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4* Changes in version 2.5.1 (????-??-??):
5
041308d0 6** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
74516381 7
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8 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of
9 tools such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself,
10 etc.
11
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12 __attribute__ is not longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined
13 (i.e., when -std is passed to GCC).
14
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15** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
16
17** Many minor improvements have been made to the manual:
18
19 The layout for grammar has changed to a more compact scheme. Named
20 references are motivated. The description of the automaton
21 description file is updated.
908c8647 22
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23** YYBACKUP works as expected.
24
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25** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
26
27** Several Java fixes:
28
29 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if
30 the first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
31
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32** C++11 compatibility:
33
34 C and C++ parsers use nullptr instead of 0 when __cplusplus is
35 201103L or higher.
36
b2bc8a1b 37* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
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39** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
40
41 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
42 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
43 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
44 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
45 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
46
3b1977ea 47** Named references:
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48
49 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
50 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
51 actions code.
52
53 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
54 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
55 as named references:
56
ac3297d5 57 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
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58 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
59
60 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
61
ac3297d5 62 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
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63 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
64
f840c05a 65 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
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66 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
67 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
68
f840c05a 69 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
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70 will help to stabilize them.
71
3b1977ea 72** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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73
74 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
75 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
723206df 76 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
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77 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
78 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
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79 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
80 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
81 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
82 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
83
84 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
85 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
86 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
87 file with these directives:
88
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89 %define lr.type lalr
90 %define lr.type ielr
91 %define lr.type canonical-lr
34a6c2d1 92
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93 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
94 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
95 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
96 manual.
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97
98 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
99 stabilize them.
100
6f04ee6c 101** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
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102
103 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
104 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
105 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
6f04ee6c 106 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
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107 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
108 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
109 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
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110 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
111 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
112 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
113 tokens.
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114
115 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
116 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
117 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
118 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
119 inconsistent states.
120
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121 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
122 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
123 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
124 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
125 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
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126 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
127 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
128 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
129 power.
130
131 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
132 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
133
134 %define parse.lac full
135
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136 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
137 details including a few caveats.
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138
139 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
140 stabilize it.
141
6ee881f6 142** %define improvements:
f37495f6 143
3b1977ea 144*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
4ecd3681 145
34d41938 146 Each of these command-line options
4ecd3681 147
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148 -D NAME[=VALUE]
149 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
150
151 -F NAME[=VALUE]
152 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
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153
154 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
155
34d41938 156 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
4ecd3681 157
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158 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
159 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
160 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
ac3297d5 161 details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual.
4ecd3681 162
3b1977ea 163*** Variables renamed:
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164
165 The following %define variables
166
167 api.push_pull
168 lr.keep_unreachable_states
169
170 have been renamed to
171
172 api.push-pull
173 lr.keep-unreachable-states
174
175 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
176 for backward compatibility.
177
723206df 178*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
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179
180 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
181 within quotations marks. For example,
182
183 %define api.push-pull "push"
184
185 can be rewritten as
186
187 %define api.push-pull push
188
6ee881f6 189*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
c046698e 190
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191*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
192
193** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
194
195** Character literals not of length one:
196
197 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
198 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
199 the following grammar to be the same token:
200
201 exp: exp '++'
202 | exp '+' exp
203 ;
204
205 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
206 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
207
208** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
209
210 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
211 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
212 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
213 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
214
215** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
216
217 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
218 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
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219 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first'
220 and `last' members, instead of
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221
222 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
223 do \
224 if (N) \
225 { \
226 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
227 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
228 } \
229 else \
230 { \
231 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
232 } \
233 while (false)
234
235 use:
236
237 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
238 do \
239 if (N) \
240 { \
241 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
242 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
243 } \
244 else \
245 { \
246 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
247 } \
248 while (false)
249
250** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
251
252 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
253 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
254 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
255 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
c046698e 256
3b1977ea 257** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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258
259 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
260 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
261 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
262 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
263 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
264 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
265 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
266 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
267
3b1977ea 268** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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269
270 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
271 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
272 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
273 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
274
275 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
276
277 instead of
278
279 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
280
281 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
282 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
283 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
284 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
285 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
286 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
287 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
288
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289** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
290
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291 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
292 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
293 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
294 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
295 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
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296
297*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
298 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
299 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
300 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
301 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
ac3297d5 302 reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this
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303 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
304 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
305 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
306 shifted or discarded.
307
308*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
309 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
310 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
311 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
312
313*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
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314 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
315 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
316 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
317 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
318 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
319 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
320 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
321 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
322 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
323 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
324 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
325 by default.
1fa30307 326
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327** Java skeleton fixes:
328
329*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
330
331*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
332 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
77768165 333
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334*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
335
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336** -W/--warnings fixes:
337
ac3297d5 338*** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories:
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339
340 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
341 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
342
343 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
344
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345*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
346
347 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
348 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
ac3297d5 349 `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important
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350 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
351 example:
352
353 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
354 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
355 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
356 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
357
358 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
359 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
360 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
361 then have no effect on the conflict report.
362
ac3297d5 363*** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error':
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364
365 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
366 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
367
368 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
369
b2bc8a1b 370*** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings:
8ffd7912 371
ac3297d5 372 Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for
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373 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
374 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
375 suppress all warnings:
376
377 bison -Wnone gram.y
378
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379** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
380
381 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
382 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
383 produced an assertion failure. For example:
384
385 %left END 0
386
387 This bug has been fixed.
388
7527c744 389* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
7a9c3cb3 390
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391** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
392 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
393
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394** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
395 been fixed.
396
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397** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
398
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399** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
400 been fixed.
401
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402** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
403 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
404 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
405 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
406
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407** Minor documentation fixes.
408
ea66d039 409* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
8defe11b 410
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411** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
412 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
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413 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
414 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
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415 affected platforms.
416
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417** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
418
419 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
420 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
421 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
422 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
423 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
424 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
425 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
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426 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
427 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
2c203528 428
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429** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
430
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431** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
432 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
433 avoided.
af2ffe5c 434
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435** %code is now a permanent feature.
436
437 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
438
439 %{CODE%}
440
441 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
442 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
443
444 %code {CODE}
445 %code requires {CODE}
446 %code provides {CODE}
447 %code top {CODE}
448
449 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
450 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
451 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
452 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
453 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
454
455 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
456 is still considered experimental.
457
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458** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
459
460 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
461 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
462 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
463 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
464 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
465 specified by POSIX.
466
467 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
468 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
469 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
470 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
471 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
472 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
473 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
474
475 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
476
477 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
478 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
479 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
480 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
481 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
482 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
483 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
484 be removed altogether.
485
486 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
487 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
488 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
489 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
490 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
491 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
492 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
493 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
494 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
495 2.4.2 is not necessary.
496
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497** Internationalization.
498
499 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
500 message translations were not installed although supported by the
501 host system.
502
41930e7a 503* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 504
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505** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
506 declarations have been fixed.
507
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508** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
509
510 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
511 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
512
513 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
514
515 instead of
516
517 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
518
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519 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
520 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
521 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
522 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
523 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
524 feature.
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525
526** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 527
d6fb461d 528* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 529
d6fb461d 530** %language is an experimental feature.
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531
532 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
533 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
534 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
535 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
536 in future releases.
7bd1665a 537
d6fb461d 538** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 539
d6fb461d 540** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
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541 fixed.
542
d6fb461d 543* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 544
d6fb461d 545** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
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546 are now deprecated:
547
548 %define NAME "VALUE"
549
d6fb461d 550** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
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551
552 %define api.pure
553
554 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
555 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
556
d6fb461d 557** Push Parsing
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558
559 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
ef1b4273 560 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
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561 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
562 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
563 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
564
565 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
566 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
567
568 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
569
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570 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
571 feedback will help to stabilize it.
572
d6fb461d 573** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
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574 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
575 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 576
d6fb461d 577** Java
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578
579 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
580 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
581 %skeleton to select it.
582
583 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
584
585 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
586 feedback will help to stabilize it.
587
d6fb461d 588** %language
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589
590 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
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591 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
592 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
593 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 594
d6fb461d 595** XML Automaton Report
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596
597 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
598 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
599 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
c373bf8b 600
d6fb461d 601** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
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602 %defines. For example:
603
604 %defines "parser.h"
605
d6fb461d 606** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
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607 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
608 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
609 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 610
d6fb461d 611** Unreachable State Removal
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612
613 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
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614 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
615 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
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616
617 1. Removes unreachable states.
618
619 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
620 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
621 directives in existing grammar files.
622
623 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 624 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 625
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626 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
627
628 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
629
630 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
631 for further discussion.
632
d6fb461d 633** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
b1cc23c4 634
c373bf8b 635 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
88c78747
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636 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
637 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
638 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
639 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
640 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
641 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
642 code.
643
d6fb461d 644** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
59da312b 645 name.
1bb2bd75 646
d6fb461d 647** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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648 deprecated:
649
650 %file-prefix "parser"
651 %name-prefix "c_"
652 %output "parser.c"
653
d6fb461d 654** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
c373bf8b
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655
656 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
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657 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
658 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
659 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
660 it:
661
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662 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
663 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
664 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
665 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
8e0a5e9e 666
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667 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
668 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
8e0a5e9e
JD
669 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
670 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
671
672 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
673 determine whether they should become permanent features.
674
d6fb461d 675** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
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676
677 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
678 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
679 about unused $2 in:
680
681 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
682
683 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
684 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
685
686 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
687
688 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
689 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
690 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
691
59da312b 692 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
17bd8a73
JD
693 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
694
d6fb461d 695** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
c373bf8b
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696
697 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
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698 %printer's:
699
700 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
701 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
702 declared semantic type tags.
703
3ebecc24 704 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
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705 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
706 type tags.
707
708 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
3ebecc24 709 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
710 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
711 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
712
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713 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
714 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
715 features.
716
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717 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
718 details.
719
d6fb461d 720** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
ab7f29f8
JD
721 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
722 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
723
d6fb461d 724** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
725 completely removed from Bison.
726
d6fb461d 727* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 728
d6fb461d 729** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
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730 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
731 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
732 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
733 and is required by POSIX.
734
d6fb461d 735** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
736 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
737
d6fb461d 738** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
739
740 For example:
741
b2a0b7ca
JD
742 %union { char *string; }
743 %token <string> STRING1
744 %token <string> STRING2
745 %type <string> string1
746 %type <string> string2
747 %union { char character; }
748 %token <character> CHR
749 %type <character> chr
750 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
751 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
752 %destructor { } <character>
753
754 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
755 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
756 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
757 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
758 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
ec5479ce 759
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760 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
761 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
762 future versions.]
763
d6fb461d 764** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
b931235e
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765 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
766 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
767 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
768 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
769
d6fb461d 770** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 771 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
772
773 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
774 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
775 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
776 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 777 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 778
34f98f46 779 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
780 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
781 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
782 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
783 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
784 after the token definitions.
785
786 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
787 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
788
d6fb461d 789** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
790 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
791 %after-header.
792
793 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
794 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
795 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
796 convenient for you:
797
798 %before-header {
799 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
800 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
801 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
802 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
803 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
804 }
805 %start-header {
806 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
807 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
808 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
809 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
810 }
811 %union {
34f98f46
JD
812 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
813 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
814 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 815 }
34f98f46
JD
816 %end-header {
817 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
818 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
819 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
820 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
821 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 822 }
34f98f46
JD
823 %after-header {
824 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
825 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
826 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
827 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
828 * Bison-generated definitions. */
829 }
830
831 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
832 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 833
85894313
JD
834 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
835 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
836
d6fb461d 837** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
9e6e7ed2
PE
838 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
839 in a future release.
742e4900 840
d6fb461d 841* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 842
d6fb461d 843** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
4ad3ed84
PE
844 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
845
d6fb461d 846** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
847 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
848
d6fb461d 849* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 850
d6fb461d 851** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
852 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
853 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 854
d6fb461d 855** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 856
d6fb461d 857** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 858
d6fb461d 859** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
860 their contents together.
861
d6fb461d 862** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
863 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
864 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 865
8f3596a6 866 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
721be13c
PE
867 | exp "+" exp
868 ;
affac613 869
8f3596a6
AD
870 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
871 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 872 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 873
4e26c69e
PE
874 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
875 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
876 | exp "+" exp
877 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
721be13c 878 ;
affac613 879
4e26c69e
PE
880 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
881 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
882 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 883
8f3596a6 884 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
721be13c
PE
885 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
886 ;
887
84866159
AD
888 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
889 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
890
891 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
892
721be13c
PE
893 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
894 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 895
d6fb461d 896** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
897 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
898 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
899 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 900
d6fb461d 901** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
902 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
903 instead of warnings.
904
d6fb461d 905** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
906 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
907 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 908
d6fb461d 909** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
ad6a9b97 910
d6fb461d 911** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
912 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
913 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 914
d6fb461d 915** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
916 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
917 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
fb9712a9
AD
918 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
919 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
920
921 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
922 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
923 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
924 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 925
b50d2359 926 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
ab8d9dc5 927 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 928
d6fb461d 929** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 930\f
d6fb461d 931* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 932
d6fb461d 933** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 934
d6fb461d 935** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
936 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
937 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
938 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
939 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
940 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 941
d6fb461d 942** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
943 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
944 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
945 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
946
d6fb461d 947** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
948 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
949 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
950
d6fb461d 951** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
952 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
953 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
954 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
955 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 956\f
d6fb461d 957* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 958
d6fb461d 959** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 960
82de6b0d
PE
961 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
962 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
963 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
964 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
965 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 966
82de6b0d
PE
967 - Error token location.
968 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
969 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
970 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
971 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 972
82de6b0d
PE
973 - Semicolon changes:
974 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
975 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 976
82de6b0d
PE
977 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
978 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
979 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
980 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 981
82de6b0d 982 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 983
d6fb461d 984** New features
1452af69 985
82de6b0d 986 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 987
82de6b0d
PE
988 - New directive: %initial-action.
989 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
990 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 991
82de6b0d
PE
992 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
993 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 994
82de6b0d
PE
995 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
996 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 997
82de6b0d 998 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
9e6e7ed2 999 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1000
82de6b0d 1001 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1002
82de6b0d
PE
1003 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1004 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1005
d6fb461d 1006** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1007
82de6b0d
PE
1008 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1009 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1010 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1011 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1012 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1013 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1014
82de6b0d
PE
1015 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1016 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1017
82de6b0d 1018 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1019\f
d6fb461d 1020* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1021
d6fb461d 1022** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1023 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1024
d6fb461d 1025** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1026
dc546b0f
PE
1027 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1028 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1029
dc546b0f
PE
1030 - %destructor
1031 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1032 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1033
dc546b0f
PE
1034 - %error-verbose
1035 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1036
dc546b0f
PE
1037 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1038 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1039
d6fb461d 1040** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1041
dc546b0f
PE
1042 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1043 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1044 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1045
dc546b0f
PE
1046 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1047 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1048 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1049 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1050 be consistent.
74724a70 1051
dc546b0f
PE
1052 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1053 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1054
dc546b0f
PE
1055 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1056 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1057
dc546b0f
PE
1058 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1059 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1060
dc546b0f
PE
1061 - Yacc command and library now available
1062 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1063 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1064 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1065 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1066
dc546b0f 1067 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1068
dc546b0f
PE
1069 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1070 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1071 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1072
d6fb461d 1073** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1074
dc546b0f
PE
1075 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1076 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1077 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1078 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1079 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1080 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1081
dc546b0f
PE
1082 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1083 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1084
dc546b0f
PE
1085 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1086 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
437c2d80 1087
dc546b0f
PE
1088 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1089 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1090 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1091
d6fb461d 1092** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1093
dc546b0f
PE
1094 - GLR and inline
1095 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1096 C keyword `inline'.
959e5f51 1097
dc546b0f
PE
1098 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1099 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1100
d6fb461d 1101** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
dc546b0f
PE
1102 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1103 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1104
d6fb461d 1105** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1106 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1107
d6fb461d 1108** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1109 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1110 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1111 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1112\f
d6fb461d 1113* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 1114
d6fb461d 1115** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 1116
d6fb461d 1117** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 1118
d6fb461d 1119** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1120 Fix spurious parse errors.
1121
d6fb461d 1122** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1123 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1124 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1125
d6fb461d 1126** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
1127 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1128 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1129
1130 untyped: ... typed;
1131
1132 but the converse remains an error:
1133
1134 typed: ... untyped;
1135
d6fb461d 1136** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
1137 The following code:
1138
1139 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1140
1141 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1142 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 1143\f
d6fb461d 1144* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 1145
d6fb461d 1146** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
1147 The declaration
1148 %glr-parser
1149 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1150 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 1151 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
1152 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1153
7933f2b5 1154 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
1155 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1156
d6fb461d 1157** Output Directory
8c165d89 1158 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e88dbdbf 1159 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
8c165d89
AD
1160 now creates `bar.c'.
1161
d6fb461d 1162** Undefined token
007a50a4 1163 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 1164 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 1165
d6fb461d 1166** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 1167 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
1168 no longer the case.
1169
d6fb461d 1170** Error token
e88dbdbf 1171 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
1172 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1173 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1174 will be mapped onto another number.
1175
d6fb461d 1176** Verbose error messages
e88dbdbf 1177 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
217598da
AD
1178 error recovery is possible.
1179
d6fb461d 1180** End token
217598da
AD
1181 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1182
d6fb461d 1183** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
1184 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1185 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1186 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1187 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1188 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1189 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
1190 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1191 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 1192
d6fb461d 1193** Traces
5504898e
AD
1194 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1195
d6fb461d 1196** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
1197 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1198 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1199 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1200 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 1201
d6fb461d 1202** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
1203 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1204 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1205 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 1206
d6fb461d 1207** Useless rules
643a5994 1208 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 1209 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 1210
d6fb461d 1211** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
1212 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1213
d6fb461d 1214** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
1215 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1216 reported.
1217
d6fb461d 1218** Incorrect `Token not used'
11652ab3
AD
1219 On a grammar such as
1220
1221 %token useless useful
1222 %%
1223 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1224
1225 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1226 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1227
d6fb461d 1228** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 1229 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 1230
d6fb461d 1231** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
1232 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1233 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1234 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1235 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 1236
d6fb461d 1237** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
1238 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1239 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
a861a339 1240 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 1241 For instance
7bd6c77e 1242 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 1243 or
7bd6c77e 1244 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 1245
d6fb461d 1246** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
1247 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1248
d6fb461d 1249** New translations
a861a339 1250 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
1251 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1252
d6fb461d 1253** Incorrect token definitions
e88dbdbf 1254 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
b87f8b21 1255
d6fb461d 1256** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
1257 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1258 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 1259 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 1260
d6fb461d 1261** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
1262 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1263 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
1264 - itemset
1265 complete the core item sets with their closure
9e6e7ed2
PE
1266 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1267 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
1268 - solved
1269 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1270 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1271 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 1272
d6fb461d 1273** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
1274 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1275 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1276
1277 %type <foo> bar
1278 %%
1279 bar: '0' {} '0';
1280
1281 This is fixed.
a861a339 1282
d6fb461d 1283** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 1284\f
d6fb461d 1285* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 1286
d6fb461d 1287** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
1288 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1289 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1290 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1291
1292 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1293 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1294 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1295 kludge will be disabled.
1296
1297 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1298 extended.
76551463 1299\f
d6fb461d 1300* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 1301
d6fb461d 1302** File name clashes are detected
76551463
AD
1303 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1304 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1305
d6fb461d 1306** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
1307 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1308 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1309 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1310 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1311 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1312
d6fb461d 1313** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
1314 many portability hassles.
1315
d6fb461d 1316** DJGPP support added.
76551463 1317
d6fb461d 1318** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 1319\f
d6fb461d 1320* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 1321
d6fb461d 1322** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
1323 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1324 under some conditions.
1325
d6fb461d 1326** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
1327 As is done with $n.
1328\f
d6fb461d 1329* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 1330
d6fb461d 1331** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 1332
d6fb461d 1333** Portability fixes
76551463 1334
d6fb461d 1335** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 1336\f
d6fb461d 1337* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 1338
d6fb461d 1339** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 1340
d6fb461d 1341** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1342 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1343 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1344 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1345 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1346
d6fb461d 1347** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
1348 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1349 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1350
1351 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1352 problems as on AIX.
1353
d6fb461d 1354** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 1355
d6fb461d 1356** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
1357 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1358
d6fb461d 1359** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
1360 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1361 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1362 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1363
d6fb461d 1364** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 1365 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 1366 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 1367
d6fb461d 1368** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
1369 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1370
d6fb461d 1371** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
1372 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1373
d6fb461d 1374** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
1375 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1376
d6fb461d 1377** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1378 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1379 any warning.
1380
d6fb461d 1381** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 1382
d6fb461d 1383** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 1384
d6fb461d 1385** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 1386
d6fb461d 1387** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
1388 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1389 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1390 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1391
d6fb461d 1392** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
1393 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1394 previous allocations were not freed.
1395
d6fb461d 1396** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
1397 Some newlines were missing.
1398 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1399
d6fb461d 1400** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
1401 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1402
d6fb461d 1403** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1404 Was not used.
1405 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1406
d6fb461d 1407** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 1408
d6fb461d 1409** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 1410
d6fb461d 1411** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 1412
d6fb461d 1413** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
1414 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1415
d6fb461d 1416** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 1417
d6fb461d 1418** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
1419 New.
1420
d6fb461d 1421** --output
52d1aeee
MA
1422 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1423\f
d6fb461d 1424* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 1425
d6fb461d 1426** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
fdac0091 1427 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
1428 argument.
1429
d6fb461d 1430** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
1431 experiment.
1432
d6fb461d 1433** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 1434\f
d6fb461d 1435* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 1436
d6fb461d 1437** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
1438 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1439 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1440 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1441
d6fb461d 1442** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
f87a2205 1443
d6fb461d 1444** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 1445
d6fb461d 1446** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 1447
d6fb461d 1448** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 1449
d6fb461d 1450** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 1451
d6fb461d 1452** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 1453
d6fb461d 1454** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
6deb4447 1455
d6fb461d 1456** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
cd5bd6ac 1457
d6fb461d 1458** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
62ab6972 1459
d6fb461d 1460** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
1461 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1462
d6fb461d 1463** New directives.
4ecbf796
MA
1464 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1465 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
f987e9d2 1466
d6fb461d 1467** @$
f987e9d2 1468 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 1469\f
d6fb461d 1470* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 1471
d6fb461d 1472** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 1473
d6fb461d 1474** Added NLS.
d2e00347 1475
d6fb461d 1476** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 1477
d6fb461d 1478** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 1479\f
d6fb461d 1480* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 1481
d6fb461d 1482** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
1483 some systems has been fixed.
1484\f
d6fb461d 1485* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 1486
d6fb461d 1487** Bison now uses automake.
4be07551 1488
d6fb461d 1489** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 1490
d6fb461d 1491** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 1492
d6fb461d 1493** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 1494
d6fb461d 1495** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 1496
d6fb461d 1497** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 1498
d6fb461d 1499** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 1500 not provide alloca().
4be07551 1501\f
d6fb461d 1502* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 1503
d6fb461d 1504** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 1505the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 1506
d6fb461d 1507** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5
RS
1508example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1509of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1510
d6fb461d 1511** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
1512and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1513table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1514purposes.
1515
d6fb461d 1516** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
1517directives in the parser file.
1518
d6fb461d 1519** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
1520Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1521
d6fb461d 1522** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
1523the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1524The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1525a switch statement body.
1526\f
d6fb461d 1527* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 1528
4d019228
DM
1529The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1530passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1531actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1532by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 1533
6780ca7a 1534Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 1535\f
d6fb461d 1536* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
1537
1538--help option added.
6780ca7a 1539\f
d6fb461d 1540* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
1541
1542Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6
AD
1543
1544Local Variables:
1545mode: outline
1546End:
76551463
AD
1547
1548-----
1549
c932d613 1550Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 1551
8defe11b 1552This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 1553
f16b0819 1554This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 1555it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
1556the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1557(at your option) any later version.
76551463 1558
f16b0819 1559This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
1560but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1561MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1562GNU General Public License for more details.
1563
1564You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 1565along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.