aggregate(x, nf=1, fun=sum, ndeltat=1)

Now it is:

     aggregate(x, nfrequency=1, FUN=sum, ndeltat=1, ts.eps = .Options$ts.eps, ..., fun)

For more information, see its Help file.

Logical values have changed for R compatibility.

Logical values are now printed as TRUE and FALSE, not T and F. (Note that Expressions involving T and F still print them as T and F, because they are stored by name, not by value, in expressions.)

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Module Support

Spotfire S+ 8.1 supports the following Spotfire S+ modules. For module version information, see the module's release notes in the SHOME/module/modulename directory.

Module Platform
S+FinMetricsTM Windows, Solaris, Linux 32/64-bit
S+NuOPT Windows, Solaris, Linux 32/64-bit
S+SeqTrialTM Windows

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Getting Help in Spotfire S+

Spotfire S+ offers an online HTML Help system to make learning and using Spotfire S+ easier.

  • To access the command-line help files from the Console, type (for example) help(importData) at the Spotfire S+ prompt to invoke help on the importData() function.

    Manuals

    Spotfire S+ 8.1 has the following manuals, available in your help directory:

    Book Name File Name
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Application Developer’s Guideadg.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Installation and Administration Guideadmin.pdf
    Big Data Library User’s Guide for TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1bigdata.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Function Guidefunctionguide.pdf
    Getting Started with TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 for Windowsgetstart.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Guide to Graphicsgraphics.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Guide to Packagesspluspackages.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Programmer's Guidepg.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Guide to Statistics, Volume 1statman1.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Guide to Statistics, Volume 2statman2.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 for Windows User’s Guideuguide.pdf
    TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Workbench User's Guideworkbench.pdf

    Also, you can find the TIBCO Spotfire S+ 8.1 Installation and Administration Guide (admin.pdf) at the root level of your installation media.

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    Compilers/Linkers

    Spotfire S+ 8.1 is built with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0® and Compaq/DEC FORTRAN® 6.0. All samples shipped with Spotfire S+ 8.1 have been tested with Visual C++ 6.0 and Compaq/DEC FORTRAN 6.0. If you use Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and Compaq/DEC Fortran 6.0 in your projects that link to Spotfire S+, use the import libraries in SHOME\lib. For example, sqpe.lib is the import library for sqpe.dll containing the core Spotfire S+ interpreter, and sconnect.lib is the import library for sconnect.dll containing the CONNECT/C++ class library.

    Previous builds of S-PLUS (versions 6 and 7) for Win32® used Visual Studio® 6.0 Service Pack 3 to build the engine, GUI, and all samples and utilities shipped with the program. To fix some issues in MFC (the Microsoft Foundation Classes) that Spotfire S+ is based on, we updated the compiler to Service Pack 6. If you have built any C/C++ or Fortran applications using CONNECT/C++ or have modified one of the sample applications for your own purposes, you should install the Visual Studio 6.0 Service Pack 6 update, and recompile and relink these applications to ensure there are no runtime problems related to changes that might have occurred in shared *.dll files.

    File input and output is fully supported in C code called from Spotfire S+, but input and output directed to the standard streams STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR requires special handling. This special handling is provided by the header file newredef.h, which is included in S.h and sconnect.h. If you need to disable this behavior, define NO_NEWIO before S.h or sconnect.h. For example:

    #define NO_NEWIO
    #include "S.h"

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    Technical Support

    For technical support, please visit http://spotfire.tibco.com/support and register for a support account.

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    Appendix: New Functions in Spotfire S+ 8.1

    Function name(s) Description
    bd.assoc.rulesGenerates association rules.
    bd.assoc.rules.get.item.countsCounts association rule items.
    bd.assoc.rules.graphCreates a plot of a set of association rules.
    bd.cache.temp.dirSets and retrieves the directory used for creating temporary cache files.
    bd.object.infoExtracts internal information about a bdFrame or bdVector object.
    bd.run.iminer.worksheetFrom the Spotfire S+ Server, runs an Insightful Miner worksheet in batch mode.
    bd.tallyMeasures internal Big Data operations.
    combinationsReturns all combinations or permutations of size k elements out of n.
    combnGenerates combinations of m elements out of x.
    contentsDataGets the names of all data sets, sheets, or tables in a specified data file or database.
    ddiscreteGets the density for a discrete distribution.
    emf.graphCreates an enhanced metafile file.
    groupAlls, groupAlls.data.frame,
    groupAlls.default
    Computes group sums, means, variances, standard deviations for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupAnys, groupAnys.data.frame,
    groupAnys.default
    Computes group sums, means, variances, standard deviations, or other summaries for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupMaxs, groupMaxs.data.frame,
    groupMaxs.default
    Computes group max for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupMeans, groupMeans.data.frame,
    groupMeans.default
    Computes group means for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupMins, groupMins.data.frame,
    groupMins.default
    Computes group mins for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupProds, groupProds.data.frame,
    groupProds.default
    Computes group products for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupRanges, groupRanges.data.frame,
    groupRanges.default
    Computes group ranges for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupStdevsComputes group standard deviations for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupSums, groupSums.data.frame,
    groupSums.default
    Computes group sums for a vector or columns of an array.
    groupVars, groupVars.data.frame,
    groupVars.default
    Computes group variances for a vector or columns of an array.
    isTRUETest for logical object of length one with value TRUE.
    java.new.plot.actionJava graphics action on a new plot. (winjava package)
    packageDescriptionGets the description of the specified package.
    panel.hexbinPanel function for hexbins
    panel.hexbin.lmlinePanel function for hexbins
    panel.hexbin.loessPanel function for hexbins
    panel.hexbin.smooth.splinePanel function for hexbins
    pdiscreteGets the cumulative probability for a discrete distribution.
    permutationsReturns all combinations or permutations of size k elements out of n.
    qdiscreteGets the quantiles for a discrete distribution.
    rdiscreteGets the random generation for a discrete distribution.
    rectDraws and shades rectangles
    RNGkindSets and inspects the state of the random number generator.
    strwrapWraps character strings for paragraph formatting.
    subtractMeansSubtract group means from each entry for a vector or columns of an array.
    Sys.setenvSets environment variables for use by other processes called from S-PLUS.
    tempdirReturns the name of the directory in which temporary files will be made.
    write.dcfReads and writes data in DCF format.

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