]> git.saurik.com Git - bison.git/blame - NEWS
build: examples/calc++/calc++ requires flex
[bison.git] / NEWS
CommitLineData
ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
e386b50f
AD
3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
0a244a22
AD
5** Bug fixes
6
39bace5d
AD
7*** Errors in caret diagnostics
8
9 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
e4678430
AD
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
071863b3
AD
20*** GLR Predicates
21
22 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
23 "%?" and its "{".
24
39bace5d
AD
25*** Fixes in the test suite
26
27 Bugs and portability issues.
28
534497f5 29* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 30
8458a411 31** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 32
597afd73
AD
33 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
34 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
35 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
36
8458a411 37** Backward incompatible changes
47db7ed1
AD
38
39*** Obsolete features
40
40bb6f78
AD
41 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
42
43 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
44 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
45
46 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
47 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 48
05e25f23
AD
49 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
50 in the release 2.5).
51
1fa19a76
AD
52*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
53
54 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
55 Bison extensions.
56
57 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
58 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
59 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
60
61 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
62 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
63 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
64 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
65 warnings for Bison extensions.
66
67 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
68 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
69 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
70 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
71
597afd73
AD
72** Bug fixes
73
c21e515e 74*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
597afd73
AD
75
76 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
77 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
78 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
79 preprocessor expansion:
80
81 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
82
6c7022f7 83 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
597afd73
AD
84 identifiers for user-provided variables.
85
f0f95a50
AD
86*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
87
88 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
89 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
90
bb4b189b
AD
91*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
92
597afd73
AD
93** Diagnostics reported by Bison
94
95 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
96 Santet.
73370a9d 97
016426c1
TR
98*** Carets
99
100 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
101 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
102 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
103
fec5f3c0
AD
104 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
105 the caret information only. For instance on:
106
107 %%
108 exp: 'a' | 'a';
109
110 Bison 2.7 reports:
111
112 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
113 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
114
115 Now bison 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 [-Wother]
119 exp: 'a' | 'a';
120 ^^^
121
122 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
123
124 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
125 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
126
1048a1c9 127*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 128
1048a1c9 129 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
d949eefd
AD
130 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
131 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
1048a1c9
AD
132
133 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 134 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
1048a1c9
AD
135 errors (and only those):
136
137 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
138
139 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
140 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
141
142 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
143
144 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
145
146 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
147 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
148
149 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
150 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
151 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 152
46bdb8ec 153*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 154
46bdb8ec 155 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 156
46bdb8ec 157 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 158
46bdb8ec
TR
159 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
160 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 161 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 162
46bdb8ec
TR
163 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
164 with failure):
1048a1c9
AD
165
166 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 167 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 168
46bdb8ec 169 it now reports:
1048a1c9 170
1048a1c9
AD
171 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
172
173*** Deprecated constructs
174
175 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
176 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
177 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
178
73370a9d 179*** Useless semantic types
9641b918
VS
180
181 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
182 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
183 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
184 types that trigger the warning:
185
186 %token <type1> term
187 %type <type2> nterm
188 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
189 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
190 %%
191 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
192
193 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
194 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
195
31557b9e 196*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 197
31557b9e
AD
198 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
199 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
b921d92f
VS
200
201 %printer {} symbol1
202 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 203 %type <type> symbol3
b921d92f
VS
204 %%
205 exp: "a";
206
73370a9d 207*** Useless destructors or printers
ea9a35c6
VS
208
209 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
210 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
211 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
212 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
213
214 %token <type1> token1
215 <type2> token2
216 <type3> token3
217 <type4> token4
218 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
219 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
220
d87ea54c
AD
221*** Conflicts
222
223 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
224 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
225
226 %glr-parser
227 %%
228 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
229
230 compare the previous version of bison:
231
232 $ bison foo.y
233 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
234 $ bison -Werror foo.y
235 bison: warnings being treated as errors
236 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
237
238 with the new behavior:
239
240 $ bison foo.y
241 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
242 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
243 $ bison -Werror foo.y
9503b0a4
TR
244 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
245 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
d87ea54c
AD
246
247 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
248
249 %expect 0
250 %glr-parser
251 %%
252 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
253
254 Former behavior:
255
256 $ bison bar.y
257 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
258 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
259 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
260
261 New one:
262
263 $ bison bar.y
9503b0a4
TR
264 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
265 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 266
f24695ef
AD
267** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
268
269 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
270 with '-Wyacc'.
271
2055a44e
AD
272** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
273
6dc4663d
AD
274 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
275 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
276 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 277
e436fa67
AD
278 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
279 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
280 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
281 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e
AD
282
283 one may now declare
284
e436fa67 285 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 286
630a0218
AD
287** Types of values for %define variables
288
289 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
290 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
291 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
292 foo {bar}'.
293
294 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
295
296 %define lr.type lalr
297
298 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
299
300 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
301
302 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
303
2a6b66c5 304** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 305
2a6b66c5 306 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
99c08fb6
AD
307 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
308 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
309
e436fa67 310 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 311 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
e436fa67
AD
312 %%
313 start: FILE for ERROR;
99c08fb6
AD
314
315 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
316 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
317 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
318 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
319
6574576c
AD
320** Variable api.value.type
321
322 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
323 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
324 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
325
326 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
327
328 %union
329 {
330 int ival;
331 char *sval;
332 }
333 %token <ival> INT "integer"
334 %token <sval> STRING "string"
335 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
336 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
337
338 /* In yylex(). */
339 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
340 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
341
630a0218
AD
342 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
343
344 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 345 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 346 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 347
435575cb 348 %define api.value.type union
6574576c
AD
349 %token <int> INT "integer"
350 %token <char *> STRING "string"
351 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
352 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
353
354 /* In yylex(). */
355 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
356 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
357
435575cb
AD
358 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
359 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 360
435575cb 361 %define api.value.type variant
6574576c
AD
362 %token <int> INT "integer"
363 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
364
630a0218 365 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 366 used to be used.
6574576c
AD
367
368 %code requires
369 {
370 struct my_value
371 {
372 enum
373 {
374 is_int, is_string
375 } kind;
376 union
377 {
378 int ival;
379 char *sval;
380 } u;
381 };
382 }
435575cb 383 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
6574576c
AD
384 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
385 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
386 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
387 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
388
389 /* In yylex(). */
390 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
391 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
392
31b850d2
AD
393** Variable parse.error
394
1f77b2e0
AD
395 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
396 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
397 verbose".
31b850d2 398
c21e515e
AD
399** Renamed %define variables
400
401 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
402 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
403
404 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
405 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
406 namespace -> api.namespace
407 stype -> api.value.type
408
ca2a6d15
PH
409** Semantic predicates
410
597afd73
AD
411 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
412
1f77b2e0
AD
413 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
414 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 415 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
1f77b2e0
AD
416 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
417 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
418 expressions.
ca2a6d15 419
d1400569
AD
420** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
421
422 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
423 reduce/reduce conflicts.
424
5202b6ac 425** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 426
5202b6ac
VT
427 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
428
429 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
430 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
431 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
432 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
433
434 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
435 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
436 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
437
438 %right A B 'c' 'd'
439
440 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
441 input order is now preserved.
442
443 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
444 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
445 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 446
cc2235ac
VT
447** Useless precedence and associativity
448
d2f9ae18
AD
449 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
450
1282c124 451 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
cc2235ac
VT
452 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
453 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
454 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
455 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
456 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
457 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
458
459*** Precedence warning category
460
461 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
462 useless precedence and associativity directives.
463
464*** Useless associativity
465
466 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
467 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
468 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
469 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
470 For example:
471
472 %left '+'
473 %left '*'
474 %%
475 exp:
1282c124
AD
476 "number"
477 | exp '+' "number"
cc2235ac
VT
478 | exp '*' exp
479 ;
480
481 will produce a
482
483 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
484 %left '+'
485 ^^^
486
487*** Useless precedence
488
489 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
490 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
491 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
492 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
493
494 %precedence '='
495 %%
1282c124 496 exp: "var" '=' "number";
cc2235ac
VT
497
498 will produce a
499
500 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
501 %precedence '='
502 ^^^
503
504*** Useless precedence and associativity
505
506 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
507 as follows:
508
509 %nonassoc '='
510 %%
1282c124 511 exp: "var" '=' "number";
cc2235ac
VT
512
513 The warning is:
514
515 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
516 %nonassoc '='
517 ^^^
09add9c2
AD
518
519** Empty rules
520
6240346a
AD
521 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
522
09add9c2
AD
523 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
524 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
525 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
526 %empty. On the following grammar:
527
528 %%
529 s: a b c;
530 a: ;
531 b: %empty;
532 c: 'a' %empty;
533
534 bison reports:
535
536 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
537 a: {}
538 ^^
539 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
540 c: 'a' %empty {};
541 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 542
c21e515e
AD
543** Java skeleton improvements
544
c21e515e
AD
545 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
546 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
547 and "%define init_throws".
aa94def1
DH
548 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
549
de1a2f20
AD
550 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
551 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
552
c21e515e
AD
553** C++ skeletons improvements
554
555*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
556
557 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
558 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
559 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
560
561*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
562
563 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
564
565*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
566
567 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
568 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
569 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
570 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
571 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
572 factory invoked by the user actions).
573
574*** %define api.value.type variant
575
576 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
577 from Théophile Ranquet.
578
579 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
580 instance:
581
582 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
583 %token <int> NUMBER;
584 %token SEMICOLON ";"
585 %type <::std::string> item;
586 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
587 %%
588 result:
589 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
590 ;
591
592 list:
6240346a 593 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
c21e515e
AD
594 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
595 ;
596
597 item:
598 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
599 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
600 ;
601
602*** %define api.token.constructor
603
604 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
605 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
606 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
607
608 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
609 {
610 parser::location_type loc = ...;
611 ...
612 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
613 ...
614 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
615 ...
616 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
617 ...
618 }
619
75ae8299
AD
620*** C++ locations
621
622 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
623 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
624
1f5542fe 625* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 626
80a2826e
AD
627** Bug fixes
628
629*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
630
631 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 632
e83be476
AD
633*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
634
c13bb348 635* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 636
edf9a06f 637** Bug fixes
7bada535 638
edf9a06f 639 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 640
1127a75a
AD
641 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
642
d4fe9e88 643** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 644
8458a411
AD
645 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
646
d4fe9e88 647*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 648
d4fe9e88 649 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 650
d4fe9e88
AD
651 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
652 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 653
d4fe9e88 654 It is now:
1f1bd572 655
d4fe9e88
AD
656 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
657 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 658
d4fe9e88 659*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 660
d4fe9e88 661 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 662
d4fe9e88
AD
663 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
664 %type <sval> exp
665 ^^^^^^
666 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
667 %type <ival> exp
668 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 669
d4fe9e88 670 or
cbaea010 671
7bada535 672 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 673 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 674 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
675 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
676 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
677 ^^^
678 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
679 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
680 ^^^
681 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
682 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
683 ^^^
7bada535 684
1282c124
AD
685 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
686 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
AD
687 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
688 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 689
1f1bd572 690** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 691
1f1bd572 692 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
AD
693 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
694 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
695 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
696 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
697 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
698
699 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
700 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 701
7287be84 702** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
AD
703
704 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
705 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
706 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
707 then responsible to define her type.
708
709 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
AD
710 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
711 them.
db8ab2be
AD
712
713 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
714 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
715 compatibility).
716
7287be84
AD
717 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
718 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
719 api.position.type.
720
d4fe9e88
AD
721** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
722
723 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
724 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
725 before re-throwing the exception.
726
727 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
728 appreciated.
729
9c16d399 730** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 731
8458a411
AD
732 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
733
fc4fdd62
TR
734 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
735 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
736 numbered and left-justified.
737
738 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
739 diamond shaped nodes.
740
9c16d399
TR
741 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
742 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
743
d4fe9e88 744** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 745
d4fe9e88
AD
746 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
747 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 748
53e2cd1e
AD
749** Documentation
750
751 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
752 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 753
d4fe9e88
AD
754 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
755 were not properly documented.
756
be22823e
AD
757 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
758
9d3f7eaf 759* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 760
a68b1f23
AD
761 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
762 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
763 reporting them to us.
764
765** Bug fixes
766
767 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
768 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
769 3.2.
770
771 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 772
1282c124 773 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 774
a1d1ab50
AD
775 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
776 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
777
0ac15849 778* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 779
468455e1 780 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 781
6eb8f74f 782* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 783
6b4cb804
AD
784** Bug fixes
785
a1a77e1f 786 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
AD
787
788 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
789 users to the appropriate place to report them.
790
791 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
792
793 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
794 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 795
a2b3f101
TR
796 All the generated headers are self-contained.
797
c9d5bcc9
AD
798** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
799
800 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
801 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
802 For instance the header generated from
803
804 %define api.prefix "calc"
805 %defines "lib/parse.h"
806
807 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
808
c12c4c50 809** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
321d3e35
AD
810
811 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
812 warnings such as:
813
814 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
815 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
816 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
817 *++yyvsp = yylval;
818 ^
819
820 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
821
c12c4c50
AD
822 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
823 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
824 addressed.
825
e1eeecd3 826* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 827
43ca8040
AD
828** Bug fixes
829
830 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
831 suite have been fixed.
832
c9d546b2
AD
833** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
834
835 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
836 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 837
dcd5344d
AD
838** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
839
840 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
841
77b214ef 842* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 843
8617d87e
AD
844 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
845
e20e6a50
AD
846** Future Changes
847
848 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
849 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
850 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
851
852 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
853
854 write:
855
856 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
857
8617d87e
AD
858** Bug fixes
859
0e164d43
AD
860*** Type names are now properly escaped.
861
862*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 863
26313726
AD
864*** Stray @ or $ in actions
865
866 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
867 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
868 now does.
869
cd735a8c 870** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
871
872 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 873 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
874
875 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
876
877 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 878 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 879
1505e8bb 880* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 881
d0a30438 882** Future changes
9553083c 883
55d1006f
AD
884 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
885 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 886
aaf61036 887*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
AD
888
889 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 890 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
891 compilers.
892
258cddbc 893*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 894
258cddbc
AD
895 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
896 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 897
258cddbc
AD
898 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
899 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
900
901 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
902 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
903
904*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
905
906 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
907 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
908 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
909 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
910 it.
0f11eec2 911
c2425191 912** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 913
258cddbc 914*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
915
916 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 917 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 918
e29f0771
AD
919 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
920 # define YY_FOO_H
921 ...
922 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 923
258cddbc 924*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
925
926 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
927 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
928
e29f0771 929 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
930
931 rather than
932
e29f0771
AD
933 #define yyparse bar_parse
934 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
935
936 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
937 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 938
258cddbc
AD
939*** Exported symbols in C++
940
941 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
942 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
943 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
944
694af10c
AD
945*** YYLSP_NEEDED
946
947 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
948 longer defined.
949
4b3847c3
AD
950** New %define variable: api.prefix
951
952 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
953 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
954 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
955 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
956 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
957 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
958 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
959
960 The following examples compares both:
961
962 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
963 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
964 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
965 %% %%
966 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
967
968 bison generates:
969
970 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
971 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
972
973 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
974 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
975 > # if defined YYDEBUG
976 > # if YYDEBUG
977 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
978 > # else
979 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
980 > # endif
981 > # else
982 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
983 > # endif
984 # endif | # endif
985
986 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
987 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
988 # endif # endif
989
990 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
991 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
992 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
993 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
994 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
995 }; };
996 # endif # endif
997
998 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
999 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1000 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1001 { {
1002 int ival; int ival;
1003 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1004 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1005 #endif #endif
1006
1007 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1008
1009 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1010
1011 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1012
dfaac272 1013* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1014
debe2c03 1015** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1016
e4ab1254 1017 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1018
466b4cf2 1019** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1020
d834eca0 1021** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1022
d834eca0 1023*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1024
e4ab1254
AD
1025 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1026 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1027
d834eca0 1028*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1029
e4ab1254
AD
1030 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1031 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1032
466b4cf2 1033** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1034
e4ab1254
AD
1035 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1036 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1037
22172d47 1038** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1039
22172d47 1040*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1041
e4ab1254
AD
1042 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1043 or higher.
936c88d1 1044
22172d47
AD
1045*** Header guards
1046
1047 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1048 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1049
e29f0771
AD
1050 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1051 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1052 ...
1053 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1054
1055 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1056 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1057 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1058
1059 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1060
e29f0771
AD
1061 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1062 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1063 ...
1064 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1065
1066*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1067
e4ab1254
AD
1068 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1069 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1070 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1071
466b4cf2
AD
1072** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1073
7e508a2b
AD
1074** Changes in the manual:
1075
1076*** %printer is documented
1077
e4ab1254
AD
1078 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1079 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1080
e4ab1254
AD
1081 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1082 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1083
1084*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1085
e4ab1254
AD
1086 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1087 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1088 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1089 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1090
86b08b49
AD
1091** Building bison:
1092
1093*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1094
e4ab1254
AD
1095 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1096 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1097
8ef26c2a
AD
1098*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1099
1100*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1101
e4ab1254
AD
1102 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1103 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1104
91aadcc7 1105*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1106
e4ab1254
AD
1107 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1108 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1109
28801043 1110* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1111
82f3355e
JD
1112** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1113
1114 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1115 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1116 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1117 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1118 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1119
f1b238df 1120** Named references:
66381412
AR
1121
1122 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1123 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1124 actions code.
1125
1126 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1127 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1128 as named references:
1129
4b568fc0 1130 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1131 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1132
1133 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1134
4b568fc0 1135 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1136 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1137
5b1ff423 1138 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1139 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1140 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1141
5b1ff423 1142 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1143 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1144 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1145
f1b238df 1146** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1147
1148 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1149 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1150 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1151 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1152 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1153 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1154 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1155 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1156 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1157
1158 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1159 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1160 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1161 file with these directives:
1162
cf499cff
JD
1163 %define lr.type lalr
1164 %define lr.type ielr
1165 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1166
7fceb615 1167 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1168 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1169 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1170 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1171
1172 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1173 stabilize them.
1174
8458a411
AD
1175** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1176
1177 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1178
1179 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1180 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1181 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1182 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1183 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1184 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1185 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1186 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1187 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1188 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1189 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1190
1191 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1192 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1193 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1194 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1195 inconsistent states.
1196
7fceb615
JD
1197 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1198 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1199 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1200 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1201 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1202 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1203 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1204 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1205 power.
1206
1207 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1208 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1209
1210 %define parse.lac full
1211
e4ab1254 1212 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1213 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1214
1215 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1216 stabilize it.
1217
d397d9f0 1218** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1219
f1b238df 1220*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1221
de5ab940 1222 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1223
de5ab940
JD
1224 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1225 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1226
1227 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1228 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1229
1230 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1231
de5ab940 1232 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1233
de5ab940
JD
1234 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1235 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1236 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1237 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1238
f1b238df 1239*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1240
1241 The following %define variables
1242
1243 api.push_pull
1244 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1245
1246 have been renamed to
1247
1248 api.push-pull
1249 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1250
1251 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1252 for backward compatibility.
1253
7262f54f 1254*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1255
1256 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1257 within quotations marks. For example,
1258
1259 %define api.push-pull "push"
1260
1261 can be rewritten as
1262
1263 %define api.push-pull push
1264
d397d9f0 1265*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1266
d397d9f0
JD
1267*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1268
1269** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1270
1271** Character literals not of length one:
1272
1273 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1274 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1275 the following grammar to be the same token:
1276
1277 exp: exp '++'
1278 | exp '+' exp
1279 ;
1280
1281 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1282 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1283
1284** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1285
1286 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1287 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1288 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1289 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1290
1291** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1292
1293 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1294 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
AD
1295 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1296 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1297
e29f0771
AD
1298 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1299 do \
1300 if (N) \
1301 { \
1302 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1303 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1304 } \
1305 else \
1306 { \
1307 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1308 } \
1309 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1310
1311 use:
1312
e29f0771
AD
1313 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1314 do \
1315 if (N) \
1316 { \
1317 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1318 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1319 } \
1320 else \
1321 { \
1322 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1323 } \
1324 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1325
1326** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1327
1328 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1329 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1330 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1331 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1332
f1b238df 1333** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1334
1335 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1336 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1337 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1338 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1339 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1340 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1341 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1342 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1343
f1b238df 1344** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1345
1346 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1347 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1348 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1349 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1350
1351 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1352
1353 instead of
1354
1355 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1356
1357 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1358 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1359 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1360 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1361 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1362 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1363 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1364
d2060f06
JD
1365** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1366
e4ab1254 1367 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1368 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1369 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1370 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1371 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1372
1373*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1374 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1375 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1376 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1377 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1378 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1379 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1380 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1381 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1382 shifted or discarded.
1383
1384*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1385 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1386 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1387 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1388
1389*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1390 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1391 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1392 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1393 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1394 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1395 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1396 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1397 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1398 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1399 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1400 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1401 by default.
53f036ce 1402
1a33f4f6
JD
1403** Java skeleton fixes:
1404
1405*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1406
1407*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1408 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1409
02803d55
JD
1410*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1411
86408959
JD
1412** -W/--warnings fixes:
1413
e4ab1254 1414*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1415
1416 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1417 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1418
1419 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1420
786743d5
JD
1421*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1422
1423 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1424 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1425 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1426 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1427 example:
1428
1429 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1430 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1431 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1432 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1433
1434 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1435 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1436 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1437 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1438
e4ab1254 1439*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1440
1441 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1442 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1443
1444 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1445
e4ab1254 1446*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1447
e4ab1254 1448 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1449 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1450 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1451 suppress all warnings:
1452
1453 bison -Wnone gram.y
1454
1f36f544
JD
1455** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1456
1457 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1458 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1459 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1460
1461 %left END 0
1462
1463 This bug has been fixed.
1464
64877e5e 1465* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1466
2bfcac9a
JD
1467** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1468 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1469
8b9e021f
JD
1470** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1471 been fixed.
1472
4ad3921d
JD
1473** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1474
06cb07d5
JD
1475** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1476 been fixed.
1477
9b5049bd
JD
1478** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1479 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1480 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1481 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1482
93d7dde9
JD
1483** Minor documentation fixes.
1484
e19a049c 1485* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1486
f39ab286
JD
1487** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1488 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1489 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1490 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1491 affected platforms.
1492
e4ab1254 1493** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1494
1495 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1496 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1497 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1498 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1499 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1500 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1501 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1502 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1503 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1504
d8911864
EB
1505** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1506
a603c6e0
JD
1507** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1508 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1509 avoided.
c938d650 1510
98a345a2
JD
1511** %code is now a permanent feature.
1512
1513 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1514
1515 %{CODE%}
1516
1517 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1518 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1519
1520 %code {CODE}
1521 %code requires {CODE}
1522 %code provides {CODE}
1523 %code top {CODE}
1524
1525 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1526 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1527 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1528 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1529 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1530
1531 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1532 is still considered experimental.
1533
1625df5b
JD
1534** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1535
1536 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1537 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1538 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1539 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1540 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1541 specified by POSIX.
1542
1543 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1544 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1545 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1546 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1547 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1548 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1549 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1550
1551 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1552
1553 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1554 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1555 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1556 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1557 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1558 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1559 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1560 be removed altogether.
1561
1562 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1563 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1564 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1565 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1566 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1567 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1568 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1569 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1570 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1571 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1572
2755de8f
AD
1573** Internationalization.
1574
1575 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1576 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1577 host system.
1578
74553c98 1579* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1580
0ea583d2
AD
1581** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1582 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1583
0ea583d2
AD
1584** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1585
1586 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1587 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1588
1589 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1590
1591 instead of
1592
1593 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1594
e4ab1254 1595 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1596 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1597 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1598 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1599 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1600 feature.
1601
1602** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1603
402b123d 1604* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1605
402b123d 1606** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1607
1608 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1609 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1610 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1611 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1612 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1613
402b123d 1614** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1615
402b123d 1616** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1617 fixed.
1618
402b123d 1619* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1620
402b123d 1621** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1622 are now deprecated:
1623
1624 %define NAME "VALUE"
1625
e4ab1254 1626** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1627
1628 %define api.pure
1629
1630 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1631 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1632
402b123d 1633** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1634
1635 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1636 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1637 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1638 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1639 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1640
1641 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1642 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1643
e4ab1254 1644 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1645
59da312b
JD
1646 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1647 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1648
402b123d 1649** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1650 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1651 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1652
402b123d 1653** Java
59da312b
JD
1654
1655 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1656 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1657 %skeleton to select it.
1658
e4ab1254 1659 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1660
1661 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1662 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1663 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1664
402b123d 1665** %language
59da312b
JD
1666
1667 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1668 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1669 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1670 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1671
402b123d 1672** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1673
1674 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1675 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1676 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1677 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1678
402b123d 1679** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1680 %defines. For example:
1681
1682 %defines "parser.h"
1683
402b123d 1684** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1685 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1686 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1687 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1688
402b123d 1689** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1690
1691 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1692 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1693 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1694
1695 1. Removes unreachable states.
1696
1697 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1698 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1699 directives in existing grammar files.
1700
1701 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1702 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1703
31984206
JD
1704 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1705
1706 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1707
e4ab1254 1708 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1709 for further discussion.
1710
e4ab1254 1711** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1712
e4ab1254
AD
1713 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1714 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1715 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1716 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1717 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1718 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1719 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1720 code.
1721
e4ab1254 1722** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1723 name.
1bb2bd75 1724
e4ab1254 1725** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1726 deprecated:
1727
1728 %file-prefix "parser"
1729 %name-prefix "c_"
1730 %output "parser.c"
1731
e4ab1254 1732** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1733
1734 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1735 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1736 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1737 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1738 it:
1739
e4ab1254
AD
1740 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1741 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1742 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1743 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1744
e4ab1254
AD
1745 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1746 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1747 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1748 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1749
1750 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1751 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1752
402b123d 1753** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1754
1755 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1756 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1757 about unused $2 in:
1758
1759 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1760
1761 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1762 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1763
1764 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1765
1766 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1767 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1768 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1769
e4ab1254
AD
1770 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1771 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1772
e4ab1254 1773** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1774
1775 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1776 %printer's:
1777
e4ab1254 1778 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1779 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1780 declared semantic type tags.
1781
e4ab1254 1782 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1783 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1784 type tags.
1785
e4ab1254
AD
1786 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1787 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1788 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1789 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1790
85894313
JD
1791 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1792 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1793 features.
1794
e4ab1254 1795 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1796 details.
1797
402b123d 1798** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1799 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1800 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1801
402b123d 1802** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1803 completely removed from Bison.
1804
402b123d 1805* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1806
402b123d 1807** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1808 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1809 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1810 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1811 and is required by POSIX.
1812
402b123d 1813** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1814 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1815
402b123d 1816** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1817
1818 For example:
1819
b2a0b7ca
JD
1820 %union { char *string; }
1821 %token <string> STRING1
1822 %token <string> STRING2
1823 %type <string> string1
1824 %type <string> string2
1825 %union { char character; }
1826 %token <character> CHR
1827 %type <character> chr
1828 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1829 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1830 %destructor { } <character>
1831
1832 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1833 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1834 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1835 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1836 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1837
85894313
JD
1838 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1839 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1840 future versions.]
1841
e4ab1254
AD
1842** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1843 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1844 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1845 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1846 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1847
402b123d 1848** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1849 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1850
1851 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1852 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1853 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1854 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1855 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1856
34f98f46 1857 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1858 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1859 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1860 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1861 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1862 after the token definitions.
1863
1864 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1865 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1866
402b123d 1867** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1868 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1869 %after-header.
1870
1871 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1872 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1873 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1874 convenient for you:
1875
1876 %before-header {
1877 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1878 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1879 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1880 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1881 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1882 }
1883 %start-header {
1884 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1885 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1886 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1887 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1888 }
1889 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1890 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1891 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1892 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1893 }
34f98f46
JD
1894 %end-header {
1895 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1896 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1897 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1898 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1899 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1900 }
34f98f46
JD
1901 %after-header {
1902 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1903 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1904 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1905 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1906 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1907 }
1908
1909 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1910 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1911
85894313
JD
1912 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1913 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1914
e4ab1254 1915** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1916 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1917 in a future release.
742e4900 1918
402b123d 1919* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1920
e4ab1254 1921** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1922 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1923
402b123d 1924** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1925 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1926
402b123d 1927* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1928
402b123d 1929** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1930 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1931 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1932
402b123d 1933** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1934
402b123d 1935** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1936
402b123d 1937** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1938 their contents together.
1939
402b123d 1940** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1941 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1942 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1943
8f3596a6 1944 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1945 | exp "+" exp
1946 ;
affac613 1947
8f3596a6
AD
1948 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1949 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1950 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1951
4e26c69e 1952 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1953 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1954 | exp "+" exp
1955 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1956 ;
affac613 1957
4e26c69e
PE
1958 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1959 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1960 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1961
8f3596a6 1962 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1963 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1964 ;
721be13c 1965
84866159
AD
1966 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1967 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1968
1969 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1970
721be13c
PE
1971 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1972 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1973
402b123d 1974** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1975 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1976 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1977 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1978
402b123d 1979** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1980 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1981 instead of warnings.
1982
402b123d 1983** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1984 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1985 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1986
e4ab1254 1987** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1988
402b123d 1989** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1990 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1991 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1992
402b123d 1993** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1994 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1995 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1996 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1997 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1998
1999 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 2000 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
2001 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2002 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 2003
b50d2359 2004 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 2005 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 2006
402b123d 2007** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 2008\f
402b123d 2009* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 2010
402b123d 2011** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2012
402b123d 2013** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2014 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2015 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2016 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2017 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2018 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2019
402b123d 2020** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2021 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2022 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2023 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2024
402b123d 2025** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2026 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2027 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2028
402b123d 2029** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2030 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2031 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2032 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2033 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2034\f
402b123d 2035* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2036
402b123d 2037** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2038
82de6b0d
PE
2039 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2040 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2041 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2042 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2043 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2044
82de6b0d
PE
2045 - Error token location.
2046 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2047 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2048 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2049 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2050
82de6b0d
PE
2051 - Semicolon changes:
2052 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2053 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2054
82de6b0d
PE
2055 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2056 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2057 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2058 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2059
82de6b0d 2060 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2061
402b123d 2062** New features
1452af69 2063
82de6b0d 2064 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2065
82de6b0d
PE
2066 - New directive: %initial-action.
2067 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2068 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2069
82de6b0d
PE
2070 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2071 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2072
e4ab1254 2073 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2074 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2075
e4ab1254 2076 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2077 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2078
82de6b0d 2079 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2080
82de6b0d
PE
2081 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2082 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2083
402b123d 2084** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2085
82de6b0d
PE
2086 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2087 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2088 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2089 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2090 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2091 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2092
82de6b0d
PE
2093 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2094 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2095
82de6b0d 2096 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2097\f
402b123d 2098* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2099
402b123d 2100** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2101 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2102
402b123d 2103** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2104
dc546b0f
PE
2105 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2106 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2107
dc546b0f
PE
2108 - %destructor
2109 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2110 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2111
dc546b0f
PE
2112 - %error-verbose
2113 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2114
dc546b0f
PE
2115 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2116 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2117
402b123d 2118** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2119
dc546b0f
PE
2120 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2121 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2122 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2123
e4ab1254
AD
2124 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2125 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2126 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2127 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2128 be consistent.
74724a70 2129
dc546b0f
PE
2130 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2131 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2132
dc546b0f
PE
2133 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2134 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2135
dc546b0f
PE
2136 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2137 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2138
dc546b0f 2139 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2140 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2141 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2142 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2143 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2144
dc546b0f 2145 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2146
dc546b0f
PE
2147 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2148 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2149 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2150
402b123d 2151** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2152
e4ab1254
AD
2153 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2154 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2155 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2156 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2157 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2158 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2159
e4ab1254 2160 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2161 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2162
dc546b0f 2163 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2164 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2165
e4ab1254 2166 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2167 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2168 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2169
402b123d 2170** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2171
dc546b0f
PE
2172 - GLR and inline
2173 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2174 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2175
e4ab1254
AD
2176 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2177 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2178
18ad57b3
AD
2179** %parse-param and %lex-param
2180 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2181 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2182 shortcomings:
2183
2184 - a single argument only can be added,
2185 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2186 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2187 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2188
2189 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2190 For instance:
2191
2192 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2193 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2194 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2195
2196 results in the following signatures:
2197
2198 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2199 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2200
2201 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2202
2203 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2204 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2205
402b123d 2206** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2207 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2208 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2209
402b123d 2210** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2211 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2212
402b123d 2213** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2214 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2215 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2216 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2217\f
402b123d 2218* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2219
402b123d 2220** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2221
402b123d 2222** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2223
402b123d 2224** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2225 Fix spurious parse errors.
2226
402b123d 2227** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2228 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2229 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2230
402b123d 2231** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2232 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2233 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2234
e9690142 2235 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2236
2237 but the converse remains an error:
2238
e9690142 2239 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2240
402b123d 2241** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2242 The following code:
2243
e9690142 2244 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2245
2246 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2247 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2248\f
402b123d 2249* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2250
402b123d 2251** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2252 The declaration
2253 %glr-parser
2254 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2255 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2256 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2257 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2258
7933f2b5 2259 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2260 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2261
402b123d 2262** Output Directory
8c165d89 2263 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2264 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2265 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2266
402b123d 2267** Undefined token
007a50a4 2268 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2269 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2270
402b123d 2271** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2272 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2273 no longer the case.
2274
402b123d 2275** Error token
e88dbdbf 2276 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2277 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2278 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2279 will be mapped onto another number.
2280
402b123d 2281** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2282 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2283 error recovery is possible.
2284
402b123d 2285** End token
e4ab1254 2286 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2287
402b123d 2288** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2289 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2290 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2291 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2292 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2293 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2294 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2295 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2296 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2297
402b123d 2298** Traces
5504898e
AD
2299 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2300
402b123d 2301** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2302 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2303 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2304 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2305 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2306
402b123d 2307** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2308 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2309 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2310 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2311
402b123d 2312** Useless rules
643a5994 2313 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2314 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2315
402b123d 2316** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2317 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2318
402b123d 2319** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2320 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2321 reported.
2322
e4ab1254 2323** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2324 On a grammar such as
2325
e29f0771
AD
2326 %token useless useful
2327 %%
2328 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2329
2330 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2331 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2332
402b123d 2333** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2334 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2335
402b123d 2336** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2337 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2338 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2339 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2340 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2341
402b123d 2342** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2343 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2344 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2345 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2346 For instance
e29f0771 2347 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2348 or
e29f0771 2349 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2350
402b123d 2351** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2352 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2353
402b123d 2354** New translations
a861a339 2355 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2356 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2357
402b123d 2358** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2359 When given
2360 %token 'a' "A"
2361 bison used to output
2362 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2363
402b123d 2364** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2365 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2366 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2367 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2368
402b123d 2369** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2370 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2371 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2372 - itemset
2373 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2374 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2375 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2376 - solved
2377 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2378 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2379 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2380
402b123d 2381** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2382 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2383 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2384
e29f0771
AD
2385 %type <foo> bar
2386 %%
2387 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2388
2389 This is fixed.
a861a339 2390
402b123d 2391** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2392\f
402b123d 2393* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2394
402b123d 2395** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2396 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2397 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2398 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2399
2400 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2401 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2402 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2403 kludge will be disabled.
2404
2405 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2406 extended.
76551463 2407\f
402b123d 2408* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2409
402b123d 2410** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2411 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2412 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2413
e4ab1254 2414** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2415 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2416 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2417 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2418 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2419 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2420
402b123d 2421** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2422 many portability hassles.
2423
402b123d 2424** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2425
402b123d 2426** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2427\f
402b123d 2428* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2429
402b123d 2430** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2431 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2432 under some conditions.
2433
402b123d 2434** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2435 As is done with $n.
2436\f
402b123d 2437* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2438
402b123d 2439** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2440
402b123d 2441** Portability fixes
76551463 2442
402b123d 2443** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2444\f
402b123d 2445* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2446
402b123d 2447** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2448
402b123d 2449** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2450 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2451 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2452 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2453 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2454
402b123d 2455** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2456 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2457 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2458
2459 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2460 problems as on AIX.
2461
402b123d 2462** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2463
402b123d 2464** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2465 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2466
402b123d 2467** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2468 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2469 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2470 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2471
402b123d 2472** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2473 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2474 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2475
402b123d 2476** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2477 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2478
402b123d 2479** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2480 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2481
402b123d 2482** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2483 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2484
402b123d 2485** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2486 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2487 any warning.
2488
402b123d 2489** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2490
402b123d 2491** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2492
402b123d 2493** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2494
402b123d 2495** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2496 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2497 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2498 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2499
402b123d 2500** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2501 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2502 previous allocations were not freed.
2503
402b123d 2504** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2505 Some newlines were missing.
2506 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2507
402b123d 2508** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2509 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2510
402b123d 2511** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2512 Was not used.
2513 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2514
402b123d 2515** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2516
402b123d 2517** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2518
402b123d 2519** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2520
402b123d 2521** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2522 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2523
402b123d 2524** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2525
402b123d 2526** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2527 New.
2528
402b123d 2529** --output
e4ab1254 2530 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2531\f
402b123d 2532* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2533
e4ab1254
AD
2534** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2535 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2536 argument.
2537
e4ab1254 2538** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2539 experiment.
2540
402b123d 2541** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2542\f
402b123d 2543* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2544
402b123d 2545** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2546 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2547 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2548 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2549
e4ab1254 2550** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2551
402b123d 2552** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2553
402b123d 2554** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2555
402b123d 2556** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2557
402b123d 2558** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2559
402b123d 2560** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2561
e4ab1254 2562** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2563
e4ab1254 2564** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2565
e4ab1254 2566** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2567
402b123d 2568** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2569 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2570
402b123d 2571** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2572 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2573 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2574
402b123d 2575** @$
f987e9d2 2576 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2577\f
402b123d 2578* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2579
402b123d 2580** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2581
402b123d 2582** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2583
402b123d 2584** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2585
402b123d 2586** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2587\f
402b123d 2588* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2589
402b123d 2590** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2591 some systems has been fixed.
2592\f
402b123d 2593* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2594
7e508a2b 2595** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2596
402b123d 2597** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2598
402b123d 2599** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2600
402b123d 2601** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2602
402b123d 2603** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2604
402b123d 2605** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2606
402b123d 2607** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2608 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2609\f
402b123d 2610* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2611
402b123d 2612** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2613the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2614
402b123d 2615** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2616example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2617of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2618
402b123d 2619** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2620and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2621table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2622purposes.
2623
402b123d 2624** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2625directives in the parser file.
2626
402b123d 2627** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2628Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2629
402b123d 2630** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2631the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2632The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2633a switch statement body.
2634\f
402b123d 2635* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2636
4d019228
DM
2637The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2638passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2639actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2640by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2641
6780ca7a 2642Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2643\f
402b123d 2644* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2645
2646--help option added.
6780ca7a 2647\f
402b123d 2648* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2649
2650Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2651
76551463
AD
2652-----
2653
7d6bad19 2654Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2655
74553c98 2656This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2657
f16b0819 2658This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2659it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2660the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2661(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2662
f16b0819 2663This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2664but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2665MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2666GNU General Public License for more details.
2667
2668You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2669along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2670
2671 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2672 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2673 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2674 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2675 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2676 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2677 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2678 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2679 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2680 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2681 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2682 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2683 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2684 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2685 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2686 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2687 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2688 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1282c124
AD
2689 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2690 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2691 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2692 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2693 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2694 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
7e508a2b
AD
2695
2696Local Variables:
2697mode: outline
e4ab1254 2698fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2699End: