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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
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3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
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5** Bug fixes
6
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7*** Errors in caret diagnostics
8
9 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
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10
11*** Fixes of the -Werror option
12
13 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
14 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
15
16 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
17 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
18 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
e386b50f 19
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20*** GLR Predicates
21
22 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
23 "%?" and its "{".
24
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25*** Installation
26
27 The yacc.1 man page is no longer installed if --disable-yacc was
28 specified.
29
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30*** Fixes in the test suite
31
32 Bugs and portability issues.
33
534497f5 34* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 35
8458a411 36** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 37
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38 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
39 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
40 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
41
8458a411 42** Backward incompatible changes
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43
44*** Obsolete features
45
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46 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
47
48 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
49 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
50
51 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
52 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 53
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54 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
55 in the release 2.5).
56
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57*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
58
59 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
60 Bison extensions.
61
62 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
63 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
64 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
65
66 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
67 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
68 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
69 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
70 warnings for Bison extensions.
71
72 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
73 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
74 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
75 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
76
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77** Bug fixes
78
c21e515e 79*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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80
81 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
82 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
83 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
84 preprocessor expansion:
85
86 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
87
6c7022f7 88 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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89 identifiers for user-provided variables.
90
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91*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
92
93 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
94 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
95
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96*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
97
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98** Diagnostics reported by Bison
99
100 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
101 Santet.
73370a9d 102
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103*** Carets
104
105 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
106 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
107 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
108
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109 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
110 the caret information only. For instance on:
111
112 %%
113 exp: 'a' | 'a';
114
115 Bison 2.7 reports:
116
117 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
118 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
119
120 Now bison reports:
121
122 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
123 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
124 exp: 'a' | 'a';
125 ^^^
126
127 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
128
129 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
130 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
131
1048a1c9 132*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 133
1048a1c9 134 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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135 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
136 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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137
138 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 139 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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140 errors (and only those):
141
142 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
143
144 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
145 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
146
147 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
148
149 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
150
151 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
152 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
153
154 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
155 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
156 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 157
46bdb8ec 158*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 159
46bdb8ec 160 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 161
46bdb8ec 162 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 163
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164 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
165 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 166 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 167
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168 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
169 with failure):
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170
171 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 172 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 173
46bdb8ec 174 it now reports:
1048a1c9 175
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176 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
177
178*** Deprecated constructs
179
180 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
181 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
182 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
183
73370a9d 184*** Useless semantic types
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185
186 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
187 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
188 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
189 types that trigger the warning:
190
191 %token <type1> term
192 %type <type2> nterm
193 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
194 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
195 %%
196 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
197
198 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
199 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
200
31557b9e 201*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 202
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203 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
204 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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205
206 %printer {} symbol1
207 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 208 %type <type> symbol3
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209 %%
210 exp: "a";
211
73370a9d 212*** Useless destructors or printers
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213
214 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
215 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
216 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
217 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
218
219 %token <type1> token1
220 <type2> token2
221 <type3> token3
222 <type4> token4
223 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
224 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
225
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226*** Conflicts
227
228 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
229 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
230
231 %glr-parser
232 %%
233 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
234
235 compare the previous version of bison:
236
237 $ bison foo.y
238 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
239 $ bison -Werror foo.y
240 bison: warnings being treated as errors
241 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
242
243 with the new behavior:
244
245 $ bison foo.y
246 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
247 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
248 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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249 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
250 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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251
252 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
253
254 %expect 0
255 %glr-parser
256 %%
257 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
258
259 Former behavior:
260
261 $ bison bar.y
262 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
263 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
264 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
265
266 New one:
267
268 $ bison bar.y
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269 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
270 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 271
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272** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
273
274 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
275 with '-Wyacc'.
276
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277** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
278
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279 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
280 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
281 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 282
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283 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
284 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
285 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
286 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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287
288 one may now declare
289
e436fa67 290 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 291
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292** Types of values for %define variables
293
294 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
295 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
296 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
297 foo {bar}'.
298
299 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
300
301 %define lr.type lalr
302
303 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
304
305 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
306
307 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
308
2a6b66c5 309** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 310
2a6b66c5 311 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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312 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
313 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
314
e436fa67 315 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 316 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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317 %%
318 start: FILE for ERROR;
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319
320 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
321 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
322 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
323 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
324
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325** Variable api.value.type
326
327 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
328 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
329 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
330
331 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
332
333 %union
334 {
335 int ival;
336 char *sval;
337 }
338 %token <ival> INT "integer"
339 %token <sval> STRING "string"
340 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
341 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
342
343 /* In yylex(). */
344 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
345 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
346
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347 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
348
349 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 350 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 351 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 352
435575cb 353 %define api.value.type union
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354 %token <int> INT "integer"
355 %token <char *> STRING "string"
356 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
357 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
358
359 /* In yylex(). */
360 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
361 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
362
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363 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
364 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 365
435575cb 366 %define api.value.type variant
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367 %token <int> INT "integer"
368 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
369
630a0218 370 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 371 used to be used.
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372
373 %code requires
374 {
375 struct my_value
376 {
377 enum
378 {
379 is_int, is_string
380 } kind;
381 union
382 {
383 int ival;
384 char *sval;
385 } u;
386 };
387 }
435575cb 388 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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389 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
390 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
391 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
392 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
393
394 /* In yylex(). */
395 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
396 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
397
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398** Variable parse.error
399
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400 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
401 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
402 verbose".
31b850d2 403
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404** Renamed %define variables
405
406 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
407 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
408
409 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
410 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
411 namespace -> api.namespace
412 stype -> api.value.type
413
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414** Semantic predicates
415
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416 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
417
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418 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
419 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 420 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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421 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
422 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
423 expressions.
ca2a6d15 424
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425** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
426
427 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
428 reduce/reduce conflicts.
429
5202b6ac 430** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 431
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432 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
433
434 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
435 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
436 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
437 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
438
439 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
440 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
441 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
442
443 %right A B 'c' 'd'
444
445 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
446 input order is now preserved.
447
448 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
449 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
450 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 451
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452** Useless precedence and associativity
453
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454 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
455
1282c124 456 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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457 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
458 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
459 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
460 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
461 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
462 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
463
464*** Precedence warning category
465
466 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
467 useless precedence and associativity directives.
468
469*** Useless associativity
470
471 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
472 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
473 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
474 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
475 For example:
476
477 %left '+'
478 %left '*'
479 %%
480 exp:
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481 "number"
482 | exp '+' "number"
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483 | exp '*' exp
484 ;
485
486 will produce a
487
488 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
489 %left '+'
490 ^^^
491
492*** Useless precedence
493
494 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
495 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
496 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
497 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
498
499 %precedence '='
500 %%
1282c124 501 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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502
503 will produce a
504
505 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
506 %precedence '='
507 ^^^
508
509*** Useless precedence and associativity
510
511 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
512 as follows:
513
514 %nonassoc '='
515 %%
1282c124 516 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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517
518 The warning is:
519
520 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
521 %nonassoc '='
522 ^^^
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523
524** Empty rules
525
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526 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
527
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528 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
529 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
530 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
531 %empty. On the following grammar:
532
533 %%
534 s: a b c;
535 a: ;
536 b: %empty;
537 c: 'a' %empty;
538
539 bison reports:
540
541 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
542 a: {}
543 ^^
544 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
545 c: 'a' %empty {};
546 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 547
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548** Java skeleton improvements
549
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550 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
551 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
552 and "%define init_throws".
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553 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
554
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555 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
556 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
557
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558** C++ skeletons improvements
559
560*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
561
562 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
563 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
564 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
565
566*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
567
568 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
569
570*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
571
572 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
573 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
574 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
575 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
576 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
577 factory invoked by the user actions).
578
579*** %define api.value.type variant
580
581 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
582 from Théophile Ranquet.
583
584 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
585 instance:
586
587 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
588 %token <int> NUMBER;
589 %token SEMICOLON ";"
590 %type <::std::string> item;
591 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
592 %%
593 result:
594 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
595 ;
596
597 list:
6240346a 598 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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599 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
600 ;
601
602 item:
603 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
604 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
605 ;
606
607*** %define api.token.constructor
608
609 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
610 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
611 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
612
613 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
614 {
615 parser::location_type loc = ...;
616 ...
617 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
618 ...
619 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
620 ...
621 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
622 ...
623 }
624
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625*** C++ locations
626
627 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
628 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
629
1f5542fe 630* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 631
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632** Bug fixes
633
634*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
635
636 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 637
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638*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
639
c13bb348 640* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 641
edf9a06f 642** Bug fixes
7bada535 643
edf9a06f 644 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 645
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646 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
647
d4fe9e88 648** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 649
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650 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
651
d4fe9e88 652*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 653
d4fe9e88 654 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 655
d4fe9e88
AD
656 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
657 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 658
d4fe9e88 659 It is now:
1f1bd572 660
d4fe9e88
AD
661 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
662 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 663
d4fe9e88 664*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 665
d4fe9e88 666 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 667
d4fe9e88
AD
668 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
669 %type <sval> exp
670 ^^^^^^
671 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
672 %type <ival> exp
673 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 674
d4fe9e88 675 or
cbaea010 676
7bada535 677 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 678 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 679 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
680 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
681 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
682 ^^^
683 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
684 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
685 ^^^
686 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
687 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
688 ^^^
7bada535 689
1282c124
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690 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
691 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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692 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
693 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 694
1f1bd572 695** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 696
1f1bd572 697 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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698 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
699 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
700 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
701 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
702 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
703
704 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
705 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 706
7287be84 707** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
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708
709 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
710 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
711 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
712 then responsible to define her type.
713
714 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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715 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
716 them.
db8ab2be
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717
718 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
719 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
720 compatibility).
721
7287be84
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722 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
723 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
724 api.position.type.
725
d4fe9e88
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726** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
727
728 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
729 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
730 before re-throwing the exception.
731
732 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
733 appreciated.
734
9c16d399 735** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 736
8458a411
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737 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
738
fc4fdd62
TR
739 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
740 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
741 numbered and left-justified.
742
743 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
744 diamond shaped nodes.
745
9c16d399
TR
746 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
747 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
748
d4fe9e88 749** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 750
d4fe9e88
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751 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
752 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 753
53e2cd1e
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754** Documentation
755
756 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
757 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 758
d4fe9e88
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759 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
760 were not properly documented.
761
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762 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
763
9d3f7eaf 764* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 765
a68b1f23
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766 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
767 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
768 reporting them to us.
769
770** Bug fixes
771
772 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
773 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
774 3.2.
775
776 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 777
1282c124 778 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 779
a1d1ab50
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780 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
781 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
782
0ac15849 783* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 784
468455e1 785 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 786
6eb8f74f 787* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 788
6b4cb804
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789** Bug fixes
790
a1a77e1f 791 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
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792
793 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
794 users to the appropriate place to report them.
795
796 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
797
798 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
799 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 800
a2b3f101
TR
801 All the generated headers are self-contained.
802
c9d5bcc9
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803** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
804
805 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
806 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
807 For instance the header generated from
808
809 %define api.prefix "calc"
810 %defines "lib/parse.h"
811
812 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
813
c12c4c50 814** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
321d3e35
AD
815
816 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
817 warnings such as:
818
819 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
820 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
821 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
822 *++yyvsp = yylval;
823 ^
824
825 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
826
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827 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
828 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
829 addressed.
830
e1eeecd3 831* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 832
43ca8040
AD
833** Bug fixes
834
835 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
836 suite have been fixed.
837
c9d546b2
AD
838** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
839
840 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
841 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 842
dcd5344d
AD
843** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
844
845 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
846
77b214ef 847* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 848
8617d87e
AD
849 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
850
e20e6a50
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851** Future Changes
852
853 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
854 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
855 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
856
857 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
858
859 write:
860
861 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
862
8617d87e
AD
863** Bug fixes
864
0e164d43
AD
865*** Type names are now properly escaped.
866
867*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 868
26313726
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869*** Stray @ or $ in actions
870
871 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
872 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
873 now does.
874
cd735a8c 875** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
876
877 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 878 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
879
880 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
881
882 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 883 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 884
1505e8bb 885* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 886
d0a30438 887** Future changes
9553083c 888
55d1006f
AD
889 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
890 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 891
aaf61036 892*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
AD
893
894 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 895 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
896 compilers.
897
258cddbc 898*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 899
258cddbc
AD
900 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
901 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 902
258cddbc
AD
903 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
904 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
905
906 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
907 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
908
909*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
910
911 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
912 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
913 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
914 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
915 it.
0f11eec2 916
c2425191 917** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 918
258cddbc 919*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
920
921 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 922 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 923
e29f0771
AD
924 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
925 # define YY_FOO_H
926 ...
927 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 928
258cddbc 929*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
930
931 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
932 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
933
e29f0771 934 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
935
936 rather than
937
e29f0771
AD
938 #define yyparse bar_parse
939 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
940
941 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
942 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 943
258cddbc
AD
944*** Exported symbols in C++
945
946 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
947 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
948 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
949
694af10c
AD
950*** YYLSP_NEEDED
951
952 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
953 longer defined.
954
4b3847c3
AD
955** New %define variable: api.prefix
956
957 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
958 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
959 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
960 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
961 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
962 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
963 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
964
965 The following examples compares both:
966
967 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
968 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
969 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
970 %% %%
971 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
972
973 bison generates:
974
975 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
976 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
977
978 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
979 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
980 > # if defined YYDEBUG
981 > # if YYDEBUG
982 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
983 > # else
984 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
985 > # endif
986 > # else
987 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
988 > # endif
989 # endif | # endif
990
991 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
992 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
993 # endif # endif
994
995 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
996 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
997 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
998 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
999 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
1000 }; };
1001 # endif # endif
1002
1003 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
1004 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1005 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1006 { {
1007 int ival; int ival;
1008 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1009 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1010 #endif #endif
1011
1012 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1013
1014 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1015
1016 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1017
dfaac272 1018* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1019
debe2c03 1020** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1021
e4ab1254 1022 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1023
466b4cf2 1024** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1025
d834eca0 1026** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1027
d834eca0 1028*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1029
e4ab1254
AD
1030 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1031 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1032
d834eca0 1033*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1034
e4ab1254
AD
1035 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1036 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1037
466b4cf2 1038** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1039
e4ab1254
AD
1040 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1041 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1042
22172d47 1043** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1044
22172d47 1045*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1046
e4ab1254
AD
1047 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1048 or higher.
936c88d1 1049
22172d47
AD
1050*** Header guards
1051
1052 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1053 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1054
e29f0771
AD
1055 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1056 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1057 ...
1058 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1059
1060 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1061 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1062 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1063
1064 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1065
e29f0771
AD
1066 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1067 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1068 ...
1069 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1070
1071*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1072
e4ab1254
AD
1073 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1074 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1075 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1076
466b4cf2
AD
1077** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1078
7e508a2b
AD
1079** Changes in the manual:
1080
1081*** %printer is documented
1082
e4ab1254
AD
1083 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1084 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1085
e4ab1254
AD
1086 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1087 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1088
1089*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1090
e4ab1254
AD
1091 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1092 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1093 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1094 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1095
86b08b49
AD
1096** Building bison:
1097
1098*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1099
e4ab1254
AD
1100 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1101 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1102
8ef26c2a
AD
1103*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1104
1105*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1106
e4ab1254
AD
1107 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1108 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1109
91aadcc7 1110*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1111
e4ab1254
AD
1112 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1113 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1114
28801043 1115* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1116
82f3355e
JD
1117** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1118
1119 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1120 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1121 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1122 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1123 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1124
f1b238df 1125** Named references:
66381412
AR
1126
1127 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1128 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1129 actions code.
1130
1131 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1132 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1133 as named references:
1134
4b568fc0 1135 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1136 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1137
1138 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1139
4b568fc0 1140 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1141 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1142
5b1ff423 1143 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1144 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1145 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1146
5b1ff423 1147 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1148 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1149 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1150
f1b238df 1151** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1152
1153 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1154 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1155 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1156 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1157 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1158 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1159 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1160 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1161 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1162
1163 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1164 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1165 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1166 file with these directives:
1167
cf499cff
JD
1168 %define lr.type lalr
1169 %define lr.type ielr
1170 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1171
7fceb615 1172 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1173 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1174 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1175 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1176
1177 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1178 stabilize them.
1179
8458a411
AD
1180** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1181
1182 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1183
1184 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1185 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1186 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1187 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1188 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1189 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1190 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1191 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1192 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1193 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1194 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1195
1196 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1197 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1198 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1199 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1200 inconsistent states.
1201
7fceb615
JD
1202 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1203 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1204 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1205 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1206 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1207 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1208 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1209 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1210 power.
1211
1212 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1213 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1214
1215 %define parse.lac full
1216
e4ab1254 1217 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1218 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1219
1220 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1221 stabilize it.
1222
d397d9f0 1223** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1224
f1b238df 1225*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1226
de5ab940 1227 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1228
de5ab940
JD
1229 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1230 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1231
1232 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1233 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1234
1235 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1236
de5ab940 1237 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1238
de5ab940
JD
1239 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1240 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1241 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1242 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1243
f1b238df 1244*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1245
1246 The following %define variables
1247
1248 api.push_pull
1249 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1250
1251 have been renamed to
1252
1253 api.push-pull
1254 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1255
1256 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1257 for backward compatibility.
1258
7262f54f 1259*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1260
1261 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1262 within quotations marks. For example,
1263
1264 %define api.push-pull "push"
1265
1266 can be rewritten as
1267
1268 %define api.push-pull push
1269
d397d9f0 1270*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1271
d397d9f0
JD
1272*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1273
1274** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1275
1276** Character literals not of length one:
1277
1278 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1279 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1280 the following grammar to be the same token:
1281
1282 exp: exp '++'
1283 | exp '+' exp
1284 ;
1285
1286 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1287 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1288
1289** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1290
1291 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1292 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1293 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1294 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1295
1296** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1297
1298 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1299 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1300 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1301 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1302
e29f0771
AD
1303 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1304 do \
1305 if (N) \
1306 { \
1307 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1308 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1309 } \
1310 else \
1311 { \
1312 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1313 } \
1314 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1315
1316 use:
1317
e29f0771
AD
1318 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1319 do \
1320 if (N) \
1321 { \
1322 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1323 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1324 } \
1325 else \
1326 { \
1327 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1328 } \
1329 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1330
1331** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1332
1333 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1334 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1335 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1336 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1337
f1b238df 1338** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1339
1340 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1341 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1342 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1343 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1344 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1345 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1346 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1347 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1348
f1b238df 1349** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1350
1351 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1352 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1353 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1354 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1355
1356 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1357
1358 instead of
1359
1360 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1361
1362 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1363 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1364 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1365 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1366 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1367 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1368 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1369
d2060f06
JD
1370** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1371
e4ab1254 1372 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1373 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1374 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1375 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1376 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1377
1378*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1379 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1380 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1381 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1382 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1383 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1384 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1385 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1386 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1387 shifted or discarded.
1388
1389*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1390 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1391 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1392 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1393
1394*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1395 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1396 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1397 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1398 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1399 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1400 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1401 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1402 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1403 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1404 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1405 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1406 by default.
53f036ce 1407
1a33f4f6
JD
1408** Java skeleton fixes:
1409
1410*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1411
1412*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1413 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1414
02803d55
JD
1415*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1416
86408959
JD
1417** -W/--warnings fixes:
1418
e4ab1254 1419*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1420
1421 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1422 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1423
1424 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1425
786743d5
JD
1426*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1427
1428 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1429 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1430 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1431 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1432 example:
1433
1434 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1435 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1436 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1437 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1438
1439 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1440 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1441 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1442 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1443
e4ab1254 1444*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1445
1446 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1447 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1448
1449 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1450
e4ab1254 1451*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1452
e4ab1254 1453 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1454 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1455 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1456 suppress all warnings:
1457
1458 bison -Wnone gram.y
1459
1f36f544
JD
1460** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1461
1462 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1463 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1464 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1465
1466 %left END 0
1467
1468 This bug has been fixed.
1469
64877e5e 1470* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1471
2bfcac9a
JD
1472** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1473 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1474
8b9e021f
JD
1475** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1476 been fixed.
1477
4ad3921d
JD
1478** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1479
06cb07d5
JD
1480** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1481 been fixed.
1482
9b5049bd
JD
1483** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1484 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1485 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1486 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1487
93d7dde9
JD
1488** Minor documentation fixes.
1489
e19a049c 1490* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1491
f39ab286
JD
1492** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1493 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1494 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1495 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1496 affected platforms.
1497
e4ab1254 1498** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1499
1500 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1501 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1502 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1503 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1504 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1505 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1506 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1507 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1508 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1509
d8911864
EB
1510** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1511
a603c6e0
JD
1512** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1513 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1514 avoided.
c938d650 1515
98a345a2
JD
1516** %code is now a permanent feature.
1517
1518 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1519
1520 %{CODE%}
1521
1522 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1523 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1524
1525 %code {CODE}
1526 %code requires {CODE}
1527 %code provides {CODE}
1528 %code top {CODE}
1529
1530 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1531 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1532 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1533 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1534 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1535
1536 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1537 is still considered experimental.
1538
1625df5b
JD
1539** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1540
1541 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1542 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1543 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1544 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1545 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1546 specified by POSIX.
1547
1548 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1549 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1550 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1551 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1552 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1553 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1554 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1555
1556 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1557
1558 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1559 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1560 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1561 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1562 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1563 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1564 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1565 be removed altogether.
1566
1567 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1568 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1569 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1570 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1571 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1572 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1573 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1574 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1575 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1576 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1577
2755de8f
AD
1578** Internationalization.
1579
1580 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1581 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1582 host system.
1583
74553c98 1584* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1585
0ea583d2
AD
1586** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1587 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1588
0ea583d2
AD
1589** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1590
1591 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1592 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1593
1594 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1595
1596 instead of
1597
1598 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1599
e4ab1254 1600 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1601 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1602 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1603 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1604 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1605 feature.
1606
1607** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1608
402b123d 1609* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1610
402b123d 1611** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1612
1613 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1614 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1615 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1616 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1617 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1618
402b123d 1619** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1620
402b123d 1621** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1622 fixed.
1623
402b123d 1624* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1625
402b123d 1626** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1627 are now deprecated:
1628
1629 %define NAME "VALUE"
1630
e4ab1254 1631** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1632
1633 %define api.pure
1634
1635 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1636 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1637
402b123d 1638** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1639
1640 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1641 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1642 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1643 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1644 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1645
1646 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1647 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1648
e4ab1254 1649 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1650
59da312b
JD
1651 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1652 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1653
402b123d 1654** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1655 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1656 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1657
402b123d 1658** Java
59da312b
JD
1659
1660 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1661 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1662 %skeleton to select it.
1663
e4ab1254 1664 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1665
1666 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1667 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1668 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1669
402b123d 1670** %language
59da312b
JD
1671
1672 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1673 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1674 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1675 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1676
402b123d 1677** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1678
1679 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1680 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1681 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1682 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1683
402b123d 1684** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1685 %defines. For example:
1686
1687 %defines "parser.h"
1688
402b123d 1689** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1690 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1691 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1692 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1693
402b123d 1694** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1695
1696 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1697 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1698 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1699
1700 1. Removes unreachable states.
1701
1702 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1703 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1704 directives in existing grammar files.
1705
1706 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1707 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1708
31984206
JD
1709 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1710
1711 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1712
e4ab1254 1713 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1714 for further discussion.
1715
e4ab1254 1716** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1717
e4ab1254
AD
1718 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1719 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1720 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1721 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1722 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1723 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1724 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1725 code.
1726
e4ab1254 1727** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1728 name.
1bb2bd75 1729
e4ab1254 1730** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1731 deprecated:
1732
1733 %file-prefix "parser"
1734 %name-prefix "c_"
1735 %output "parser.c"
1736
e4ab1254 1737** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1738
1739 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1740 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1741 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1742 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1743 it:
1744
e4ab1254
AD
1745 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1746 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1747 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1748 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1749
e4ab1254
AD
1750 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1751 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1752 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1753 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1754
1755 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1756 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1757
402b123d 1758** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1759
1760 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1761 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1762 about unused $2 in:
1763
1764 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1765
1766 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1767 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1768
1769 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1770
1771 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1772 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1773 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1774
e4ab1254
AD
1775 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1776 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1777
e4ab1254 1778** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1779
1780 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1781 %printer's:
1782
e4ab1254 1783 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1784 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1785 declared semantic type tags.
1786
e4ab1254 1787 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1788 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1789 type tags.
1790
e4ab1254
AD
1791 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1792 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1793 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1794 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1795
85894313
JD
1796 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1797 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1798 features.
1799
e4ab1254 1800 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1801 details.
1802
402b123d 1803** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1804 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1805 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1806
402b123d 1807** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1808 completely removed from Bison.
1809
402b123d 1810* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1811
402b123d 1812** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1813 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1814 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1815 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1816 and is required by POSIX.
1817
402b123d 1818** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1819 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1820
402b123d 1821** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1822
1823 For example:
1824
b2a0b7ca
JD
1825 %union { char *string; }
1826 %token <string> STRING1
1827 %token <string> STRING2
1828 %type <string> string1
1829 %type <string> string2
1830 %union { char character; }
1831 %token <character> CHR
1832 %type <character> chr
1833 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1834 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1835 %destructor { } <character>
1836
1837 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1838 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1839 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1840 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1841 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1842
85894313
JD
1843 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1844 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1845 future versions.]
1846
e4ab1254
AD
1847** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1848 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1849 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1850 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1851 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1852
402b123d 1853** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1854 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1855
1856 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1857 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1858 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1859 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1860 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1861
34f98f46 1862 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1863 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1864 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1865 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1866 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1867 after the token definitions.
1868
1869 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1870 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1871
402b123d 1872** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1873 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1874 %after-header.
1875
1876 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1877 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1878 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1879 convenient for you:
1880
1881 %before-header {
1882 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1883 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1884 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1885 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1886 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1887 }
1888 %start-header {
1889 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1890 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1891 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1892 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1893 }
1894 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1895 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1896 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1897 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1898 }
34f98f46
JD
1899 %end-header {
1900 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1901 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1902 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1903 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1904 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1905 }
34f98f46
JD
1906 %after-header {
1907 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1908 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1909 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1910 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1911 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1912 }
1913
1914 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1915 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1916
85894313
JD
1917 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1918 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1919
e4ab1254 1920** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1921 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1922 in a future release.
742e4900 1923
402b123d 1924* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1925
e4ab1254 1926** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1927 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1928
402b123d 1929** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1930 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1931
402b123d 1932* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1933
402b123d 1934** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1935 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1936 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1937
402b123d 1938** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1939
402b123d 1940** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1941
402b123d 1942** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1943 their contents together.
1944
402b123d 1945** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1946 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1947 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1948
8f3596a6 1949 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1950 | exp "+" exp
1951 ;
affac613 1952
8f3596a6
AD
1953 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1954 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1955 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1956
4e26c69e 1957 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1958 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1959 | exp "+" exp
1960 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1961 ;
affac613 1962
4e26c69e
PE
1963 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1964 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1965 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1966
8f3596a6 1967 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1968 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1969 ;
721be13c 1970
84866159
AD
1971 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1972 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1973
1974 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1975
721be13c
PE
1976 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1977 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1978
402b123d 1979** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1980 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1981 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1982 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1983
402b123d 1984** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1985 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1986 instead of warnings.
1987
402b123d 1988** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1989 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1990 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1991
e4ab1254 1992** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1993
402b123d 1994** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1995 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1996 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1997
402b123d 1998** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1999 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
2000 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
2001 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
2002 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
2003
2004 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 2005 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
2006 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2007 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 2008
b50d2359 2009 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 2010 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 2011
402b123d 2012** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 2013\f
402b123d 2014* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 2015
402b123d 2016** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2017
402b123d 2018** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2019 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2020 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2021 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2022 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2023 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2024
402b123d 2025** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2026 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2027 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2028 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2029
402b123d 2030** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2031 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2032 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2033
402b123d 2034** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2035 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2036 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2037 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2038 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2039\f
402b123d 2040* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2041
402b123d 2042** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2043
82de6b0d
PE
2044 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2045 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2046 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2047 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2048 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2049
82de6b0d
PE
2050 - Error token location.
2051 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2052 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2053 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2054 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2055
82de6b0d
PE
2056 - Semicolon changes:
2057 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2058 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2059
82de6b0d
PE
2060 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2061 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2062 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2063 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2064
82de6b0d 2065 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2066
402b123d 2067** New features
1452af69 2068
82de6b0d 2069 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2070
82de6b0d
PE
2071 - New directive: %initial-action.
2072 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2073 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2074
82de6b0d
PE
2075 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2076 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2077
e4ab1254 2078 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2079 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2080
e4ab1254 2081 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2082 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2083
82de6b0d 2084 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2085
82de6b0d
PE
2086 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2087 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2088
402b123d 2089** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2090
82de6b0d
PE
2091 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2092 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2093 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2094 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2095 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2096 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2097
82de6b0d
PE
2098 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2099 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2100
82de6b0d 2101 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2102\f
402b123d 2103* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2104
402b123d 2105** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2106 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2107
402b123d 2108** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2109
dc546b0f
PE
2110 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2111 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2112
dc546b0f
PE
2113 - %destructor
2114 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2115 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2116
dc546b0f
PE
2117 - %error-verbose
2118 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2119
dc546b0f
PE
2120 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2121 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2122
402b123d 2123** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2124
dc546b0f
PE
2125 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2126 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2127 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2128
e4ab1254
AD
2129 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2130 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2131 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2132 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2133 be consistent.
74724a70 2134
dc546b0f
PE
2135 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2136 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2137
dc546b0f
PE
2138 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2139 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2140
dc546b0f
PE
2141 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2142 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2143
dc546b0f 2144 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2145 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2146 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2147 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2148 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2149
dc546b0f 2150 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2151
dc546b0f
PE
2152 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2153 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2154 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2155
402b123d 2156** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2157
e4ab1254
AD
2158 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2159 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2160 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2161 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2162 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2163 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2164
e4ab1254 2165 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2166 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2167
dc546b0f 2168 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2169 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2170
e4ab1254 2171 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2172 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2173 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2174
402b123d 2175** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2176
dc546b0f
PE
2177 - GLR and inline
2178 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2179 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2180
e4ab1254
AD
2181 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2182 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2183
18ad57b3
AD
2184** %parse-param and %lex-param
2185 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2186 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2187 shortcomings:
2188
2189 - a single argument only can be added,
2190 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2191 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2192 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2193
2194 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2195 For instance:
2196
2197 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2198 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2199 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2200
2201 results in the following signatures:
2202
2203 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2204 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2205
2206 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2207
2208 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2209 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2210
402b123d 2211** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2212 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2213 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2214
402b123d 2215** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2216 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2217
402b123d 2218** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2219 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2220 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2221 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2222\f
402b123d 2223* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2224
402b123d 2225** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2226
402b123d 2227** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2228
402b123d 2229** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2230 Fix spurious parse errors.
2231
402b123d 2232** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2233 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2234 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2235
402b123d 2236** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2237 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2238 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2239
e9690142 2240 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2241
2242 but the converse remains an error:
2243
e9690142 2244 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2245
402b123d 2246** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2247 The following code:
2248
e9690142 2249 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2250
2251 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2252 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2253\f
402b123d 2254* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2255
402b123d 2256** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2257 The declaration
2258 %glr-parser
2259 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2260 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2261 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2262 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2263
7933f2b5 2264 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2265 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2266
402b123d 2267** Output Directory
8c165d89 2268 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2269 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2270 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2271
402b123d 2272** Undefined token
007a50a4 2273 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2274 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2275
402b123d 2276** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2277 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2278 no longer the case.
2279
402b123d 2280** Error token
e88dbdbf 2281 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2282 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2283 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2284 will be mapped onto another number.
2285
402b123d 2286** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2287 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2288 error recovery is possible.
2289
402b123d 2290** End token
e4ab1254 2291 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2292
402b123d 2293** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2294 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2295 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2296 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2297 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2298 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2299 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2300 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2301 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2302
402b123d 2303** Traces
5504898e
AD
2304 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2305
402b123d 2306** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2307 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2308 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2309 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2310 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2311
402b123d 2312** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2313 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2314 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2315 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2316
402b123d 2317** Useless rules
643a5994 2318 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2319 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2320
402b123d 2321** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2322 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2323
402b123d 2324** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2325 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2326 reported.
2327
e4ab1254 2328** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2329 On a grammar such as
2330
e29f0771
AD
2331 %token useless useful
2332 %%
2333 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2334
2335 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2336 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2337
402b123d 2338** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2339 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2340
402b123d 2341** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2342 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2343 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2344 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2345 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2346
402b123d 2347** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2348 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2349 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2350 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2351 For instance
e29f0771 2352 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2353 or
e29f0771 2354 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2355
402b123d 2356** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2357 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2358
402b123d 2359** New translations
a861a339 2360 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2361 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2362
402b123d 2363** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2364 When given
2365 %token 'a' "A"
2366 bison used to output
2367 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2368
402b123d 2369** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2370 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2371 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2372 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2373
402b123d 2374** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2375 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2376 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2377 - itemset
2378 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2379 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2380 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2381 - solved
2382 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2383 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2384 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2385
402b123d 2386** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2387 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2388 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2389
e29f0771
AD
2390 %type <foo> bar
2391 %%
2392 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2393
2394 This is fixed.
a861a339 2395
402b123d 2396** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2397\f
402b123d 2398* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2399
402b123d 2400** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2401 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2402 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2403 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2404
2405 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2406 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2407 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2408 kludge will be disabled.
2409
2410 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2411 extended.
76551463 2412\f
402b123d 2413* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2414
402b123d 2415** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2416 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2417 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2418
e4ab1254 2419** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2420 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2421 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2422 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2423 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2424 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2425
402b123d 2426** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2427 many portability hassles.
2428
402b123d 2429** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2430
402b123d 2431** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2432\f
402b123d 2433* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2434
402b123d 2435** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2436 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2437 under some conditions.
2438
402b123d 2439** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2440 As is done with $n.
2441\f
402b123d 2442* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2443
402b123d 2444** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2445
402b123d 2446** Portability fixes
76551463 2447
402b123d 2448** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2449\f
402b123d 2450* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2451
402b123d 2452** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2453
402b123d 2454** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2455 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2456 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2457 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2458 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2459
402b123d 2460** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2461 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2462 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2463
2464 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2465 problems as on AIX.
2466
402b123d 2467** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2468
402b123d 2469** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2470 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2471
402b123d 2472** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2473 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2474 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2475 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2476
402b123d 2477** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2478 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2479 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2480
402b123d 2481** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2482 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2483
402b123d 2484** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2485 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2486
402b123d 2487** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2488 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2489
402b123d 2490** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2491 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2492 any warning.
2493
402b123d 2494** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2495
402b123d 2496** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2497
402b123d 2498** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2499
402b123d 2500** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2501 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2502 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2503 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2504
402b123d 2505** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2506 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2507 previous allocations were not freed.
2508
402b123d 2509** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2510 Some newlines were missing.
2511 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2512
402b123d 2513** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2514 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2515
402b123d 2516** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2517 Was not used.
2518 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2519
402b123d 2520** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2521
402b123d 2522** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2523
402b123d 2524** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2525
402b123d 2526** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2527 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2528
402b123d 2529** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2530
402b123d 2531** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2532 New.
2533
402b123d 2534** --output
e4ab1254 2535 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2536\f
402b123d 2537* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2538
e4ab1254
AD
2539** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2540 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2541 argument.
2542
e4ab1254 2543** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2544 experiment.
2545
402b123d 2546** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2547\f
402b123d 2548* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2549
402b123d 2550** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2551 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2552 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2553 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2554
e4ab1254 2555** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2556
402b123d 2557** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2558
402b123d 2559** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2560
402b123d 2561** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2562
402b123d 2563** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2564
402b123d 2565** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2566
e4ab1254 2567** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2568
e4ab1254 2569** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2570
e4ab1254 2571** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2572
402b123d 2573** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2574 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2575
402b123d 2576** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2577 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2578 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2579
402b123d 2580** @$
f987e9d2 2581 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2582\f
402b123d 2583* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2584
402b123d 2585** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2586
402b123d 2587** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2588
402b123d 2589** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2590
402b123d 2591** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2592\f
402b123d 2593* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2594
402b123d 2595** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2596 some systems has been fixed.
2597\f
402b123d 2598* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2599
7e508a2b 2600** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2601
402b123d 2602** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2603
402b123d 2604** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2605
402b123d 2606** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2607
402b123d 2608** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2609
402b123d 2610** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2611
402b123d 2612** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2613 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2614\f
402b123d 2615* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2616
402b123d 2617** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2618the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2619
402b123d 2620** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2621example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2622of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2623
402b123d 2624** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2625and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2626table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2627purposes.
2628
402b123d 2629** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2630directives in the parser file.
2631
402b123d 2632** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2633Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2634
402b123d 2635** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2636the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2637The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2638a switch statement body.
2639\f
402b123d 2640* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2641
4d019228
DM
2642The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2643passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2644actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2645by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2646
6780ca7a 2647Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2648\f
402b123d 2649* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2650
2651--help option added.
6780ca7a 2652\f
402b123d 2653* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2654
2655Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2656
76551463
AD
2657-----
2658
7d6bad19 2659Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2660
74553c98 2661This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2662
f16b0819 2663This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2664it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2665the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2666(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2667
f16b0819 2668This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2669but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2670MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2671GNU General Public License for more details.
2672
2673You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2674along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2675
2676 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2677 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2678 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2679 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2680 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2681 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2682 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2683 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2684 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2685 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2686 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2687 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2688 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2689 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2690 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2691 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2692 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2693 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1282c124
AD
2694 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2695 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2696 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2697 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2698 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2699 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
7e508a2b
AD
2700
2701Local Variables:
2702mode: outline
e4ab1254 2703fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2704End: