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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
52718713 3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
74553c98 4
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5** Incompatible changes
6
7*** Obsolete features
8
de62ae86 9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
5f819b2f 10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
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11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
47db7ed1 13
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14** Warnings
15
1048a1c9 16*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 17
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18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explictly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what gcc 4.7 does.
21
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatiblities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
25
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
27
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
30
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
32
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
34
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
37
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 41
46bdb8ec 42*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 43
46bdb8ec 44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 45
46bdb8ec 46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 47
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48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
49 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
50 to gcc, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 51
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52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
53 with failure):
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54
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 57
46bdb8ec 58 it now reports:
1048a1c9 59
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60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
61
62*** Deprecated constructs
63
64 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
65 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
66 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
67
73370a9d 68*** Useless semantic types
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69
70 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
71 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
72 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
73 types that trigger the warning:
74
75 %token <type1> term
76 %type <type2> nterm
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
79 %%
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
81
82 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
83 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
84
31557b9e 85*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 86
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87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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89
90 %printer {} symbol1
91 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 92 %type <type> symbol3
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93 %%
94 exp: "a";
95
73370a9d 96*** Useless destructors or printers
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97
98 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
99 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
100 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
101 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
102
103 %token <type1> token1
104 <type2> token2
105 <type3> token3
106 <type4> token4
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
109
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110*** Conflicts
111
112 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
113 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
114
115 %glr-parser
116 %%
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
118
119 compare the previous version of bison:
120
121 $ bison foo.y
122 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
123 $ bison -Werror foo.y
124 bison: warnings being treated as errors
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
126
127 with the new behavior:
128
129 $ bison foo.y
130 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
131 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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133 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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135
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
137
138 %expect 0
139 %glr-parser
140 %%
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
142
143 Former behavior:
144
145 $ bison bar.y
146 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
147 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
148 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
149
150 New one:
151
152 $ bison bar.y
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153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 155
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156** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
157
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158 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
159 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
160 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 161
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162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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166
167 one may now declare
168
e436fa67 169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
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170
171** Java skeleton improvements
0ea583d2 172
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173 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
174 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
175 and "%define init_throws".
0ea583d2 176
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177** C++ skeletons improvements
178
e4c0985b 179*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
93549bcd 180
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181 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
182 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
183 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
93549bcd 184
e4c0985b 185*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
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186
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
188
189*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
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190
191 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
192 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
193 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
194 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
195 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
196 factory invoked by the user actions).
197
4c6622c2 198** Variable api.tokens.prefix
99c08fb6 199
4c6622c2 200 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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201 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
202 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
203
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204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
206 %%
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
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208
209 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
210 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
211 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
212 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
213
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214** Variable api.namespace
215
1f77b2e0 216 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
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217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
218
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219** Variable parse.error
220
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221 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
222 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
223 verbose".
31b850d2 224
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225** Semantic predicates
226
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227 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
228 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 229 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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230 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
231 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
232 expressions.
ca2a6d15 233
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234** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
235
236 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
237 reduce/reduce conflicts.
238
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239* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
240
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241** Bug fixes
242
a1a77e1f 243 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
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244
245 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
246 users to the appropriate place to report them.
247
248 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
249
250 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
251 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 252
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253 All the generated headers are self-contained.
254
5a05f42e 255** Changes in the format of error messages
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256
257 This used to be the format of many error reports:
258
259 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
260 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
261
262 It is now:
263
264 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
265 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
266
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267** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
268
269 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
270 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
271 For instance the header generated from
272
273 %define api.prefix "calc"
274 %defines "lib/parse.h"
275
276 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
277
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278** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
279
280 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
281 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
282 before rethrowing the exception.
283
284 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
285 appreciated.
286
c12c4c50 287** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
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288
289 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
290 warnings such as:
291
292 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
293 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
294 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
295 *++yyvsp = yylval;
296 ^
297
298 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
299
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300 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
301 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
302 addressed.
303
e1eeecd3 304* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 305
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306** Bug fixes
307
308 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
309 suite have been fixed.
310
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311** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
312
313 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
314 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 315
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316** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
317
318 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
319
77b214ef 320* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 321
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322 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
323
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324** Future Changes
325
326 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
327 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
328 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
329
330 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
331
332 write:
333
334 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
335
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336** Bug fixes
337
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338*** Type names are now properly escaped.
339
340*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 341
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342*** Stray @ or $ in actions
343
344 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
345 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
346 now does.
347
cd735a8c 348** Type names in actions
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349
350 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 351 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
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352
353 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
354
355 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 356 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 357
1505e8bb 358* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 359
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360** Future changes:
361
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362 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
363 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 364
aaf61036 365*** K&R C parsers
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366
367 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 368 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
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369 compilers.
370
258cddbc 371*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 372
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373 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
374 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 375
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376 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
377 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
378
379 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
380 %error-verbose.
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381
382*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
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383
384 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
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385 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
386 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
387 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
388 it.
0f11eec2 389
c2425191 390** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 391
258cddbc 392*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
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393
394 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 395 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 396
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397 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
398 # define YY_FOO_H
399 ...
400 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 401
258cddbc 402*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
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403
404 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
405 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
406
e29f0771 407 int bar_parse (void);
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408
409 rather than
410
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411 #define yyparse bar_parse
412 int yyparse (void);
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413
414 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
415 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 416
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417*** Exported symbols in C++
418
419 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
420 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
421 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
422
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423*** YYLSP_NEEDED
424
425 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
426 longer defined.
427
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428** New %define variable: api.prefix
429
430 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
431 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
432 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
433 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
434 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
435 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
436 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
437
438 The following examples compares both:
439
440 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
441 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
442 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
443 %% %%
444 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
445
446 bison generates:
447
448 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
449 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
450
451 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
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452 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
453 > # if defined YYDEBUG
454 > # if YYDEBUG
455 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
456 > # else
457 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
458 > # endif
459 > # else
460 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
461 > # endif
462 # endif | # endif
463
464 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
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465 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
466 # endif # endif
467
468 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
469 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
470 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
471 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
472 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
473 }; };
474 # endif # endif
475
476 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
477 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
478 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
479 { {
480 int ival; int ival;
481 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
482 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
483 #endif #endif
484
485 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
486
487 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
488
489 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
490
dfaac272 491* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 492
debe2c03 493** Future changes:
765e1bd4 494
e4ab1254 495 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 496
466b4cf2 497** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 498
d834eca0 499** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 500
d834eca0 501*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 502
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503 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
504 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 505
d834eca0 506*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 507
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508 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
509 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 510
466b4cf2 511** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 512
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513 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
514 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 515
22172d47 516** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 517
22172d47 518*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 519
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520 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
521 or higher.
936c88d1 522
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523*** Header guards
524
525 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
526 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
527
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528 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
529 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
530 ...
531 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
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532
533 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
534 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
535 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
536
537 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
538
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539 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
540 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
541 ...
542 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
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543
544*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 545
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546 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
547 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
548 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 549
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550** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
551
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552** Changes in the manual:
553
554*** %printer is documented
555
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556 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
557 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 558
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559 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
560 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
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561
562*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 563
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564 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
565 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
566 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
567 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 568
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569** Building bison:
570
571*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 572
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573 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
574 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 575
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576*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
577
578*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 579
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580 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
581 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 582
91aadcc7 583*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 584
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585 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
586 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 587
28801043 588* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 589
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590** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
591
592 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
593 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
594 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
595 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
596 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
597
f1b238df 598** Named references:
66381412
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599
600 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
601 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
602 actions code.
603
604 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
605 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
606 as named references:
607
4b568fc0 608 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
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609 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
610
611 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
612
4b568fc0 613 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
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614 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
615
5b1ff423 616 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
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617 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
618 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
619
5b1ff423 620 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
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621 will help to stabilize them.
622
f1b238df 623** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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624
625 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
626 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 627 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
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628 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
629 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
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630 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
631 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
632 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
633 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
634
635 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
636 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
637 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
638 file with these directives:
639
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640 %define lr.type lalr
641 %define lr.type ielr
642 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 643
7fceb615 644 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
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645 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
646 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 647 manual.
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648
649 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
650 stabilize them.
651
7fceb615 652** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
fcf834f9
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653
654 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
655 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
656 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 657 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
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658 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
659 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
660 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 661 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 662 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
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663 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
664 tokens.
fcf834f9
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665
666 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
667 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
668 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
669 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
670 inconsistent states.
671
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672 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
673 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
674 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
675 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
676 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
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677 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
678 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
679 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
680 power.
681
682 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
683 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
684
685 %define parse.lac full
686
e4ab1254 687 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 688 details including a few caveats.
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689
690 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
691 stabilize it.
692
d397d9f0 693** %define improvements:
cf499cff 694
f1b238df 695*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 696
de5ab940 697 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 698
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699 -D NAME[=VALUE]
700 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
701
702 -F NAME[=VALUE]
703 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
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704
705 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
706
de5ab940 707 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 708
de5ab940
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709 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
710 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
711 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 712 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 713
f1b238df 714*** Variables renamed:
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715
716 The following %define variables
717
718 api.push_pull
719 lr.keep_unreachable_states
720
721 have been renamed to
722
723 api.push-pull
724 lr.keep-unreachable-states
725
726 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
727 for backward compatibility.
728
7262f54f 729*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
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730
731 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
732 within quotations marks. For example,
733
734 %define api.push-pull "push"
735
736 can be rewritten as
737
738 %define api.push-pull push
739
d397d9f0 740*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 741
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742*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
743
744** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
745
746** Character literals not of length one:
747
748 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
749 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
750 the following grammar to be the same token:
751
752 exp: exp '++'
753 | exp '+' exp
754 ;
755
756 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
757 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
758
759** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
760
761 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
762 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
763 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
764 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
765
766** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
767
768 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
769 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
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770 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
771 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 772
e29f0771
AD
773 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
774 do \
775 if (N) \
776 { \
777 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
778 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
779 } \
780 else \
781 { \
782 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
783 } \
784 while (false)
d397d9f0
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785
786 use:
787
e29f0771
AD
788 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
789 do \
790 if (N) \
791 { \
792 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
793 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
794 } \
795 else \
796 { \
797 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
798 } \
799 while (false)
d397d9f0
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800
801** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
802
803 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
804 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
805 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
806 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 807
f1b238df 808** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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809
810 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
811 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
812 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
813 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
814 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
815 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
816 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
817 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
818
f1b238df 819** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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JD
820
821 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
822 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
823 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
824 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
825
826 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
827
828 instead of
829
830 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
831
832 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
833 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
834 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
835 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
836 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
837 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
838 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
839
d2060f06
JD
840** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
841
e4ab1254 842 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
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843 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
844 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
845 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
846 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
847
848*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
849 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
850 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
851 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
852 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 853 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
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854 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
855 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
856 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
857 shifted or discarded.
858
859*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
860 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
861 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
862 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
863
864*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
865 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
866 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
867 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
868 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
869 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
870 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
871 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
872 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
873 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
874 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
875 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
876 by default.
53f036ce 877
1a33f4f6
JD
878** Java skeleton fixes:
879
880*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
881
882*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
883 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 884
02803d55
JD
885*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
886
86408959
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887** -W/--warnings fixes:
888
e4ab1254 889*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
890
891 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
892 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
893
894 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
895
786743d5
JD
896*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
897
898 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
899 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 900 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
901 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
902 example:
903
904 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
905 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
906 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
907 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
908
909 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
910 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
911 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
912 then have no effect on the conflict report.
913
e4ab1254 914*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
915
916 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
917 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
918
919 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
920
e4ab1254 921*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 922
e4ab1254 923 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
924 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
925 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
926 suppress all warnings:
927
928 bison -Wnone gram.y
929
1f36f544
JD
930** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
931
932 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
933 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
934 produced an assertion failure. For example:
935
936 %left END 0
937
938 This bug has been fixed.
939
64877e5e 940* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 941
2bfcac9a
JD
942** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
943 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
944
8b9e021f
JD
945** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
946 been fixed.
947
4ad3921d
JD
948** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
949
06cb07d5
JD
950** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
951 been fixed.
952
9b5049bd
JD
953** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
954 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
955 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
956 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
957
93d7dde9
JD
958** Minor documentation fixes.
959
e19a049c 960* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 961
f39ab286
JD
962** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
963 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
964 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
965 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
966 affected platforms.
967
e4ab1254 968** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
969
970 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
971 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
972 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
973 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
974 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
975 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
976 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
977 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
978 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 979
d8911864
EB
980** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
981
a603c6e0
JD
982** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
983 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
984 avoided.
c938d650 985
98a345a2
JD
986** %code is now a permanent feature.
987
988 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
989
990 %{CODE%}
991
992 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
993 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
994
995 %code {CODE}
996 %code requires {CODE}
997 %code provides {CODE}
998 %code top {CODE}
999
1000 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1001 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1002 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1003 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1004 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1005
1006 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1007 is still considered experimental.
1008
1625df5b
JD
1009** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1010
1011 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1012 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1013 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1014 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1015 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1016 specified by POSIX.
1017
1018 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1019 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1020 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1021 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1022 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1023 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1024 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1025
1026 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1027
1028 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1029 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1030 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1031 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1032 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1033 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1034 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1035 be removed altogether.
1036
1037 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1038 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1039 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1040 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1041 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1042 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1043 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1044 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1045 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1046 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1047
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1048** Internationalization.
1049
1050 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1051 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1052 host system.
1053
74553c98 1054* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1055
0ea583d2
AD
1056** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1057 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1058
0ea583d2
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1059** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1060
1061 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1062 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1063
1064 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1065
1066 instead of
1067
1068 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1069
e4ab1254 1070 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
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1071 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1072 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1073 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1074 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1075 feature.
1076
1077** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1078
402b123d 1079* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1080
402b123d 1081** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1082
1083 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1084 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1085 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1086 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1087 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1088
402b123d 1089** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1090
402b123d 1091** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1092 fixed.
1093
402b123d 1094* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1095
402b123d 1096** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1097 are now deprecated:
1098
1099 %define NAME "VALUE"
1100
e4ab1254 1101** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1102
1103 %define api.pure
1104
1105 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1106 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1107
402b123d 1108** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1109
1110 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1111 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1112 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1113 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1114 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1115
1116 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1117 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1118
e4ab1254 1119 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1120
59da312b
JD
1121 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1122 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1123
402b123d 1124** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1125 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1126 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1127
402b123d 1128** Java
59da312b
JD
1129
1130 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1131 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1132 %skeleton to select it.
1133
e4ab1254 1134 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1135
1136 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1137 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1138
402b123d 1139** %language
59da312b
JD
1140
1141 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1142 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1143 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1144 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1145
402b123d 1146** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1147
1148 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1149 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1150 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
c373bf8b 1151
402b123d 1152** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1153 %defines. For example:
1154
1155 %defines "parser.h"
1156
402b123d 1157** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1158 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1159 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1160 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1161
402b123d 1162** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1163
1164 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1165 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1166 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1167
1168 1. Removes unreachable states.
1169
1170 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1171 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1172 directives in existing grammar files.
1173
1174 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1175 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1176
31984206
JD
1177 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1178
1179 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1180
e4ab1254 1181 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1182 for further discussion.
1183
e4ab1254 1184** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1185
e4ab1254
AD
1186 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1187 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1188 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1189 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1190 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1191 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1192 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1193 code.
1194
e4ab1254 1195** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1196 name.
1bb2bd75 1197
e4ab1254 1198** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1199 deprecated:
1200
1201 %file-prefix "parser"
1202 %name-prefix "c_"
1203 %output "parser.c"
1204
e4ab1254 1205** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1206
1207 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1208 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1209 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1210 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1211 it:
1212
e4ab1254
AD
1213 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1214 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1215 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1216 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1217
e4ab1254
AD
1218 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1219 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1220 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1221 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1222
1223 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1224 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1225
402b123d 1226** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1227
1228 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1229 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1230 about unused $2 in:
1231
1232 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1233
1234 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1235 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1236
1237 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1238
1239 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1240 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1241 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1242
e4ab1254
AD
1243 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1244 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1245
e4ab1254 1246** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1247
1248 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1249 %printer's:
1250
e4ab1254 1251 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1252 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1253 declared semantic type tags.
1254
e4ab1254 1255 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1256 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1257 type tags.
1258
e4ab1254
AD
1259 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1260 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1261 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1262 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1263
85894313
JD
1264 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1265 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1266 features.
1267
e4ab1254 1268 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1269 details.
1270
402b123d 1271** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1272 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1273 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1274
402b123d 1275** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1276 completely removed from Bison.
1277
402b123d 1278* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1279
402b123d 1280** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1281 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1282 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1283 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1284 and is required by POSIX.
1285
402b123d 1286** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1287 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1288
402b123d 1289** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1290
1291 For example:
1292
b2a0b7ca
JD
1293 %union { char *string; }
1294 %token <string> STRING1
1295 %token <string> STRING2
1296 %type <string> string1
1297 %type <string> string2
1298 %union { char character; }
1299 %token <character> CHR
1300 %type <character> chr
1301 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1302 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1303 %destructor { } <character>
1304
1305 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1306 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1307 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1308 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1309 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1310
85894313
JD
1311 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1312 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1313 future versions.]
1314
e4ab1254
AD
1315** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1316 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1317 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1318 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1319 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1320
402b123d 1321** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1322 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1323
1324 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1325 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1326 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1327 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1328 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1329
34f98f46 1330 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1331 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1332 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1333 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1334 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1335 after the token definitions.
1336
1337 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1338 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1339
402b123d 1340** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1341 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1342 %after-header.
1343
1344 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1345 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1346 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1347 convenient for you:
1348
1349 %before-header {
1350 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1351 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1352 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1353 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1354 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1355 }
1356 %start-header {
1357 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1358 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1359 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1360 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1361 }
1362 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1363 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1364 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1365 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1366 }
34f98f46
JD
1367 %end-header {
1368 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1369 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1370 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1371 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1372 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1373 }
34f98f46
JD
1374 %after-header {
1375 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1376 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1377 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1378 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1379 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1380 }
1381
1382 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1383 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1384
85894313
JD
1385 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1386 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1387
e4ab1254 1388** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1389 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1390 in a future release.
742e4900 1391
402b123d 1392* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1393
e4ab1254 1394** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1395 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1396
402b123d 1397** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1398 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1399
402b123d 1400* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1401
402b123d 1402** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1403 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1404 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1405
402b123d 1406** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1407
402b123d 1408** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1409
402b123d 1410** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1411 their contents together.
1412
402b123d 1413** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1414 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1415 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1416
8f3596a6 1417 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1418 | exp "+" exp
1419 ;
affac613 1420
8f3596a6
AD
1421 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1422 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1423 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1424
4e26c69e 1425 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1426 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1427 | exp "+" exp
1428 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1429 ;
affac613 1430
4e26c69e
PE
1431 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1432 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1433 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1434
8f3596a6 1435 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1436 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1437 ;
721be13c 1438
84866159
AD
1439 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1440 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1441
1442 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1443
721be13c
PE
1444 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1445 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1446
402b123d 1447** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1448 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1449 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1450 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1451
402b123d 1452** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1453 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1454 instead of warnings.
1455
402b123d 1456** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1457 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1458 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1459
e4ab1254 1460** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1461
402b123d 1462** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1463 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1464 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1465
402b123d 1466** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1467 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1468 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1469 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1470 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1471
1472 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1473 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1474 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1475 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1476
b50d2359 1477 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1478 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1479
402b123d 1480** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1481\f
402b123d 1482* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1483
402b123d 1484** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 1485
402b123d 1486** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
1487 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1488 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
1489 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1490 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1491 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 1492
402b123d 1493** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
1494 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1495 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1496 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1497
402b123d 1498** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
1499 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1500 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1501
402b123d 1502** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
1503 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1504 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1505 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1506 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 1507\f
402b123d 1508* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 1509
402b123d 1510** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 1511
82de6b0d
PE
1512 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1513 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1514 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1515 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1516 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 1517
82de6b0d
PE
1518 - Error token location.
1519 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1520 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1521 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1522 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 1523
82de6b0d
PE
1524 - Semicolon changes:
1525 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1526 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 1527
82de6b0d
PE
1528 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1529 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1530 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1531 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 1532
82de6b0d 1533 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 1534
402b123d 1535** New features
1452af69 1536
82de6b0d 1537 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 1538
82de6b0d
PE
1539 - New directive: %initial-action.
1540 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1541 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 1542
82de6b0d
PE
1543 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1544 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 1545
e4ab1254 1546 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 1547 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 1548
e4ab1254 1549 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 1550 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1551
82de6b0d 1552 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1553
82de6b0d
PE
1554 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1555 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1556
402b123d 1557** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1558
82de6b0d
PE
1559 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1560 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1561 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1562 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1563 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1564 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1565
82de6b0d
PE
1566 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1567 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1568
82de6b0d 1569 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1570\f
402b123d 1571* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1572
402b123d 1573** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1574 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1575
402b123d 1576** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1577
dc546b0f
PE
1578 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1579 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1580
dc546b0f
PE
1581 - %destructor
1582 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1583 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1584
dc546b0f
PE
1585 - %error-verbose
1586 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1587
dc546b0f
PE
1588 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1589 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1590
402b123d 1591** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1592
dc546b0f
PE
1593 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1594 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1595 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1596
e4ab1254
AD
1597 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1598 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1599 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1600 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 1601 be consistent.
74724a70 1602
dc546b0f
PE
1603 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1604 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1605
dc546b0f
PE
1606 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1607 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1608
dc546b0f
PE
1609 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1610 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1611
dc546b0f 1612 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 1613 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
1614 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1615 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1616 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1617
dc546b0f 1618 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1619
dc546b0f
PE
1620 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1621 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1622 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1623
402b123d 1624** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1625
e4ab1254
AD
1626 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1627 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1628 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1629 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1630 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 1631 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1632
e4ab1254 1633 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 1634 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1635
dc546b0f 1636 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 1637 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 1638
e4ab1254 1639 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
1640 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1641 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1642
402b123d 1643** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1644
dc546b0f
PE
1645 - GLR and inline
1646 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 1647 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 1648
e4ab1254
AD
1649 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1650 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1651
18ad57b3
AD
1652** %parse-param and %lex-param
1653 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1654 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1655 shortcomings:
1656
1657 - a single argument only can be added,
1658 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 1659 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
1660 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1661
1662 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1663 For instance:
1664
1665 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1666 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1667 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1668
1669 results in the following signatures:
1670
1671 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1672 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1673
1674 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1675
1676 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1677 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1678
402b123d 1679** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 1680 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 1681 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1682
402b123d 1683** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1684 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1685
402b123d 1686** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1687 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1688 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1689 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1690\f
402b123d 1691* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 1692
402b123d 1693** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 1694
402b123d 1695** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 1696
402b123d 1697** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1698 Fix spurious parse errors.
1699
402b123d 1700** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1701 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1702 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1703
402b123d 1704** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
1705 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1706 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1707
e9690142 1708 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
1709
1710 but the converse remains an error:
1711
e9690142 1712 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 1713
402b123d 1714** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
1715 The following code:
1716
e9690142 1717 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
1718
1719 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1720 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 1721\f
402b123d 1722* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 1723
402b123d 1724** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
1725 The declaration
1726 %glr-parser
1727 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1728 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 1729 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
1730 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1731
7933f2b5 1732 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
1733 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1734
402b123d 1735** Output Directory
8c165d89 1736 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
1737 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1738 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 1739
402b123d 1740** Undefined token
007a50a4 1741 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 1742 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 1743
402b123d 1744** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 1745 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
1746 no longer the case.
1747
402b123d 1748** Error token
e88dbdbf 1749 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
1750 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1751 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1752 will be mapped onto another number.
1753
402b123d 1754** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 1755 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
1756 error recovery is possible.
1757
402b123d 1758** End token
e4ab1254 1759 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 1760
402b123d 1761** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
1762 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1763 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1764 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1765 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1766 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1767 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
1768 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1769 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 1770
402b123d 1771** Traces
5504898e
AD
1772 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1773
402b123d 1774** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
1775 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1776 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1777 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1778 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 1779
402b123d 1780** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
1781 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1782 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1783 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 1784
402b123d 1785** Useless rules
643a5994 1786 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 1787 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 1788
402b123d 1789** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
1790 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1791
402b123d 1792** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
1793 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1794 reported.
1795
e4ab1254 1796** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
1797 On a grammar such as
1798
e29f0771
AD
1799 %token useless useful
1800 %%
1801 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
1802
1803 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 1804 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 1805
402b123d 1806** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 1807 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 1808
402b123d 1809** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
1810 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1811 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1812 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1813 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 1814
402b123d 1815** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
1816 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1817 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 1818 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 1819 For instance
e29f0771 1820 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 1821 or
e29f0771 1822 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 1823
402b123d 1824** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
1825 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1826
402b123d 1827** New translations
a861a339 1828 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
1829 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1830
402b123d 1831** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
1832 When given
1833 %token 'a' "A"
1834 bison used to output
1835 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 1836
402b123d 1837** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
1838 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1839 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 1840 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 1841
402b123d 1842** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
1843 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1844 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
1845 - itemset
1846 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 1847 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 1848 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
1849 - solved
1850 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1851 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1852 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 1853
402b123d 1854** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
1855 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1856 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1857
e29f0771
AD
1858 %type <foo> bar
1859 %%
1860 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
1861
1862 This is fixed.
a861a339 1863
402b123d 1864** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 1865\f
402b123d 1866* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 1867
402b123d 1868** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
1869 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1870 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1871 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1872
1873 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1874 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1875 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1876 kludge will be disabled.
1877
1878 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1879 extended.
76551463 1880\f
402b123d 1881* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 1882
402b123d 1883** File name clashes are detected
76551463 1884 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 1885 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 1886
e4ab1254 1887** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
1888 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1889 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1890 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1891 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1892 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1893
402b123d 1894** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
1895 many portability hassles.
1896
402b123d 1897** DJGPP support added.
76551463 1898
402b123d 1899** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 1900\f
402b123d 1901* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 1902
402b123d 1903** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
1904 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1905 under some conditions.
1906
402b123d 1907** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
1908 As is done with $n.
1909\f
402b123d 1910* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 1911
402b123d 1912** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 1913
402b123d 1914** Portability fixes
76551463 1915
402b123d 1916** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 1917\f
402b123d 1918* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 1919
402b123d 1920** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 1921
402b123d 1922** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1923 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1924 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1925 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 1926 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 1927
402b123d 1928** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
1929 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1930 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1931
1932 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1933 problems as on AIX.
1934
402b123d 1935** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 1936
402b123d 1937** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
1938 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1939
402b123d 1940** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
1941 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1942 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1943 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1944
402b123d 1945** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 1946 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 1947 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 1948
402b123d 1949** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
1950 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1951
402b123d 1952** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
1953 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1954
402b123d 1955** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
1956 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1957
402b123d 1958** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1959 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1960 any warning.
1961
402b123d 1962** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 1963
402b123d 1964** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 1965
402b123d 1966** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 1967
402b123d 1968** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
1969 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1970 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1971 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1972
402b123d 1973** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
1974 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1975 previous allocations were not freed.
1976
402b123d 1977** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
1978 Some newlines were missing.
1979 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1980
402b123d 1981** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
1982 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1983
402b123d 1984** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1985 Was not used.
1986 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1987
402b123d 1988** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 1989
402b123d 1990** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 1991
402b123d 1992** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 1993
402b123d 1994** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
1995 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1996
402b123d 1997** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 1998
402b123d 1999** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2000 New.
2001
402b123d 2002** --output
e4ab1254 2003 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2004\f
402b123d 2005* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2006
e4ab1254
AD
2007** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2008 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2009 argument.
2010
e4ab1254 2011** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2012 experiment.
2013
402b123d 2014** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2015\f
402b123d 2016* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2017
402b123d 2018** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2019 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2020 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2021 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2022
e4ab1254 2023** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2024
402b123d 2025** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2026
402b123d 2027** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2028
402b123d 2029** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2030
402b123d 2031** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2032
402b123d 2033** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2034
e4ab1254 2035** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2036
e4ab1254 2037** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2038
e4ab1254 2039** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2040
402b123d 2041** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2042 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2043
402b123d 2044** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2045 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2046 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2047
402b123d 2048** @$
f987e9d2 2049 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2050\f
402b123d 2051* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2052
402b123d 2053** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2054
402b123d 2055** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2056
402b123d 2057** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2058
402b123d 2059** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2060\f
402b123d 2061* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2062
402b123d 2063** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2064 some systems has been fixed.
2065\f
402b123d 2066* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2067
7e508a2b 2068** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2069
402b123d 2070** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2071
402b123d 2072** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2073
402b123d 2074** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2075
402b123d 2076** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2077
402b123d 2078** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2079
402b123d 2080** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2081 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2082\f
402b123d 2083* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2084
402b123d 2085** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2086the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2087
402b123d 2088** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2089example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2090of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2091
402b123d 2092** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2093and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2094table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2095purposes.
2096
402b123d 2097** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2098directives in the parser file.
2099
402b123d 2100** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2101Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2102
402b123d 2103** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2104the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2105The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2106a switch statement body.
2107\f
402b123d 2108* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2109
4d019228
DM
2110The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2111passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2112actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2113by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2114
6780ca7a 2115Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2116\f
402b123d 2117* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2118
2119--help option added.
6780ca7a 2120\f
402b123d 2121* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2122
2123Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2124
76551463
AD
2125-----
2126
34136e65 2127Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2128
74553c98 2129This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2130
f16b0819 2131This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2132it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2133the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2134(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2135
f16b0819 2136This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2137but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2138MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2139GNU General Public License for more details.
2140
2141You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2142along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2143
2144 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2145 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2146 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2147 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2148 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2149 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2150 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2151 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2152 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2153 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2154 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2155 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2156 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2157 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2158 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2159 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2160 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2161 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2b45240d 2162 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval
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2163
2164Local Variables:
2165mode: outline
e4ab1254 2166fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2167End: