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glr: allow spaces between "%?" and "{" in predicates
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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
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3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
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5** Bug fixes
6
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7*** Portability issues in the test suite.
8
9*** Fixes of the -Werror option
10
11 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
12 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
13
14 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
15 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
16 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
e386b50f 17
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18*** GLR Predicates
19
20 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
21 "%?" and its "{".
22
534497f5 23* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 24
8458a411 25** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 26
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27 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
28 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
29 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
30
8458a411 31** Backward incompatible changes
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32
33*** Obsolete features
34
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35 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
36
37 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
38 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
39
40 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
41 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 42
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43 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
44 in the release 2.5).
45
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46*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
47
48 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
49 Bison extensions.
50
51 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
52 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
53 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
54
55 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
56 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
57 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
58 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
59 warnings for Bison extensions.
60
61 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
62 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
63 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
64 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
65
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66** Bug fixes
67
c21e515e 68*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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69
70 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
71 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
72 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
73 preprocessor expansion:
74
75 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
76
6c7022f7 77 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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78 identifiers for user-provided variables.
79
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80*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
81
82 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
83 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
84
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85*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
86
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87** Diagnostics reported by Bison
88
89 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
90 Santet.
73370a9d 91
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92*** Carets
93
94 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
95 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
96 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
97
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98 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
99 the caret information only. For instance on:
100
101 %%
102 exp: 'a' | 'a';
103
104 Bison 2.7 reports:
105
106 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
107 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
108
109 Now bison reports:
110
111 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
112 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
113 exp: 'a' | 'a';
114 ^^^
115
116 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
117
118 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
119 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
120
1048a1c9 121*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 122
1048a1c9 123 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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124 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
125 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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126
127 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 128 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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129 errors (and only those):
130
131 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
132
133 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
134 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
135
136 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
137
138 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
139
140 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
141 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
142
143 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
144 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
145 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 146
46bdb8ec 147*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 148
46bdb8ec 149 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 150
46bdb8ec 151 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 152
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153 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
154 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 155 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 156
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157 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
158 with failure):
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159
160 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 161 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 162
46bdb8ec 163 it now reports:
1048a1c9 164
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165 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
166
167*** Deprecated constructs
168
169 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
170 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
171 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
172
73370a9d 173*** Useless semantic types
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174
175 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
176 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
177 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
178 types that trigger the warning:
179
180 %token <type1> term
181 %type <type2> nterm
182 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
183 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
184 %%
185 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
186
187 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
188 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
189
31557b9e 190*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 191
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192 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
193 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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194
195 %printer {} symbol1
196 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 197 %type <type> symbol3
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198 %%
199 exp: "a";
200
73370a9d 201*** Useless destructors or printers
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202
203 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
204 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
205 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
206 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
207
208 %token <type1> token1
209 <type2> token2
210 <type3> token3
211 <type4> token4
212 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
213 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
214
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215*** Conflicts
216
217 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
218 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
219
220 %glr-parser
221 %%
222 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
223
224 compare the previous version of bison:
225
226 $ bison foo.y
227 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
228 $ bison -Werror foo.y
229 bison: warnings being treated as errors
230 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
231
232 with the new behavior:
233
234 $ bison foo.y
235 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
236 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
237 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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238 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
239 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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240
241 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
242
243 %expect 0
244 %glr-parser
245 %%
246 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
247
248 Former behavior:
249
250 $ bison bar.y
251 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
252 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
253 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
254
255 New one:
256
257 $ bison bar.y
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258 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
259 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 260
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261** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
262
263 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
264 with '-Wyacc'.
265
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266** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
267
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268 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
269 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
270 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 271
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272 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
273 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
274 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
275 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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276
277 one may now declare
278
e436fa67 279 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 280
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281** Types of values for %define variables
282
283 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
284 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
285 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
286 foo {bar}'.
287
288 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
289
290 %define lr.type lalr
291
292 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
293
294 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
295
296 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
297
2a6b66c5 298** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 299
2a6b66c5 300 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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301 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
302 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
303
e436fa67 304 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 305 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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306 %%
307 start: FILE for ERROR;
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308
309 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
310 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
311 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
312 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
313
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314** Variable api.value.type
315
316 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
317 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
318 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
319
320 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
321
322 %union
323 {
324 int ival;
325 char *sval;
326 }
327 %token <ival> INT "integer"
328 %token <sval> STRING "string"
329 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
330 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
331
332 /* In yylex(). */
333 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
334 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
335
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336 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
337
338 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 339 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 340 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 341
435575cb 342 %define api.value.type union
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343 %token <int> INT "integer"
344 %token <char *> STRING "string"
345 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
346 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
347
348 /* In yylex(). */
349 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
350 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
351
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352 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
353 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 354
435575cb 355 %define api.value.type variant
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356 %token <int> INT "integer"
357 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
358
630a0218 359 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 360 used to be used.
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361
362 %code requires
363 {
364 struct my_value
365 {
366 enum
367 {
368 is_int, is_string
369 } kind;
370 union
371 {
372 int ival;
373 char *sval;
374 } u;
375 };
376 }
435575cb 377 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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378 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
379 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
380 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
381 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
382
383 /* In yylex(). */
384 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
385 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
386
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387** Variable parse.error
388
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389 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
390 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
391 verbose".
31b850d2 392
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393** Renamed %define variables
394
395 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
396 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
397
398 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
399 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
400 namespace -> api.namespace
401 stype -> api.value.type
402
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403** Semantic predicates
404
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405 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
406
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407 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
408 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 409 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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410 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
411 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
412 expressions.
ca2a6d15 413
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414** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
415
416 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
417 reduce/reduce conflicts.
418
5202b6ac 419** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 420
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421 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
422
423 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
424 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
425 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
426 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
427
428 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
429 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
430 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
431
432 %right A B 'c' 'd'
433
434 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
435 input order is now preserved.
436
437 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
438 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
439 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 440
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441** Useless precedence and associativity
442
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443 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
444
1282c124 445 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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446 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
447 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
448 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
449 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
450 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
451 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
452
453*** Precedence warning category
454
455 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
456 useless precedence and associativity directives.
457
458*** Useless associativity
459
460 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
461 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
462 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
463 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
464 For example:
465
466 %left '+'
467 %left '*'
468 %%
469 exp:
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470 "number"
471 | exp '+' "number"
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472 | exp '*' exp
473 ;
474
475 will produce a
476
477 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
478 %left '+'
479 ^^^
480
481*** Useless precedence
482
483 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
484 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
485 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
486 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
487
488 %precedence '='
489 %%
1282c124 490 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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491
492 will produce a
493
494 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
495 %precedence '='
496 ^^^
497
498*** Useless precedence and associativity
499
500 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
501 as follows:
502
503 %nonassoc '='
504 %%
1282c124 505 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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506
507 The warning is:
508
509 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
510 %nonassoc '='
511 ^^^
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512
513** Empty rules
514
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515 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
516
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517 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
518 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
519 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
520 %empty. On the following grammar:
521
522 %%
523 s: a b c;
524 a: ;
525 b: %empty;
526 c: 'a' %empty;
527
528 bison reports:
529
530 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
531 a: {}
532 ^^
533 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
534 c: 'a' %empty {};
535 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 536
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537** Java skeleton improvements
538
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539 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
540 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
541 and "%define init_throws".
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542 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
543
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544 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
545 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
546
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547** C++ skeletons improvements
548
549*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
550
551 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
552 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
553 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
554
555*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
556
557 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
558
559*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
560
561 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
562 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
563 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
564 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
565 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
566 factory invoked by the user actions).
567
568*** %define api.value.type variant
569
570 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
571 from Théophile Ranquet.
572
573 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
574 instance:
575
576 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
577 %token <int> NUMBER;
578 %token SEMICOLON ";"
579 %type <::std::string> item;
580 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
581 %%
582 result:
583 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
584 ;
585
586 list:
6240346a 587 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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588 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
589 ;
590
591 item:
592 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
593 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
594 ;
595
596*** %define api.token.constructor
597
598 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
599 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
600 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
601
602 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
603 {
604 parser::location_type loc = ...;
605 ...
606 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
607 ...
608 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
609 ...
610 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
611 ...
612 }
613
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614*** C++ locations
615
616 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
617 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
618
1f5542fe 619* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 620
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621** Bug fixes
622
623*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
624
625 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 626
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627*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
628
c13bb348 629* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 630
edf9a06f 631** Bug fixes
7bada535 632
edf9a06f 633 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 634
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635 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
636
d4fe9e88 637** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 638
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639 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
640
d4fe9e88 641*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 642
d4fe9e88 643 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 644
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645 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
646 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 647
d4fe9e88 648 It is now:
1f1bd572 649
d4fe9e88
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650 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
651 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 652
d4fe9e88 653*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 654
d4fe9e88 655 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 656
d4fe9e88
AD
657 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
658 %type <sval> exp
659 ^^^^^^
660 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
661 %type <ival> exp
662 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 663
d4fe9e88 664 or
cbaea010 665
7bada535 666 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 667 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 668 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
669 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
670 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
671 ^^^
672 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
673 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
674 ^^^
675 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
676 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
677 ^^^
7bada535 678
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679 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
680 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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681 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
682 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 683
1f1bd572 684** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 685
1f1bd572 686 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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687 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
688 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
689 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
690 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
691 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
692
693 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
694 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 695
7287be84 696** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
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697
698 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
699 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
700 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
701 then responsible to define her type.
702
703 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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704 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
705 them.
db8ab2be
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706
707 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
708 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
709 compatibility).
710
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711 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
712 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
713 api.position.type.
714
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715** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
716
717 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
718 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
719 before re-throwing the exception.
720
721 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
722 appreciated.
723
9c16d399 724** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 725
8458a411
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726 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
727
fc4fdd62
TR
728 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
729 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
730 numbered and left-justified.
731
732 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
733 diamond shaped nodes.
734
9c16d399
TR
735 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
736 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
737
d4fe9e88 738** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 739
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740 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
741 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 742
53e2cd1e
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743** Documentation
744
745 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
746 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 747
d4fe9e88
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748 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
749 were not properly documented.
750
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751 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
752
9d3f7eaf 753* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 754
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755 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
756 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
757 reporting them to us.
758
759** Bug fixes
760
761 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
762 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
763 3.2.
764
765 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 766
1282c124 767 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 768
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769 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
770 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
771
0ac15849 772* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 773
468455e1 774 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 775
6eb8f74f 776* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 777
6b4cb804
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778** Bug fixes
779
a1a77e1f 780 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
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781
782 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
783 users to the appropriate place to report them.
784
785 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
786
787 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
788 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 789
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790 All the generated headers are self-contained.
791
c9d5bcc9
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792** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
793
794 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
795 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
796 For instance the header generated from
797
798 %define api.prefix "calc"
799 %defines "lib/parse.h"
800
801 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
802
c12c4c50 803** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
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804
805 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
806 warnings such as:
807
808 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
809 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
810 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
811 *++yyvsp = yylval;
812 ^
813
814 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
815
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816 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
817 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
818 addressed.
819
e1eeecd3 820* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 821
43ca8040
AD
822** Bug fixes
823
824 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
825 suite have been fixed.
826
c9d546b2
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827** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
828
829 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
830 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 831
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832** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
833
834 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
835
77b214ef 836* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 837
8617d87e
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838 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
839
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840** Future Changes
841
842 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
843 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
844 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
845
846 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
847
848 write:
849
850 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
851
8617d87e
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852** Bug fixes
853
0e164d43
AD
854*** Type names are now properly escaped.
855
856*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 857
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858*** Stray @ or $ in actions
859
860 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
861 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
862 now does.
863
cd735a8c 864** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
865
866 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 867 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
868
869 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
870
871 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 872 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 873
1505e8bb 874* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 875
d0a30438 876** Future changes
9553083c 877
55d1006f
AD
878 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
879 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 880
aaf61036 881*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
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882
883 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 884 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
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885 compilers.
886
258cddbc 887*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 888
258cddbc
AD
889 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
890 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 891
258cddbc
AD
892 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
893 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
894
895 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
896 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
897
898*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
899
900 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
901 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
902 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
903 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
904 it.
0f11eec2 905
c2425191 906** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 907
258cddbc 908*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
909
910 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 911 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 912
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AD
913 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
914 # define YY_FOO_H
915 ...
916 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 917
258cddbc 918*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
919
920 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
921 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
922
e29f0771 923 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
924
925 rather than
926
e29f0771
AD
927 #define yyparse bar_parse
928 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
929
930 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
931 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 932
258cddbc
AD
933*** Exported symbols in C++
934
935 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
936 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
937 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
938
694af10c
AD
939*** YYLSP_NEEDED
940
941 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
942 longer defined.
943
4b3847c3
AD
944** New %define variable: api.prefix
945
946 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
947 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
948 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
949 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
950 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
951 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
952 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
953
954 The following examples compares both:
955
956 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
957 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
958 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
959 %% %%
960 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
961
962 bison generates:
963
964 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
965 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
966
967 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
968 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
969 > # if defined YYDEBUG
970 > # if YYDEBUG
971 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
972 > # else
973 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
974 > # endif
975 > # else
976 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
977 > # endif
978 # endif | # endif
979
980 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
981 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
982 # endif # endif
983
984 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
985 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
986 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
987 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
988 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
989 }; };
990 # endif # endif
991
992 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
993 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
994 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
995 { {
996 int ival; int ival;
997 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
998 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
999 #endif #endif
1000
1001 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1002
1003 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1004
1005 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1006
dfaac272 1007* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1008
debe2c03 1009** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1010
e4ab1254 1011 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1012
466b4cf2 1013** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1014
d834eca0 1015** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1016
d834eca0 1017*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1018
e4ab1254
AD
1019 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1020 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1021
d834eca0 1022*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1023
e4ab1254
AD
1024 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1025 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1026
466b4cf2 1027** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1028
e4ab1254
AD
1029 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1030 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1031
22172d47 1032** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1033
22172d47 1034*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1035
e4ab1254
AD
1036 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1037 or higher.
936c88d1 1038
22172d47
AD
1039*** Header guards
1040
1041 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1042 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1043
e29f0771
AD
1044 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1045 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1046 ...
1047 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1048
1049 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1050 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1051 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1052
1053 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1054
e29f0771
AD
1055 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1056 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1057 ...
1058 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1059
1060*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1061
e4ab1254
AD
1062 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1063 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1064 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1065
466b4cf2
AD
1066** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1067
7e508a2b
AD
1068** Changes in the manual:
1069
1070*** %printer is documented
1071
e4ab1254
AD
1072 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1073 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1074
e4ab1254
AD
1075 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1076 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1077
1078*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1079
e4ab1254
AD
1080 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1081 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1082 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1083 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1084
86b08b49
AD
1085** Building bison:
1086
1087*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1088
e4ab1254
AD
1089 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1090 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1091
8ef26c2a
AD
1092*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1093
1094*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1095
e4ab1254
AD
1096 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1097 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1098
91aadcc7 1099*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1100
e4ab1254
AD
1101 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1102 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1103
28801043 1104* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1105
82f3355e
JD
1106** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1107
1108 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1109 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1110 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1111 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1112 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1113
f1b238df 1114** Named references:
66381412
AR
1115
1116 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1117 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1118 actions code.
1119
1120 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1121 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1122 as named references:
1123
4b568fc0 1124 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1125 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1126
1127 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1128
4b568fc0 1129 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1130 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1131
5b1ff423 1132 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1133 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1134 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1135
5b1ff423 1136 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1137 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1138 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1139
f1b238df 1140** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1141
1142 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1143 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1144 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1145 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1146 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1147 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1148 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1149 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1150 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1151
1152 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1153 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1154 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1155 file with these directives:
1156
cf499cff
JD
1157 %define lr.type lalr
1158 %define lr.type ielr
1159 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1160
7fceb615 1161 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1162 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1163 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1164 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1165
1166 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1167 stabilize them.
1168
8458a411
AD
1169** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1170
1171 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1172
1173 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1174 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1175 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1176 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1177 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1178 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1179 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1180 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1181 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1182 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1183 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1184
1185 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1186 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1187 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1188 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1189 inconsistent states.
1190
7fceb615
JD
1191 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1192 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1193 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1194 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1195 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1196 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1197 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1198 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1199 power.
1200
1201 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1202 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1203
1204 %define parse.lac full
1205
e4ab1254 1206 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1207 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1208
1209 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1210 stabilize it.
1211
d397d9f0 1212** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1213
f1b238df 1214*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1215
de5ab940 1216 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1217
de5ab940
JD
1218 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1219 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1220
1221 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1222 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1223
1224 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1225
de5ab940 1226 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1227
de5ab940
JD
1228 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1229 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1230 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1231 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1232
f1b238df 1233*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1234
1235 The following %define variables
1236
1237 api.push_pull
1238 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1239
1240 have been renamed to
1241
1242 api.push-pull
1243 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1244
1245 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1246 for backward compatibility.
1247
7262f54f 1248*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1249
1250 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1251 within quotations marks. For example,
1252
1253 %define api.push-pull "push"
1254
1255 can be rewritten as
1256
1257 %define api.push-pull push
1258
d397d9f0 1259*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1260
d397d9f0
JD
1261*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1262
1263** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1264
1265** Character literals not of length one:
1266
1267 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1268 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1269 the following grammar to be the same token:
1270
1271 exp: exp '++'
1272 | exp '+' exp
1273 ;
1274
1275 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1276 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1277
1278** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1279
1280 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1281 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1282 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1283 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1284
1285** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1286
1287 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1288 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1289 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1290 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1291
e29f0771
AD
1292 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1293 do \
1294 if (N) \
1295 { \
1296 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1297 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1298 } \
1299 else \
1300 { \
1301 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1302 } \
1303 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1304
1305 use:
1306
e29f0771
AD
1307 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1308 do \
1309 if (N) \
1310 { \
1311 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1312 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1313 } \
1314 else \
1315 { \
1316 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1317 } \
1318 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1319
1320** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1321
1322 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1323 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1324 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1325 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1326
f1b238df 1327** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1328
1329 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1330 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1331 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1332 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1333 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1334 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1335 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1336 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1337
f1b238df 1338** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1339
1340 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1341 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1342 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1343 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1344
1345 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1346
1347 instead of
1348
1349 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1350
1351 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1352 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1353 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1354 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1355 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1356 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1357 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1358
d2060f06
JD
1359** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1360
e4ab1254 1361 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1362 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1363 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1364 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1365 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1366
1367*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1368 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1369 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1370 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1371 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1372 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1373 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1374 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1375 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1376 shifted or discarded.
1377
1378*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1379 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1380 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1381 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1382
1383*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1384 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1385 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1386 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1387 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1388 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1389 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1390 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1391 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1392 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1393 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1394 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1395 by default.
53f036ce 1396
1a33f4f6
JD
1397** Java skeleton fixes:
1398
1399*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1400
1401*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1402 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1403
02803d55
JD
1404*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1405
86408959
JD
1406** -W/--warnings fixes:
1407
e4ab1254 1408*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1409
1410 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1411 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1412
1413 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1414
786743d5
JD
1415*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1416
1417 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1418 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1419 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1420 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1421 example:
1422
1423 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1424 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1425 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1426 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1427
1428 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1429 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1430 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1431 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1432
e4ab1254 1433*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1434
1435 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1436 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1437
1438 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1439
e4ab1254 1440*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1441
e4ab1254 1442 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1443 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1444 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1445 suppress all warnings:
1446
1447 bison -Wnone gram.y
1448
1f36f544
JD
1449** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1450
1451 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1452 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1453 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1454
1455 %left END 0
1456
1457 This bug has been fixed.
1458
64877e5e 1459* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1460
2bfcac9a
JD
1461** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1462 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1463
8b9e021f
JD
1464** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1465 been fixed.
1466
4ad3921d
JD
1467** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1468
06cb07d5
JD
1469** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1470 been fixed.
1471
9b5049bd
JD
1472** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1473 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1474 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1475 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1476
93d7dde9
JD
1477** Minor documentation fixes.
1478
e19a049c 1479* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1480
f39ab286
JD
1481** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1482 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1483 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1484 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1485 affected platforms.
1486
e4ab1254 1487** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1488
1489 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1490 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1491 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1492 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1493 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1494 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1495 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1496 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1497 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1498
d8911864
EB
1499** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1500
a603c6e0
JD
1501** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1502 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1503 avoided.
c938d650 1504
98a345a2
JD
1505** %code is now a permanent feature.
1506
1507 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1508
1509 %{CODE%}
1510
1511 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1512 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1513
1514 %code {CODE}
1515 %code requires {CODE}
1516 %code provides {CODE}
1517 %code top {CODE}
1518
1519 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1520 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1521 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1522 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1523 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1524
1525 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1526 is still considered experimental.
1527
1625df5b
JD
1528** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1529
1530 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1531 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1532 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1533 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1534 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1535 specified by POSIX.
1536
1537 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1538 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1539 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1540 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1541 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1542 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1543 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1544
1545 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1546
1547 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1548 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1549 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1550 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1551 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1552 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1553 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1554 be removed altogether.
1555
1556 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1557 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1558 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1559 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1560 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1561 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1562 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1563 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1564 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1565 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1566
2755de8f
AD
1567** Internationalization.
1568
1569 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1570 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1571 host system.
1572
74553c98 1573* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1574
0ea583d2
AD
1575** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1576 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1577
0ea583d2
AD
1578** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1579
1580 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1581 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1582
1583 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1584
1585 instead of
1586
1587 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1588
e4ab1254 1589 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1590 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1591 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1592 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1593 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1594 feature.
1595
1596** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1597
402b123d 1598* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1599
402b123d 1600** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1601
1602 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1603 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1604 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1605 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1606 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1607
402b123d 1608** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1609
402b123d 1610** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1611 fixed.
1612
402b123d 1613* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1614
402b123d 1615** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1616 are now deprecated:
1617
1618 %define NAME "VALUE"
1619
e4ab1254 1620** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1621
1622 %define api.pure
1623
1624 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1625 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1626
402b123d 1627** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1628
1629 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1630 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1631 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1632 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1633 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1634
1635 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1636 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1637
e4ab1254 1638 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1639
59da312b
JD
1640 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1641 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1642
402b123d 1643** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1644 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1645 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1646
402b123d 1647** Java
59da312b
JD
1648
1649 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1650 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1651 %skeleton to select it.
1652
e4ab1254 1653 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1654
1655 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1656 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1657 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1658
402b123d 1659** %language
59da312b
JD
1660
1661 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1662 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1663 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1664 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1665
402b123d 1666** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1667
1668 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1669 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1670 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1671 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1672
402b123d 1673** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1674 %defines. For example:
1675
1676 %defines "parser.h"
1677
402b123d 1678** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1679 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1680 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1681 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1682
402b123d 1683** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1684
1685 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1686 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1687 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1688
1689 1. Removes unreachable states.
1690
1691 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1692 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1693 directives in existing grammar files.
1694
1695 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1696 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1697
31984206
JD
1698 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1699
1700 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1701
e4ab1254 1702 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1703 for further discussion.
1704
e4ab1254 1705** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1706
e4ab1254
AD
1707 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1708 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1709 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1710 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1711 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1712 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1713 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1714 code.
1715
e4ab1254 1716** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1717 name.
1bb2bd75 1718
e4ab1254 1719** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1720 deprecated:
1721
1722 %file-prefix "parser"
1723 %name-prefix "c_"
1724 %output "parser.c"
1725
e4ab1254 1726** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1727
1728 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1729 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1730 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1731 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1732 it:
1733
e4ab1254
AD
1734 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1735 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1736 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1737 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1738
e4ab1254
AD
1739 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1740 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1741 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1742 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1743
1744 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1745 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1746
402b123d 1747** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1748
1749 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1750 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1751 about unused $2 in:
1752
1753 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1754
1755 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1756 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1757
1758 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1759
1760 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1761 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1762 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1763
e4ab1254
AD
1764 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1765 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1766
e4ab1254 1767** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1768
1769 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1770 %printer's:
1771
e4ab1254 1772 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1773 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1774 declared semantic type tags.
1775
e4ab1254 1776 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1777 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1778 type tags.
1779
e4ab1254
AD
1780 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1781 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1782 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1783 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1784
85894313
JD
1785 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1786 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1787 features.
1788
e4ab1254 1789 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1790 details.
1791
402b123d 1792** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1793 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1794 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1795
402b123d 1796** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1797 completely removed from Bison.
1798
402b123d 1799* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1800
402b123d 1801** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1802 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1803 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1804 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1805 and is required by POSIX.
1806
402b123d 1807** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1808 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1809
402b123d 1810** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1811
1812 For example:
1813
b2a0b7ca
JD
1814 %union { char *string; }
1815 %token <string> STRING1
1816 %token <string> STRING2
1817 %type <string> string1
1818 %type <string> string2
1819 %union { char character; }
1820 %token <character> CHR
1821 %type <character> chr
1822 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1823 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1824 %destructor { } <character>
1825
1826 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1827 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1828 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1829 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1830 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1831
85894313
JD
1832 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1833 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1834 future versions.]
1835
e4ab1254
AD
1836** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1837 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1838 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1839 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1840 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1841
402b123d 1842** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1843 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1844
1845 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1846 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1847 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1848 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1849 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1850
34f98f46 1851 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1852 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1853 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1854 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1855 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1856 after the token definitions.
1857
1858 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1859 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1860
402b123d 1861** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1862 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1863 %after-header.
1864
1865 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1866 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1867 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1868 convenient for you:
1869
1870 %before-header {
1871 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1872 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1873 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1874 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1875 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1876 }
1877 %start-header {
1878 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1879 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1880 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1881 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1882 }
1883 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1884 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1885 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1886 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1887 }
34f98f46
JD
1888 %end-header {
1889 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1890 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1891 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1892 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1893 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1894 }
34f98f46
JD
1895 %after-header {
1896 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1897 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1898 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1899 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1900 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1901 }
1902
1903 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1904 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1905
85894313
JD
1906 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1907 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1908
e4ab1254 1909** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1910 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1911 in a future release.
742e4900 1912
402b123d 1913* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1914
e4ab1254 1915** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1916 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1917
402b123d 1918** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1919 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1920
402b123d 1921* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1922
402b123d 1923** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1924 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1925 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1926
402b123d 1927** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1928
402b123d 1929** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1930
402b123d 1931** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1932 their contents together.
1933
402b123d 1934** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1935 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1936 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1937
8f3596a6 1938 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1939 | exp "+" exp
1940 ;
affac613 1941
8f3596a6
AD
1942 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1943 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1944 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1945
4e26c69e 1946 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1947 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1948 | exp "+" exp
1949 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1950 ;
affac613 1951
4e26c69e
PE
1952 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1953 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1954 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1955
8f3596a6 1956 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1957 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1958 ;
721be13c 1959
84866159
AD
1960 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1961 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1962
1963 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1964
721be13c
PE
1965 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1966 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1967
402b123d 1968** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1969 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1970 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1971 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1972
402b123d 1973** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1974 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1975 instead of warnings.
1976
402b123d 1977** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1978 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1979 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1980
e4ab1254 1981** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1982
402b123d 1983** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1984 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1985 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1986
402b123d 1987** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1988 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1989 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1990 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1991 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1992
1993 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1994 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1995 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1996 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1997
b50d2359 1998 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1999 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 2000
402b123d 2001** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 2002\f
402b123d 2003* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 2004
402b123d 2005** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2006
402b123d 2007** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2008 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2009 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2010 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2011 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2012 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2013
402b123d 2014** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2015 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2016 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2017 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2018
402b123d 2019** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2020 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2021 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2022
402b123d 2023** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2024 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2025 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2026 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2027 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2028\f
402b123d 2029* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2030
402b123d 2031** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2032
82de6b0d
PE
2033 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2034 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2035 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2036 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2037 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2038
82de6b0d
PE
2039 - Error token location.
2040 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2041 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2042 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2043 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2044
82de6b0d
PE
2045 - Semicolon changes:
2046 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2047 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2048
82de6b0d
PE
2049 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2050 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2051 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2052 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2053
82de6b0d 2054 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2055
402b123d 2056** New features
1452af69 2057
82de6b0d 2058 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2059
82de6b0d
PE
2060 - New directive: %initial-action.
2061 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2062 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2063
82de6b0d
PE
2064 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2065 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2066
e4ab1254 2067 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2068 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2069
e4ab1254 2070 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2071 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2072
82de6b0d 2073 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2074
82de6b0d
PE
2075 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2076 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2077
402b123d 2078** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2079
82de6b0d
PE
2080 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2081 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2082 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2083 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2084 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2085 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2086
82de6b0d
PE
2087 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2088 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2089
82de6b0d 2090 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2091\f
402b123d 2092* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2093
402b123d 2094** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2095 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2096
402b123d 2097** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2098
dc546b0f
PE
2099 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2100 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2101
dc546b0f
PE
2102 - %destructor
2103 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2104 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2105
dc546b0f
PE
2106 - %error-verbose
2107 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2108
dc546b0f
PE
2109 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2110 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2111
402b123d 2112** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2113
dc546b0f
PE
2114 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2115 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2116 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2117
e4ab1254
AD
2118 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2119 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2120 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2121 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2122 be consistent.
74724a70 2123
dc546b0f
PE
2124 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2125 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2126
dc546b0f
PE
2127 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2128 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2129
dc546b0f
PE
2130 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2131 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2132
dc546b0f 2133 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2134 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2135 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2136 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2137 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2138
dc546b0f 2139 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2140
dc546b0f
PE
2141 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2142 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2143 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2144
402b123d 2145** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2146
e4ab1254
AD
2147 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2148 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2149 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2150 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2151 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2152 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2153
e4ab1254 2154 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2155 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2156
dc546b0f 2157 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2158 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2159
e4ab1254 2160 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2161 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2162 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2163
402b123d 2164** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2165
dc546b0f
PE
2166 - GLR and inline
2167 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2168 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2169
e4ab1254
AD
2170 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2171 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2172
18ad57b3
AD
2173** %parse-param and %lex-param
2174 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2175 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2176 shortcomings:
2177
2178 - a single argument only can be added,
2179 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2180 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2181 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2182
2183 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2184 For instance:
2185
2186 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2187 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2188 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2189
2190 results in the following signatures:
2191
2192 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2193 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2194
2195 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2196
2197 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2198 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2199
402b123d 2200** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2201 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2202 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2203
402b123d 2204** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2205 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2206
402b123d 2207** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2208 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2209 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2210 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2211\f
402b123d 2212* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2213
402b123d 2214** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2215
402b123d 2216** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2217
402b123d 2218** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2219 Fix spurious parse errors.
2220
402b123d 2221** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2222 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2223 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2224
402b123d 2225** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2226 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2227 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2228
e9690142 2229 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2230
2231 but the converse remains an error:
2232
e9690142 2233 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2234
402b123d 2235** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2236 The following code:
2237
e9690142 2238 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2239
2240 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2241 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2242\f
402b123d 2243* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2244
402b123d 2245** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2246 The declaration
2247 %glr-parser
2248 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2249 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2250 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2251 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2252
7933f2b5 2253 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2254 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2255
402b123d 2256** Output Directory
8c165d89 2257 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2258 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2259 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2260
402b123d 2261** Undefined token
007a50a4 2262 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2263 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2264
402b123d 2265** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2266 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2267 no longer the case.
2268
402b123d 2269** Error token
e88dbdbf 2270 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2271 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2272 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2273 will be mapped onto another number.
2274
402b123d 2275** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2276 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2277 error recovery is possible.
2278
402b123d 2279** End token
e4ab1254 2280 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2281
402b123d 2282** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2283 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2284 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2285 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2286 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2287 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2288 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2289 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2290 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2291
402b123d 2292** Traces
5504898e
AD
2293 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2294
402b123d 2295** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2296 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2297 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2298 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2299 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2300
402b123d 2301** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2302 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2303 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2304 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2305
402b123d 2306** Useless rules
643a5994 2307 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2308 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2309
402b123d 2310** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2311 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2312
402b123d 2313** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2314 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2315 reported.
2316
e4ab1254 2317** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2318 On a grammar such as
2319
e29f0771
AD
2320 %token useless useful
2321 %%
2322 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2323
2324 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2325 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2326
402b123d 2327** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2328 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2329
402b123d 2330** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2331 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2332 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2333 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2334 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2335
402b123d 2336** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2337 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2338 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2339 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2340 For instance
e29f0771 2341 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2342 or
e29f0771 2343 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2344
402b123d 2345** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2346 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2347
402b123d 2348** New translations
a861a339 2349 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2350 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2351
402b123d 2352** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2353 When given
2354 %token 'a' "A"
2355 bison used to output
2356 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2357
402b123d 2358** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2359 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2360 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2361 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2362
402b123d 2363** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2364 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2365 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2366 - itemset
2367 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2368 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2369 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2370 - solved
2371 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2372 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2373 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2374
402b123d 2375** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2376 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2377 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2378
e29f0771
AD
2379 %type <foo> bar
2380 %%
2381 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2382
2383 This is fixed.
a861a339 2384
402b123d 2385** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2386\f
402b123d 2387* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2388
402b123d 2389** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2390 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2391 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2392 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2393
2394 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2395 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2396 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2397 kludge will be disabled.
2398
2399 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2400 extended.
76551463 2401\f
402b123d 2402* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2403
402b123d 2404** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2405 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2406 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2407
e4ab1254 2408** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2409 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2410 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2411 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2412 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2413 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2414
402b123d 2415** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2416 many portability hassles.
2417
402b123d 2418** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2419
402b123d 2420** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2421\f
402b123d 2422* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2423
402b123d 2424** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2425 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2426 under some conditions.
2427
402b123d 2428** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2429 As is done with $n.
2430\f
402b123d 2431* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2432
402b123d 2433** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2434
402b123d 2435** Portability fixes
76551463 2436
402b123d 2437** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2438\f
402b123d 2439* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2440
402b123d 2441** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2442
402b123d 2443** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2444 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2445 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2446 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2447 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2448
402b123d 2449** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2450 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2451 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2452
2453 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2454 problems as on AIX.
2455
402b123d 2456** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2457
402b123d 2458** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2459 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2460
402b123d 2461** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2462 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2463 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2464 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2465
402b123d 2466** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2467 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2468 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2469
402b123d 2470** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2471 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2472
402b123d 2473** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2474 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2475
402b123d 2476** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2477 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2478
402b123d 2479** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2480 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2481 any warning.
2482
402b123d 2483** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2484
402b123d 2485** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2486
402b123d 2487** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2488
402b123d 2489** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2490 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2491 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2492 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2493
402b123d 2494** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2495 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2496 previous allocations were not freed.
2497
402b123d 2498** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2499 Some newlines were missing.
2500 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2501
402b123d 2502** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2503 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2504
402b123d 2505** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2506 Was not used.
2507 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2508
402b123d 2509** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2510
402b123d 2511** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2512
402b123d 2513** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2514
402b123d 2515** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2516 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2517
402b123d 2518** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2519
402b123d 2520** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2521 New.
2522
402b123d 2523** --output
e4ab1254 2524 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2525\f
402b123d 2526* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2527
e4ab1254
AD
2528** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2529 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2530 argument.
2531
e4ab1254 2532** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2533 experiment.
2534
402b123d 2535** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2536\f
402b123d 2537* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2538
402b123d 2539** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2540 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2541 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2542 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2543
e4ab1254 2544** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2545
402b123d 2546** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2547
402b123d 2548** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2549
402b123d 2550** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2551
402b123d 2552** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2553
402b123d 2554** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2555
e4ab1254 2556** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2557
e4ab1254 2558** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2559
e4ab1254 2560** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2561
402b123d 2562** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2563 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2564
402b123d 2565** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2566 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2567 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2568
402b123d 2569** @$
f987e9d2 2570 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2571\f
402b123d 2572* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2573
402b123d 2574** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2575
402b123d 2576** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2577
402b123d 2578** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2579
402b123d 2580** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2581\f
402b123d 2582* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2583
402b123d 2584** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2585 some systems has been fixed.
2586\f
402b123d 2587* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2588
7e508a2b 2589** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2590
402b123d 2591** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2592
402b123d 2593** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2594
402b123d 2595** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2596
402b123d 2597** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2598
402b123d 2599** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2600
402b123d 2601** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2602 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2603\f
402b123d 2604* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2605
402b123d 2606** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2607the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2608
402b123d 2609** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2610example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2611of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2612
402b123d 2613** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2614and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2615table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2616purposes.
2617
402b123d 2618** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2619directives in the parser file.
2620
402b123d 2621** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2622Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2623
402b123d 2624** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2625the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2626The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2627a switch statement body.
2628\f
402b123d 2629* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2630
4d019228
DM
2631The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2632passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2633actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2634by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2635
6780ca7a 2636Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2637\f
402b123d 2638* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2639
2640--help option added.
6780ca7a 2641\f
402b123d 2642* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2643
2644Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2645
76551463
AD
2646-----
2647
7d6bad19 2648Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2649
74553c98 2650This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2651
f16b0819 2652This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2653it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2654the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2655(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2656
f16b0819 2657This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2658but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2659MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2660GNU General Public License for more details.
2661
2662You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2663along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2664
2665 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2666 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2667 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2668 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2669 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2670 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2671 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2672 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2673 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2674 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2675 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2676 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2677 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2678 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2679 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2680 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2681 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2682 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1282c124
AD
2683 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2684 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2685 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2686 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2687 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2688 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
7e508a2b
AD
2689
2690Local Variables:
2691mode: outline
e4ab1254 2692fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2693End: