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