]> git.saurik.com Git - bison.git/blame - NEWS
doc: introduce %empty and -Wempty-rule
[bison.git] / NEWS
CommitLineData
ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
52718713 3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
74553c98 4
8458a411 5** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 6
8458a411
AD
7 Bison will stop adding a semicolon at the end of the actions (as announced
8 in the release 2.5):
597afd73
AD
9
10 foo.y:2.22: warning: a ';' might be needed at the end of action code
11 exp: "num" { $$ = $1 }
12 ^
13 foo.y:2.22: future versions of Bison will not add the ';'
14
15 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
16 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
17 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
18
8458a411 19** Backward incompatible changes
47db7ed1
AD
20
21*** Obsolete features
22
40bb6f78
AD
23 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
24
25 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
26 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
27
28 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
29 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 30
597afd73
AD
31** Bug fixes
32
c21e515e 33*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
597afd73
AD
34
35 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
36 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
37 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
38 preprocessor expansion:
39
40 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
41
42 This is has been fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
43 identifiers for user-provided variables.
44
f0f95a50
AD
45*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
46
47 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
48 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
49
597afd73
AD
50** Diagnostics reported by Bison
51
52 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
53 Santet.
73370a9d 54
016426c1
TR
55*** Carets
56
57 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
58 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
59 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
60
fec5f3c0
AD
61 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
62 the caret information only. For instance on:
63
64 %%
65 exp: 'a' | 'a';
66
67 Bison 2.7 reports:
68
69 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
70 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
71
72 Now bison reports:
73
74 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
75 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
76 exp: 'a' | 'a';
77 ^^^
78
79 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
80
81 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
82 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
83
1048a1c9 84*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 85
1048a1c9 86 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
d949eefd
AD
87 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
88 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
1048a1c9
AD
89
90 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 91 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
1048a1c9
AD
92 errors (and only those):
93
94 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
95
96 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
97 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
98
99 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
100
101 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
102
103 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
104 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
105
106 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
107 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
108 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 109
46bdb8ec 110*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 111
46bdb8ec 112 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 113
46bdb8ec 114 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 115
46bdb8ec
TR
116 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
117 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 118 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 119
46bdb8ec
TR
120 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
121 with failure):
1048a1c9
AD
122
123 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 124 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 125
46bdb8ec 126 it now reports:
1048a1c9 127
1048a1c9
AD
128 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
129
130*** Deprecated constructs
131
132 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
133 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
134 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
135
73370a9d 136*** Useless semantic types
9641b918
VS
137
138 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
139 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
140 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
141 types that trigger the warning:
142
143 %token <type1> term
144 %type <type2> nterm
145 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
146 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
147 %%
148 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
149
150 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
151 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
152
31557b9e 153*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 154
31557b9e
AD
155 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
156 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
b921d92f
VS
157
158 %printer {} symbol1
159 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 160 %type <type> symbol3
b921d92f
VS
161 %%
162 exp: "a";
163
73370a9d 164*** Useless destructors or printers
ea9a35c6
VS
165
166 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
167 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
168 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
169 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
170
171 %token <type1> token1
172 <type2> token2
173 <type3> token3
174 <type4> token4
175 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
176 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
177
d87ea54c
AD
178*** Conflicts
179
180 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
181 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
182
183 %glr-parser
184 %%
185 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
186
187 compare the previous version of bison:
188
189 $ bison foo.y
190 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
191 $ bison -Werror foo.y
192 bison: warnings being treated as errors
193 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
194
195 with the new behavior:
196
197 $ bison foo.y
198 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
199 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
200 $ bison -Werror foo.y
9503b0a4
TR
201 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
202 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
d87ea54c
AD
203
204 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
205
206 %expect 0
207 %glr-parser
208 %%
209 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
210
211 Former behavior:
212
213 $ bison bar.y
214 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
215 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
216 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
217
218 New one:
219
220 $ bison bar.y
9503b0a4
TR
221 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
222 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 223
2055a44e
AD
224** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
225
6dc4663d
AD
226 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
227 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
228 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 229
e436fa67
AD
230 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
231 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
232 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
233 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e
AD
234
235 one may now declare
236
e436fa67 237 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 238
2a6b66c5 239** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 240
2a6b66c5 241 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
99c08fb6
AD
242 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
243 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
244
e436fa67 245 %token FILE for ERROR
2a6b66c5 246 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
e436fa67
AD
247 %%
248 start: FILE for ERROR;
99c08fb6
AD
249
250 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
251 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
252 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
253 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
254
31b850d2
AD
255** Variable parse.error
256
1f77b2e0
AD
257 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
258 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
259 verbose".
31b850d2 260
c21e515e
AD
261** Renamed %define variables
262
263 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
264 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
265
266 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
267 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
268 namespace -> api.namespace
269 stype -> api.value.type
270
ca2a6d15
PH
271** Semantic predicates
272
597afd73
AD
273 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
274
1f77b2e0
AD
275 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
276 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 277 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
1f77b2e0
AD
278 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
279 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
280 expressions.
ca2a6d15 281
d1400569
AD
282** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
283
284 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
285 reduce/reduce conflicts.
286
93561c21
VT
287** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
288
289 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
290 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
291 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
292
cc2235ac
VT
293** Useless precedence and associativity
294
d2f9ae18
AD
295 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
296
cc2235ac
VT
297 When developping and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
298 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
299 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
300 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
301 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
302 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
303 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
304
305*** Precedence warning category
306
307 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
308 useless precedence and associativity directives.
309
310*** Useless associativity
311
312 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
313 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
314 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
315 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
316 For example:
317
318 %left '+'
319 %left '*'
320 %%
321 exp:
322 "num"
323 | exp '+' "num"
324 | exp '*' exp
325 ;
326
327 will produce a
328
329 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
330 %left '+'
331 ^^^
332
333*** Useless precedence
334
335 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
336 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
337 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
338 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
339
340 %precedence '='
341 %%
342 exp: "var" '=' "num";
343
344 will produce a
345
346 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
347 %precedence '='
348 ^^^
349
350*** Useless precedence and associativity
351
352 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
353 as follows:
354
355 %nonassoc '='
356 %%
357 exp: "var" '=' "num";
358
359 The warning is:
360
361 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
362 %nonassoc '='
363 ^^^
09add9c2
AD
364
365** Empty rules
366
367 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
368 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
369 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
370 %empty. On the following grammar:
371
372 %%
373 s: a b c;
374 a: ;
375 b: %empty;
376 c: 'a' %empty;
377
378 bison reports:
379
380 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
381 a: {}
382 ^^
383 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
384 c: 'a' %empty {};
385 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 386
c21e515e
AD
387** Java skeleton improvements
388
389 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
390
391 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
392 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
393 and "%define init_throws".
394
395** C++ skeletons improvements
396
397*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
398
399 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
400 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
401 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
402
403*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
404
405 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
406
407*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
408
409 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
410 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
411 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
412 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
413 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
414 factory invoked by the user actions).
415
416*** %define api.value.type variant
417
418 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
419 from Théophile Ranquet.
420
421 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
422 instance:
423
424 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
425 %token <int> NUMBER;
426 %token SEMICOLON ";"
427 %type <::std::string> item;
428 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
429 %%
430 result:
431 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
432 ;
433
434 list:
435 /* nothing */ { /* Generates an empty string list */ }
436 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
437 ;
438
439 item:
440 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
441 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
442 ;
443
444*** %define api.token.constructor
445
446 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
447 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
448 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
449
450 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
451 {
452 parser::location_type loc = ...;
453 ...
454 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
455 ...
456 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
457 ...
458 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
459 ...
460 }
461
c13bb348 462* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 463
edf9a06f 464** Bug fixes
7bada535 465
edf9a06f 466 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 467
1127a75a
AD
468 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
469
d4fe9e88 470** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 471
8458a411
AD
472 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
473
d4fe9e88 474*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 475
d4fe9e88 476 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 477
d4fe9e88
AD
478 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
479 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 480
d4fe9e88 481 It is now:
1f1bd572 482
d4fe9e88
AD
483 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
484 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 485
d4fe9e88 486*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 487
d4fe9e88 488 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 489
d4fe9e88
AD
490 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
491 %type <sval> exp
492 ^^^^^^
493 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
494 %type <ival> exp
495 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 496
d4fe9e88 497 or
cbaea010 498
7bada535 499 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 500 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 501 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
502 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
503 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
504 ^^^
505 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
506 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
507 ^^^
508 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
509 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
510 ^^^
7bada535 511
d4fe9e88
AD
512 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
513 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
514 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
515 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 516
1f1bd572 517** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 518
1f1bd572 519 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
AD
520 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
521 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
522 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
523 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
524 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
525
526 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
527 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 528
7287be84 529** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
AD
530
531 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
532 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
533 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
534 then responsible to define her type.
535
536 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
AD
537 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
538 them.
db8ab2be
AD
539
540 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
541 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
542 compatibility).
543
7287be84
AD
544 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
545 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
546 api.position.type.
547
d4fe9e88
AD
548** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
549
550 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
551 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
552 before re-throwing the exception.
553
554 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
555 appreciated.
556
9c16d399 557** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 558
8458a411
AD
559 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
560
fc4fdd62
TR
561 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
562 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
563 numbered and left-justified.
564
565 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
566 diamond shaped nodes.
567
9c16d399
TR
568 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
569 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
570
d4fe9e88 571** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 572
d4fe9e88
AD
573 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
574 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 575
53e2cd1e
AD
576** Documentation
577
578 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
579 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 580
d4fe9e88
AD
581 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
582 were not properly documented.
583
be22823e
AD
584 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
585
9d3f7eaf 586* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 587
a68b1f23
AD
588 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
589 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
590 reporting them to us.
591
592** Bug fixes
593
594 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
595 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
596 3.2.
597
598 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 599
95066e92
AD
600 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
601
a1d1ab50
AD
602 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
603 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
604
0ac15849 605* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 606
468455e1 607 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 608
6eb8f74f 609* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 610
6b4cb804
AD
611** Bug fixes
612
a1a77e1f 613 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
AD
614
615 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
616 users to the appropriate place to report them.
617
618 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
619
620 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
621 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 622
a2b3f101
TR
623 All the generated headers are self-contained.
624
c9d5bcc9
AD
625** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
626
627 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
628 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
629 For instance the header generated from
630
631 %define api.prefix "calc"
632 %defines "lib/parse.h"
633
634 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
635
c12c4c50 636** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
321d3e35
AD
637
638 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
639 warnings such as:
640
641 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
642 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
643 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
644 *++yyvsp = yylval;
645 ^
646
647 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
648
c12c4c50
AD
649 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
650 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
651 addressed.
652
e1eeecd3 653* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 654
43ca8040
AD
655** Bug fixes
656
657 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
658 suite have been fixed.
659
c9d546b2
AD
660** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
661
662 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
663 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 664
dcd5344d
AD
665** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
666
667 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
668
77b214ef 669* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 670
8617d87e
AD
671 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
672
e20e6a50
AD
673** Future Changes
674
675 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
676 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
677 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
678
679 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
680
681 write:
682
683 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
684
8617d87e
AD
685** Bug fixes
686
0e164d43
AD
687*** Type names are now properly escaped.
688
689*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 690
26313726
AD
691*** Stray @ or $ in actions
692
693 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
694 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
695 now does.
696
cd735a8c 697** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
698
699 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 700 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
701
702 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
703
704 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 705 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 706
1505e8bb 707* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 708
d0a30438 709** Future changes
9553083c 710
55d1006f
AD
711 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
712 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 713
aaf61036 714*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
AD
715
716 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 717 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
718 compilers.
719
258cddbc 720*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 721
258cddbc
AD
722 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
723 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 724
258cddbc
AD
725 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
726 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
727
728 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
729 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
730
731*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
732
733 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
734 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
735 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
736 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
737 it.
0f11eec2 738
c2425191 739** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 740
258cddbc 741*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
742
743 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 744 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 745
e29f0771
AD
746 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
747 # define YY_FOO_H
748 ...
749 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 750
258cddbc 751*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
752
753 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
754 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
755
e29f0771 756 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
757
758 rather than
759
e29f0771
AD
760 #define yyparse bar_parse
761 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
762
763 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
764 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 765
258cddbc
AD
766*** Exported symbols in C++
767
768 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
769 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
770 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
771
694af10c
AD
772*** YYLSP_NEEDED
773
774 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
775 longer defined.
776
4b3847c3
AD
777** New %define variable: api.prefix
778
779 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
780 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
781 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
782 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
783 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
784 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
785 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
786
787 The following examples compares both:
788
789 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
790 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
791 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
792 %% %%
793 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
794
795 bison generates:
796
797 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
798 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
799
800 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
801 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
802 > # if defined YYDEBUG
803 > # if YYDEBUG
804 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
805 > # else
806 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
807 > # endif
808 > # else
809 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
810 > # endif
811 # endif | # endif
812
813 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
814 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
815 # endif # endif
816
817 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
818 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
819 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
820 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
821 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
822 }; };
823 # endif # endif
824
825 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
826 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
827 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
828 { {
829 int ival; int ival;
830 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
831 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
832 #endif #endif
833
834 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
835
836 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
837
838 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
839
dfaac272 840* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 841
debe2c03 842** Future changes:
765e1bd4 843
e4ab1254 844 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 845
466b4cf2 846** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 847
d834eca0 848** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 849
d834eca0 850*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 851
e4ab1254
AD
852 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
853 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 854
d834eca0 855*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 856
e4ab1254
AD
857 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
858 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 859
466b4cf2 860** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 861
e4ab1254
AD
862 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
863 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 864
22172d47 865** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 866
22172d47 867*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 868
e4ab1254
AD
869 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
870 or higher.
936c88d1 871
22172d47
AD
872*** Header guards
873
874 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
875 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
876
e29f0771
AD
877 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
878 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
879 ...
880 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
881
882 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
883 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
884 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
885
886 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
887
e29f0771
AD
888 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
889 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
890 ...
891 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
892
893*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 894
e4ab1254
AD
895 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
896 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
897 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 898
466b4cf2
AD
899** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
900
7e508a2b
AD
901** Changes in the manual:
902
903*** %printer is documented
904
e4ab1254
AD
905 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
906 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 907
e4ab1254
AD
908 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
909 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
910
911*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 912
e4ab1254
AD
913 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
914 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
915 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
916 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 917
86b08b49
AD
918** Building bison:
919
920*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 921
e4ab1254
AD
922 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
923 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 924
8ef26c2a
AD
925*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
926
927*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 928
e4ab1254
AD
929 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
930 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 931
91aadcc7 932*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 933
e4ab1254
AD
934 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
935 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 936
28801043 937* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 938
82f3355e
JD
939** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
940
941 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
942 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
943 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
944 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
945 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
946
f1b238df 947** Named references:
66381412
AR
948
949 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
950 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
951 actions code.
952
953 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
954 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
955 as named references:
956
4b568fc0 957 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
958 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
959
960 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
961
4b568fc0 962 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
963 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
964
5b1ff423 965 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
966 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
967 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
968
5b1ff423 969 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 970 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 971 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 972
f1b238df 973** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
974
975 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
976 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 977 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
978 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
979 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
980 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
981 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
982 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
983 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
984
985 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
986 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
987 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
988 file with these directives:
989
cf499cff
JD
990 %define lr.type lalr
991 %define lr.type ielr
992 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 993
7fceb615 994 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
995 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
996 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 997 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
998
999 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1000 stabilize them.
1001
8458a411
AD
1002** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1003
1004 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1005
1006 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1007 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1008 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1009 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1010 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1011 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1012 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1013 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1014 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1015 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1016 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1017
1018 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1019 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1020 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1021 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1022 inconsistent states.
1023
7fceb615
JD
1024 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1025 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1026 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1027 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1028 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1029 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1030 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1031 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1032 power.
1033
1034 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1035 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1036
1037 %define parse.lac full
1038
e4ab1254 1039 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1040 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1041
1042 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1043 stabilize it.
1044
d397d9f0 1045** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1046
f1b238df 1047*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1048
de5ab940 1049 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1050
de5ab940
JD
1051 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1052 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1053
1054 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1055 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1056
1057 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1058
de5ab940 1059 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1060
de5ab940
JD
1061 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1062 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1063 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1064 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1065
f1b238df 1066*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1067
1068 The following %define variables
1069
1070 api.push_pull
1071 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1072
1073 have been renamed to
1074
1075 api.push-pull
1076 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1077
1078 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1079 for backward compatibility.
1080
7262f54f 1081*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1082
1083 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1084 within quotations marks. For example,
1085
1086 %define api.push-pull "push"
1087
1088 can be rewritten as
1089
1090 %define api.push-pull push
1091
d397d9f0 1092*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1093
d397d9f0
JD
1094*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1095
1096** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1097
1098** Character literals not of length one:
1099
1100 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1101 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1102 the following grammar to be the same token:
1103
1104 exp: exp '++'
1105 | exp '+' exp
1106 ;
1107
1108 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1109 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1110
1111** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1112
1113 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1114 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1115 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1116 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1117
1118** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1119
1120 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1121 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
AD
1122 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1123 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1124
e29f0771
AD
1125 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1126 do \
1127 if (N) \
1128 { \
1129 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1130 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1131 } \
1132 else \
1133 { \
1134 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1135 } \
1136 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1137
1138 use:
1139
e29f0771
AD
1140 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1141 do \
1142 if (N) \
1143 { \
1144 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1145 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1146 } \
1147 else \
1148 { \
1149 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1150 } \
1151 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1152
1153** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1154
1155 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1156 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1157 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1158 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1159
f1b238df 1160** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1161
1162 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1163 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1164 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1165 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1166 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1167 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1168 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1169 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1170
f1b238df 1171** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1172
1173 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1174 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1175 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1176 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1177
1178 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1179
1180 instead of
1181
1182 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1183
1184 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1185 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1186 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1187 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1188 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1189 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1190 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1191
d2060f06
JD
1192** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1193
e4ab1254 1194 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1195 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1196 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1197 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1198 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1199
1200*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1201 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1202 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1203 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1204 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1205 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1206 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1207 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1208 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1209 shifted or discarded.
1210
1211*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1212 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1213 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1214 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1215
1216*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1217 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1218 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1219 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1220 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1221 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1222 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1223 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1224 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1225 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1226 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1227 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1228 by default.
53f036ce 1229
1a33f4f6
JD
1230** Java skeleton fixes:
1231
1232*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1233
1234*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1235 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1236
02803d55
JD
1237*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1238
86408959
JD
1239** -W/--warnings fixes:
1240
e4ab1254 1241*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1242
1243 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1244 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1245
1246 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1247
786743d5
JD
1248*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1249
1250 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1251 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1252 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1253 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1254 example:
1255
1256 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1257 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1258 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1259 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1260
1261 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1262 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1263 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1264 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1265
e4ab1254 1266*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1267
1268 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1269 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1270
1271 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1272
e4ab1254 1273*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1274
e4ab1254 1275 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1276 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1277 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1278 suppress all warnings:
1279
1280 bison -Wnone gram.y
1281
1f36f544
JD
1282** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1283
1284 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1285 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1286 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1287
1288 %left END 0
1289
1290 This bug has been fixed.
1291
64877e5e 1292* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1293
2bfcac9a
JD
1294** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1295 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1296
8b9e021f
JD
1297** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1298 been fixed.
1299
4ad3921d
JD
1300** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1301
06cb07d5
JD
1302** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1303 been fixed.
1304
9b5049bd
JD
1305** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1306 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1307 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1308 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1309
93d7dde9
JD
1310** Minor documentation fixes.
1311
e19a049c 1312* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1313
f39ab286
JD
1314** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1315 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1316 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1317 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1318 affected platforms.
1319
e4ab1254 1320** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1321
1322 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1323 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1324 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1325 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1326 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1327 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1328 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1329 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1330 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1331
d8911864
EB
1332** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1333
a603c6e0
JD
1334** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1335 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1336 avoided.
c938d650 1337
98a345a2
JD
1338** %code is now a permanent feature.
1339
1340 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1341
1342 %{CODE%}
1343
1344 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1345 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1346
1347 %code {CODE}
1348 %code requires {CODE}
1349 %code provides {CODE}
1350 %code top {CODE}
1351
1352 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1353 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1354 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1355 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1356 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1357
1358 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1359 is still considered experimental.
1360
1625df5b
JD
1361** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1362
1363 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1364 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1365 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1366 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1367 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1368 specified by POSIX.
1369
1370 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1371 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1372 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1373 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1374 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1375 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1376 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1377
1378 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1379
1380 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1381 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1382 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1383 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1384 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1385 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1386 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1387 be removed altogether.
1388
1389 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1390 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1391 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1392 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1393 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1394 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1395 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1396 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1397 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1398 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1399
2755de8f
AD
1400** Internationalization.
1401
1402 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1403 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1404 host system.
1405
74553c98 1406* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1407
0ea583d2
AD
1408** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1409 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1410
0ea583d2
AD
1411** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1412
1413 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1414 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1415
1416 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1417
1418 instead of
1419
1420 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1421
e4ab1254 1422 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1423 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1424 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1425 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1426 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1427 feature.
1428
1429** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1430
402b123d 1431* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1432
402b123d 1433** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1434
1435 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1436 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1437 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1438 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1439 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1440
402b123d 1441** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1442
402b123d 1443** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1444 fixed.
1445
402b123d 1446* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1447
402b123d 1448** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1449 are now deprecated:
1450
1451 %define NAME "VALUE"
1452
e4ab1254 1453** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1454
1455 %define api.pure
1456
1457 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1458 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1459
402b123d 1460** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1461
1462 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1463 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1464 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1465 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1466 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1467
1468 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1469 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1470
e4ab1254 1471 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1472
59da312b
JD
1473 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1474 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1475
402b123d 1476** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1477 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1478 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1479
402b123d 1480** Java
59da312b
JD
1481
1482 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1483 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1484 %skeleton to select it.
1485
e4ab1254 1486 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1487
1488 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1489 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1490 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1491
402b123d 1492** %language
59da312b
JD
1493
1494 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1495 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1496 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1497 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1498
402b123d 1499** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1500
1501 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1502 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1503 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1504 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1505
402b123d 1506** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1507 %defines. For example:
1508
1509 %defines "parser.h"
1510
402b123d 1511** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1512 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1513 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1514 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1515
402b123d 1516** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1517
1518 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1519 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1520 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1521
1522 1. Removes unreachable states.
1523
1524 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1525 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1526 directives in existing grammar files.
1527
1528 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1529 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1530
31984206
JD
1531 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1532
1533 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1534
e4ab1254 1535 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1536 for further discussion.
1537
e4ab1254 1538** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1539
e4ab1254
AD
1540 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1541 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1542 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1543 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1544 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1545 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1546 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1547 code.
1548
e4ab1254 1549** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1550 name.
1bb2bd75 1551
e4ab1254 1552** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1553 deprecated:
1554
1555 %file-prefix "parser"
1556 %name-prefix "c_"
1557 %output "parser.c"
1558
e4ab1254 1559** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1560
1561 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1562 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1563 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1564 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1565 it:
1566
e4ab1254
AD
1567 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1568 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1569 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1570 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1571
e4ab1254
AD
1572 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1573 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1574 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1575 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1576
1577 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1578 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1579
402b123d 1580** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1581
1582 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1583 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1584 about unused $2 in:
1585
1586 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1587
1588 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1589 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1590
1591 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1592
1593 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1594 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1595 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1596
e4ab1254
AD
1597 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1598 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1599
e4ab1254 1600** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1601
1602 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1603 %printer's:
1604
e4ab1254 1605 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1606 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1607 declared semantic type tags.
1608
e4ab1254 1609 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1610 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1611 type tags.
1612
e4ab1254
AD
1613 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1614 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1615 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1616 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1617
85894313
JD
1618 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1619 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1620 features.
1621
e4ab1254 1622 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1623 details.
1624
402b123d 1625** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1626 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1627 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1628
402b123d 1629** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1630 completely removed from Bison.
1631
402b123d 1632* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1633
402b123d 1634** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1635 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1636 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1637 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1638 and is required by POSIX.
1639
402b123d 1640** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1641 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1642
402b123d 1643** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1644
1645 For example:
1646
b2a0b7ca
JD
1647 %union { char *string; }
1648 %token <string> STRING1
1649 %token <string> STRING2
1650 %type <string> string1
1651 %type <string> string2
1652 %union { char character; }
1653 %token <character> CHR
1654 %type <character> chr
1655 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1656 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1657 %destructor { } <character>
1658
1659 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1660 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1661 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1662 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1663 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1664
85894313
JD
1665 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1666 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1667 future versions.]
1668
e4ab1254
AD
1669** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1670 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1671 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1672 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1673 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1674
402b123d 1675** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1676 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1677
1678 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1679 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1680 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1681 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1682 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1683
34f98f46 1684 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1685 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1686 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1687 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1688 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1689 after the token definitions.
1690
1691 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1692 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1693
402b123d 1694** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1695 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1696 %after-header.
1697
1698 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1699 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1700 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1701 convenient for you:
1702
1703 %before-header {
1704 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1705 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1706 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1707 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1708 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1709 }
1710 %start-header {
1711 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1712 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1713 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1714 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1715 }
1716 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1717 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1718 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1719 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1720 }
34f98f46
JD
1721 %end-header {
1722 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1723 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1724 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1725 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1726 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1727 }
34f98f46
JD
1728 %after-header {
1729 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1730 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1731 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1732 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1733 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1734 }
1735
1736 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1737 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1738
85894313
JD
1739 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1740 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1741
e4ab1254 1742** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1743 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1744 in a future release.
742e4900 1745
402b123d 1746* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1747
e4ab1254 1748** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1749 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1750
402b123d 1751** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1752 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1753
402b123d 1754* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1755
402b123d 1756** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1757 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1758 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1759
402b123d 1760** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1761
402b123d 1762** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1763
402b123d 1764** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1765 their contents together.
1766
402b123d 1767** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1768 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1769 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1770
8f3596a6 1771 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1772 | exp "+" exp
1773 ;
affac613 1774
8f3596a6
AD
1775 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1776 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1777 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1778
4e26c69e 1779 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1780 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1781 | exp "+" exp
1782 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1783 ;
affac613 1784
4e26c69e
PE
1785 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1786 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1787 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1788
8f3596a6 1789 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1790 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1791 ;
721be13c 1792
84866159
AD
1793 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1794 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1795
1796 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1797
721be13c
PE
1798 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1799 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1800
402b123d 1801** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1802 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1803 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1804 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1805
402b123d 1806** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1807 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1808 instead of warnings.
1809
402b123d 1810** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1811 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1812 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1813
e4ab1254 1814** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1815
402b123d 1816** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1817 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1818 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1819
402b123d 1820** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1821 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1822 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1823 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1824 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1825
1826 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1827 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1828 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1829 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1830
b50d2359 1831 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1832 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1833
402b123d 1834** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1835\f
402b123d 1836* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1837
402b123d 1838** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 1839
402b123d 1840** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
1841 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1842 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
1843 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1844 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1845 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 1846
402b123d 1847** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
1848 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1849 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1850 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1851
402b123d 1852** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
1853 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1854 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1855
402b123d 1856** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
1857 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1858 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1859 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1860 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 1861\f
402b123d 1862* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 1863
402b123d 1864** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 1865
82de6b0d
PE
1866 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1867 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1868 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1869 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1870 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 1871
82de6b0d
PE
1872 - Error token location.
1873 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1874 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1875 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1876 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 1877
82de6b0d
PE
1878 - Semicolon changes:
1879 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1880 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 1881
82de6b0d
PE
1882 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1883 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1884 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1885 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 1886
82de6b0d 1887 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 1888
402b123d 1889** New features
1452af69 1890
82de6b0d 1891 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 1892
82de6b0d
PE
1893 - New directive: %initial-action.
1894 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1895 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 1896
82de6b0d
PE
1897 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1898 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 1899
e4ab1254 1900 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 1901 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 1902
e4ab1254 1903 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 1904 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1905
82de6b0d 1906 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1907
82de6b0d
PE
1908 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1909 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1910
402b123d 1911** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1912
82de6b0d
PE
1913 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1914 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1915 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1916 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1917 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1918 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1919
82de6b0d
PE
1920 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1921 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1922
82de6b0d 1923 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1924\f
402b123d 1925* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1926
402b123d 1927** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1928 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1929
402b123d 1930** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1931
dc546b0f
PE
1932 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1933 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1934
dc546b0f
PE
1935 - %destructor
1936 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1937 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1938
dc546b0f
PE
1939 - %error-verbose
1940 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1941
dc546b0f
PE
1942 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1943 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1944
402b123d 1945** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1946
dc546b0f
PE
1947 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1948 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1949 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1950
e4ab1254
AD
1951 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1952 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1953 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1954 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 1955 be consistent.
74724a70 1956
dc546b0f
PE
1957 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1958 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1959
dc546b0f
PE
1960 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1961 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1962
dc546b0f
PE
1963 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1964 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1965
dc546b0f 1966 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 1967 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
1968 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1969 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1970 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1971
dc546b0f 1972 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1973
dc546b0f
PE
1974 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1975 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1976 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1977
402b123d 1978** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1979
e4ab1254
AD
1980 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1981 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1982 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1983 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1984 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 1985 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1986
e4ab1254 1987 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 1988 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1989
dc546b0f 1990 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 1991 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 1992
e4ab1254 1993 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
1994 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1995 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1996
402b123d 1997** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1998
dc546b0f
PE
1999 - GLR and inline
2000 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2001 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2002
e4ab1254
AD
2003 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2004 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2005
18ad57b3
AD
2006** %parse-param and %lex-param
2007 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2008 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2009 shortcomings:
2010
2011 - a single argument only can be added,
2012 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2013 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2014 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2015
2016 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2017 For instance:
2018
2019 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2020 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2021 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2022
2023 results in the following signatures:
2024
2025 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2026 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2027
2028 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2029
2030 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2031 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2032
402b123d 2033** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2034 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2035 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2036
402b123d 2037** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2038 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2039
402b123d 2040** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2041 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2042 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2043 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2044\f
402b123d 2045* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2046
402b123d 2047** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2048
402b123d 2049** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2050
402b123d 2051** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2052 Fix spurious parse errors.
2053
402b123d 2054** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2055 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2056 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2057
402b123d 2058** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2059 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2060 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2061
e9690142 2062 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2063
2064 but the converse remains an error:
2065
e9690142 2066 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2067
402b123d 2068** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2069 The following code:
2070
e9690142 2071 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2072
2073 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2074 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2075\f
402b123d 2076* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2077
402b123d 2078** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2079 The declaration
2080 %glr-parser
2081 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2082 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2083 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2084 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2085
7933f2b5 2086 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2087 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2088
402b123d 2089** Output Directory
8c165d89 2090 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2091 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2092 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2093
402b123d 2094** Undefined token
007a50a4 2095 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2096 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2097
402b123d 2098** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2099 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2100 no longer the case.
2101
402b123d 2102** Error token
e88dbdbf 2103 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2104 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2105 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2106 will be mapped onto another number.
2107
402b123d 2108** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2109 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2110 error recovery is possible.
2111
402b123d 2112** End token
e4ab1254 2113 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2114
402b123d 2115** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2116 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2117 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2118 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2119 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2120 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2121 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2122 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2123 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2124
402b123d 2125** Traces
5504898e
AD
2126 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2127
402b123d 2128** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2129 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2130 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2131 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2132 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2133
402b123d 2134** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2135 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2136 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2137 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2138
402b123d 2139** Useless rules
643a5994 2140 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2141 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2142
402b123d 2143** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2144 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2145
402b123d 2146** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2147 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2148 reported.
2149
e4ab1254 2150** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2151 On a grammar such as
2152
e29f0771
AD
2153 %token useless useful
2154 %%
2155 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2156
2157 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2158 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2159
402b123d 2160** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2161 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2162
402b123d 2163** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2164 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2165 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2166 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2167 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2168
402b123d 2169** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2170 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2171 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2172 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2173 For instance
e29f0771 2174 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2175 or
e29f0771 2176 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2177
402b123d 2178** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2179 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2180
402b123d 2181** New translations
a861a339 2182 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2183 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2184
402b123d 2185** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2186 When given
2187 %token 'a' "A"
2188 bison used to output
2189 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2190
402b123d 2191** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2192 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2193 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2194 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2195
402b123d 2196** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2197 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2198 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2199 - itemset
2200 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2201 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2202 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2203 - solved
2204 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2205 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2206 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2207
402b123d 2208** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2209 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2210 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2211
e29f0771
AD
2212 %type <foo> bar
2213 %%
2214 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2215
2216 This is fixed.
a861a339 2217
402b123d 2218** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2219\f
402b123d 2220* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2221
402b123d 2222** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2223 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2224 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2225 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2226
2227 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2228 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2229 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2230 kludge will be disabled.
2231
2232 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2233 extended.
76551463 2234\f
402b123d 2235* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2236
402b123d 2237** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2238 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2239 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2240
e4ab1254 2241** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2242 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2243 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2244 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2245 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2246 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2247
402b123d 2248** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2249 many portability hassles.
2250
402b123d 2251** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2252
402b123d 2253** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2254\f
402b123d 2255* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2256
402b123d 2257** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2258 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2259 under some conditions.
2260
402b123d 2261** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2262 As is done with $n.
2263\f
402b123d 2264* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2265
402b123d 2266** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2267
402b123d 2268** Portability fixes
76551463 2269
402b123d 2270** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2271\f
402b123d 2272* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2273
402b123d 2274** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2275
402b123d 2276** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2277 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2278 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2279 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2280 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2281
402b123d 2282** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2283 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2284 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2285
2286 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2287 problems as on AIX.
2288
402b123d 2289** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2290
402b123d 2291** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2292 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2293
402b123d 2294** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2295 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2296 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2297 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2298
402b123d 2299** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2300 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2301 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2302
402b123d 2303** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2304 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2305
402b123d 2306** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2307 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2308
402b123d 2309** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2310 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2311
402b123d 2312** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2313 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2314 any warning.
2315
402b123d 2316** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2317
402b123d 2318** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2319
402b123d 2320** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2321
402b123d 2322** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2323 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2324 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2325 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2326
402b123d 2327** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2328 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2329 previous allocations were not freed.
2330
402b123d 2331** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2332 Some newlines were missing.
2333 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2334
402b123d 2335** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2336 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2337
402b123d 2338** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2339 Was not used.
2340 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2341
402b123d 2342** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2343
402b123d 2344** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2345
402b123d 2346** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2347
402b123d 2348** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2349 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2350
402b123d 2351** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2352
402b123d 2353** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2354 New.
2355
402b123d 2356** --output
e4ab1254 2357 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2358\f
402b123d 2359* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2360
e4ab1254
AD
2361** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2362 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2363 argument.
2364
e4ab1254 2365** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2366 experiment.
2367
402b123d 2368** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2369\f
402b123d 2370* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2371
402b123d 2372** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2373 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2374 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2375 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2376
e4ab1254 2377** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2378
402b123d 2379** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2380
402b123d 2381** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2382
402b123d 2383** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2384
402b123d 2385** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2386
402b123d 2387** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2388
e4ab1254 2389** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2390
e4ab1254 2391** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2392
e4ab1254 2393** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2394
402b123d 2395** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2396 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2397
402b123d 2398** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2399 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2400 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2401
402b123d 2402** @$
f987e9d2 2403 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2404\f
402b123d 2405* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2406
402b123d 2407** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2408
402b123d 2409** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2410
402b123d 2411** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2412
402b123d 2413** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2414\f
402b123d 2415* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2416
402b123d 2417** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2418 some systems has been fixed.
2419\f
402b123d 2420* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2421
7e508a2b 2422** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2423
402b123d 2424** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2425
402b123d 2426** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2427
402b123d 2428** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2429
402b123d 2430** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2431
402b123d 2432** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2433
402b123d 2434** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2435 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2436\f
402b123d 2437* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2438
402b123d 2439** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2440the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2441
402b123d 2442** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2443example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2444of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2445
402b123d 2446** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2447and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2448table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2449purposes.
2450
402b123d 2451** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2452directives in the parser file.
2453
402b123d 2454** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2455Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2456
402b123d 2457** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2458the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2459The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2460a switch statement body.
2461\f
402b123d 2462* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2463
4d019228
DM
2464The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2465passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2466actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2467by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2468
6780ca7a 2469Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2470\f
402b123d 2471* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2472
2473--help option added.
6780ca7a 2474\f
402b123d 2475* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2476
2477Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2478
76551463
AD
2479-----
2480
7d6bad19 2481Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2482
74553c98 2483This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2484
f16b0819 2485This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2486it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2487the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2488(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2489
f16b0819 2490This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2491but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2492MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2493GNU General Public License for more details.
2494
2495You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2496along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2497
2498 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2499 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2500 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2501 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2502 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2503 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2504 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2505 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2506 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2507 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2508 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2509 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2510 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2511 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2512 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2513 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2514 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2515 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
d949eefd 2516 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
7e508a2b
AD
2517
2518Local Variables:
2519mode: outline
e4ab1254 2520fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2521End: