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4* Changes in version 2.5.1 (????-??-??):
5
debe2c03 6** Future changes:
041308d0 7
debe2c03 8 The next major release will drop support for K&R C.
ef51bfa7 9
466b4cf2 10** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
94556574 11
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12** glr.c improvements:
13
14*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
15
16 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when
17 locations were not requested, and therefore not even usable.
18
19*** __attribute__ is preserved:
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20
21 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined
22 (i.e., when -std is passed to GCC).
23
466b4cf2 24** lalr1.java: several fixes:
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25
26 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if
27 the first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
28
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29** C++11 compatibility:
30
31 C and C++ parsers use nullptr instead of 0 when __cplusplus is
32 201103L or higher.
33
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34** C++ locations:
35
36 The position and location constructors (and their initialize
37 methods) accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues
38 in the documentation were fixed.
39
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40** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
41
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42** Changes in the manual:
43
44*** %printer is documented
45
46 The %printer directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is
47 finally documented. The %mfcalc example is extended to demonstrate
48 its use of printer.
49
50 The C++ parsers now also support yyoutput (as an alias to
51 debug_stream ()) for consistency with the C skeletons.
52
53*** Several improvements have been made:
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54
55 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact
56 scheme. Named references are motivated. The description of the
57 automaton description file (*.output) is updated to the current
58 format. Incorrect index entries were fixed. Some other errors were
59 fixed.
60
8ef26c2a 61** Changes to the build system:
466b4cf2 62
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63*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
64
65*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
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66
67 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of
68 tools such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself,
69 etc.
70
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71*** The install-pdf target work properly:
72
73 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no
74 longer halts in the middle of its course.
75
b2bc8a1b 76* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
006faedf 77
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78** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
79
80 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
81 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
82 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
83 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
84 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
85
3b1977ea 86** Named references:
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87
88 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
89 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
90 actions code.
91
92 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
93 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
94 as named references:
95
ac3297d5 96 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
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97 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
98
99 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
100
ac3297d5 101 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
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102 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
103
f840c05a 104 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
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105 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
106 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
107
f840c05a 108 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
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109 will help to stabilize them.
110
3b1977ea 111** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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112
113 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
114 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
723206df 115 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
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116 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
117 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
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118 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
119 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
120 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
121 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
122
123 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
124 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
125 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
126 file with these directives:
127
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128 %define lr.type lalr
129 %define lr.type ielr
130 %define lr.type canonical-lr
34a6c2d1 131
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132 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
133 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
134 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
135 manual.
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136
137 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
138 stabilize them.
139
6f04ee6c 140** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
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141
142 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
143 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
144 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
6f04ee6c 145 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
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146 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
147 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
148 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
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149 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
150 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
151 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
152 tokens.
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153
154 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
155 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
156 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
157 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
158 inconsistent states.
159
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160 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
161 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
162 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
163 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
164 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
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165 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
166 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
167 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
168 power.
169
170 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
171 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
172
173 %define parse.lac full
174
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175 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
176 details including a few caveats.
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177
178 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
179 stabilize it.
180
6ee881f6 181** %define improvements:
f37495f6 182
3b1977ea 183*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
4ecd3681 184
34d41938 185 Each of these command-line options
4ecd3681 186
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187 -D NAME[=VALUE]
188 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
189
190 -F NAME[=VALUE]
191 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
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192
193 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
194
34d41938 195 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
4ecd3681 196
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197 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
198 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
199 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
ac3297d5 200 details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual.
4ecd3681 201
3b1977ea 202*** Variables renamed:
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203
204 The following %define variables
205
206 api.push_pull
207 lr.keep_unreachable_states
208
209 have been renamed to
210
211 api.push-pull
212 lr.keep-unreachable-states
213
214 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
215 for backward compatibility.
216
723206df 217*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
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218
219 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
220 within quotations marks. For example,
221
222 %define api.push-pull "push"
223
224 can be rewritten as
225
226 %define api.push-pull push
227
6ee881f6 228*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
c046698e 229
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230*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
231
232** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
233
234** Character literals not of length one:
235
236 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
237 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
238 the following grammar to be the same token:
239
240 exp: exp '++'
241 | exp '+' exp
242 ;
243
244 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
245 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
246
247** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
248
249 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
250 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
251 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
252 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
253
254** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
255
256 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
257 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
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258 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first'
259 and `last' members, instead of
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260
261 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
262 do \
263 if (N) \
264 { \
265 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
266 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
267 } \
268 else \
269 { \
270 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
271 } \
272 while (false)
273
274 use:
275
276 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
277 do \
278 if (N) \
279 { \
280 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
281 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
282 } \
283 else \
284 { \
285 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
286 } \
287 while (false)
288
289** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
290
291 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
292 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
293 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
294 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
c046698e 295
3b1977ea 296** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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297
298 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
299 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
300 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
301 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
302 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
303 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
304 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
305 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
306
3b1977ea 307** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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308
309 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
310 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
311 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
312 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
313
314 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
315
316 instead of
317
318 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
319
320 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
321 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
322 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
323 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
324 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
325 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
326 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
327
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328** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
329
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330 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
331 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
332 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
333 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
334 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
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335
336*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
337 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
338 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
339 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
340 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
ac3297d5 341 reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this
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342 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
343 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
344 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
345 shifted or discarded.
346
347*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
348 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
349 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
350 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
351
352*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
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353 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
354 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
355 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
356 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
357 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
358 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
359 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
360 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
361 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
362 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
363 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
364 by default.
1fa30307 365
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366** Java skeleton fixes:
367
368*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
369
370*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
371 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
77768165 372
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373*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
374
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375** -W/--warnings fixes:
376
ac3297d5 377*** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories:
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378
379 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
380 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
381
382 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
383
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384*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
385
386 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
387 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
ac3297d5 388 `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important
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389 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
390 example:
391
392 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
393 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
394 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
395 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
396
397 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
398 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
399 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
400 then have no effect on the conflict report.
401
ac3297d5 402*** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error':
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403
404 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
405 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
406
407 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
408
b2bc8a1b 409*** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings:
8ffd7912 410
ac3297d5 411 Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for
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412 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
413 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
414 suppress all warnings:
415
416 bison -Wnone gram.y
417
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418** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
419
420 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
421 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
422 produced an assertion failure. For example:
423
424 %left END 0
425
426 This bug has been fixed.
427
7527c744 428* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
7a9c3cb3 429
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430** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
431 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
432
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433** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
434 been fixed.
435
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436** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
437
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438** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
439 been fixed.
440
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441** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
442 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
443 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
444 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
445
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446** Minor documentation fixes.
447
ea66d039 448* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
8defe11b 449
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450** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
451 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
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452 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
453 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
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454 affected platforms.
455
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456** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
457
458 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
459 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
460 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
461 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
462 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
463 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
464 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
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465 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
466 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
2c203528 467
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468** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
469
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470** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
471 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
472 avoided.
af2ffe5c 473
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474** %code is now a permanent feature.
475
476 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
477
478 %{CODE%}
479
480 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
481 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
482
483 %code {CODE}
484 %code requires {CODE}
485 %code provides {CODE}
486 %code top {CODE}
487
488 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
489 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
490 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
491 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
492 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
493
494 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
495 is still considered experimental.
496
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497** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
498
499 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
500 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
501 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
502 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
503 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
504 specified by POSIX.
505
506 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
507 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
508 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
509 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
510 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
511 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
512 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
513
514 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
515
516 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
517 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
518 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
519 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
520 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
521 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
522 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
523 be removed altogether.
524
525 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
526 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
527 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
528 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
529 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
530 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
531 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
532 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
533 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
534 2.4.2 is not necessary.
535
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536** Internationalization.
537
538 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
539 message translations were not installed although supported by the
540 host system.
541
41930e7a 542* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 543
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544** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
545 declarations have been fixed.
546
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547** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
548
549 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
550 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
551
552 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
553
554 instead of
555
556 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
557
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558 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
559 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
560 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
561 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
562 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
563 feature.
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564
565** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 566
d6fb461d 567* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 568
d6fb461d 569** %language is an experimental feature.
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570
571 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
572 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
573 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
574 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
575 in future releases.
7bd1665a 576
d6fb461d 577** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 578
d6fb461d 579** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
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580 fixed.
581
d6fb461d 582* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 583
d6fb461d 584** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
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585 are now deprecated:
586
587 %define NAME "VALUE"
588
d6fb461d 589** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
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590
591 %define api.pure
592
593 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
594 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
595
d6fb461d 596** Push Parsing
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597
598 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
ef1b4273 599 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
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600 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
601 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
602 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
603
604 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
605 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
606
607 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
608
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609 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
610 feedback will help to stabilize it.
611
d6fb461d 612** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
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613 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
614 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 615
d6fb461d 616** Java
59da312b
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617
618 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
619 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
620 %skeleton to select it.
621
622 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
623
624 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
625 feedback will help to stabilize it.
626
d6fb461d 627** %language
59da312b
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628
629 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
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630 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
631 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
632 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 633
d6fb461d 634** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
635
636 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
637 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
638 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
c373bf8b 639
d6fb461d 640** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
641 %defines. For example:
642
643 %defines "parser.h"
644
d6fb461d 645** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
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646 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
647 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
648 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 649
d6fb461d 650** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
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651
652 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
653 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
654 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
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655
656 1. Removes unreachable states.
657
658 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
659 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
660 directives in existing grammar files.
661
662 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 663 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 664
31984206
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665 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
666
667 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
668
669 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
670 for further discussion.
671
d6fb461d 672** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
b1cc23c4 673
c373bf8b 674 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
88c78747
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675 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
676 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
677 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
678 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
679 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
680 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
681 code.
682
d6fb461d 683** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
59da312b 684 name.
1bb2bd75 685
d6fb461d 686** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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687 deprecated:
688
689 %file-prefix "parser"
690 %name-prefix "c_"
691 %output "parser.c"
692
d6fb461d 693** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
c373bf8b
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694
695 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
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696 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
697 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
698 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
699 it:
700
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701 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
702 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
703 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
704 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
8e0a5e9e 705
61fee93e
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706 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
707 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
8e0a5e9e
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708 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
709 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
710
711 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
712 determine whether they should become permanent features.
713
d6fb461d 714** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
715
716 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
717 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
718 about unused $2 in:
719
720 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
721
722 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
723 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
724
725 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
726
727 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
728 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
729 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
730
59da312b 731 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
17bd8a73
JD
732 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
733
d6fb461d 734** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
c373bf8b
JD
735
736 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
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737 %printer's:
738
739 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
740 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
741 declared semantic type tags.
742
3ebecc24 743 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
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744 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
745 type tags.
746
747 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
3ebecc24 748 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
749 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
750 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
751
85894313
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752 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
753 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
754 features.
755
12e35840
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756 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
757 details.
758
d6fb461d 759** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
ab7f29f8
JD
760 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
761 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
762
d6fb461d 763** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
764 completely removed from Bison.
765
d6fb461d 766* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 767
d6fb461d 768** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
769 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
770 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
771 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
772 and is required by POSIX.
773
d6fb461d 774** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
775 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
776
d6fb461d 777** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
778
779 For example:
780
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JD
781 %union { char *string; }
782 %token <string> STRING1
783 %token <string> STRING2
784 %type <string> string1
785 %type <string> string2
786 %union { char character; }
787 %token <character> CHR
788 %type <character> chr
789 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
790 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
791 %destructor { } <character>
792
793 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
794 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
795 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
796 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
797 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
ec5479ce 798
85894313
JD
799 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
800 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
801 future versions.]
802
d6fb461d 803** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
b931235e
JD
804 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
805 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
806 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
807 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
808
d6fb461d 809** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 810 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
811
812 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
813 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
814 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
815 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 816 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 817
34f98f46 818 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
819 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
820 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
821 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
822 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
823 after the token definitions.
824
825 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
826 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
827
d6fb461d 828** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
829 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
830 %after-header.
831
832 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
833 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
834 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
835 convenient for you:
836
837 %before-header {
838 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
839 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
840 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
841 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
842 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
843 }
844 %start-header {
845 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
846 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
847 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
848 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
849 }
850 %union {
34f98f46
JD
851 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
852 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
853 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 854 }
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JD
855 %end-header {
856 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
857 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
858 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
859 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
860 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 861 }
34f98f46
JD
862 %after-header {
863 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
864 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
865 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
866 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
867 * Bison-generated definitions. */
868 }
869
870 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
871 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 872
85894313
JD
873 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
874 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
875
d6fb461d 876** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
9e6e7ed2
PE
877 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
878 in a future release.
742e4900 879
d6fb461d 880* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 881
d6fb461d 882** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
4ad3ed84
PE
883 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
884
d6fb461d 885** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
886 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
887
d6fb461d 888* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 889
d6fb461d 890** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
891 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
892 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 893
d6fb461d 894** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 895
d6fb461d 896** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 897
d6fb461d 898** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
899 their contents together.
900
d6fb461d 901** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
902 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
903 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 904
8f3596a6 905 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
721be13c
PE
906 | exp "+" exp
907 ;
affac613 908
8f3596a6
AD
909 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
910 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 911 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 912
4e26c69e
PE
913 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
914 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
915 | exp "+" exp
916 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
721be13c 917 ;
affac613 918
4e26c69e
PE
919 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
920 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
921 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 922
8f3596a6 923 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
721be13c
PE
924 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
925 ;
926
84866159
AD
927 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
928 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
929
930 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
931
721be13c
PE
932 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
933 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 934
d6fb461d 935** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
936 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
937 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
938 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 939
d6fb461d 940** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
941 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
942 instead of warnings.
943
d6fb461d 944** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
945 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
946 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 947
d6fb461d 948** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
ad6a9b97 949
d6fb461d 950** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
951 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
952 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 953
d6fb461d 954** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
955 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
956 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
fb9712a9
AD
957 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
958 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
959
960 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
961 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
962 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
963 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 964
b50d2359 965 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
ab8d9dc5 966 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 967
d6fb461d 968** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 969\f
d6fb461d 970* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 971
d6fb461d 972** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 973
d6fb461d 974** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
975 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
976 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
977 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
978 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
979 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 980
d6fb461d 981** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
982 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
983 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
984 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
985
d6fb461d 986** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
987 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
988 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
989
d6fb461d 990** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
991 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
992 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
993 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
994 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 995\f
d6fb461d 996* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 997
d6fb461d 998** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 999
82de6b0d
PE
1000 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1001 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1002 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1003 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1004 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 1005
82de6b0d
PE
1006 - Error token location.
1007 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1008 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1009 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1010 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 1011
82de6b0d
PE
1012 - Semicolon changes:
1013 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1014 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 1015
82de6b0d
PE
1016 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1017 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1018 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1019 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 1020
82de6b0d 1021 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 1022
d6fb461d 1023** New features
1452af69 1024
82de6b0d 1025 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 1026
82de6b0d
PE
1027 - New directive: %initial-action.
1028 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1029 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 1030
82de6b0d
PE
1031 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1032 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 1033
82de6b0d
PE
1034 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
1035 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 1036
82de6b0d 1037 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
9e6e7ed2 1038 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1039
82de6b0d 1040 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1041
82de6b0d
PE
1042 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1043 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1044
d6fb461d 1045** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1046
82de6b0d
PE
1047 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1048 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1049 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1050 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1051 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1052 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1053
82de6b0d
PE
1054 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1055 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1056
82de6b0d 1057 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1058\f
d6fb461d 1059* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1060
d6fb461d 1061** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1062 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1063
d6fb461d 1064** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1065
dc546b0f
PE
1066 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1067 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1068
dc546b0f
PE
1069 - %destructor
1070 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1071 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1072
dc546b0f
PE
1073 - %error-verbose
1074 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1075
dc546b0f
PE
1076 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1077 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1078
d6fb461d 1079** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1080
dc546b0f
PE
1081 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1082 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1083 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1084
dc546b0f
PE
1085 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1086 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1087 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1088 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1089 be consistent.
74724a70 1090
dc546b0f
PE
1091 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1092 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1093
dc546b0f
PE
1094 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1095 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1096
dc546b0f
PE
1097 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1098 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1099
dc546b0f
PE
1100 - Yacc command and library now available
1101 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1102 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1103 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1104 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1105
dc546b0f 1106 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1107
dc546b0f
PE
1108 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1109 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1110 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1111
d6fb461d 1112** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1113
dc546b0f
PE
1114 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1115 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1116 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1117 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1118 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1119 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1120
dc546b0f
PE
1121 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1122 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1123
dc546b0f
PE
1124 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1125 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
437c2d80 1126
dc546b0f
PE
1127 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1128 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1129 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1130
d6fb461d 1131** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1132
dc546b0f
PE
1133 - GLR and inline
1134 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1135 C keyword `inline'.
959e5f51 1136
dc546b0f
PE
1137 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1138 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1139
d6fb461d 1140** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
dc546b0f
PE
1141 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1142 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1143
d6fb461d 1144** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1145 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1146
d6fb461d 1147** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1148 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1149 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1150 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1151\f
d6fb461d 1152* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 1153
d6fb461d 1154** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 1155
d6fb461d 1156** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 1157
d6fb461d 1158** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1159 Fix spurious parse errors.
1160
d6fb461d 1161** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1162 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1163 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1164
d6fb461d 1165** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
1166 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1167 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1168
1169 untyped: ... typed;
1170
1171 but the converse remains an error:
1172
1173 typed: ... untyped;
1174
d6fb461d 1175** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
1176 The following code:
1177
1178 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1179
1180 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1181 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 1182\f
d6fb461d 1183* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 1184
d6fb461d 1185** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
1186 The declaration
1187 %glr-parser
1188 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1189 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 1190 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
1191 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1192
7933f2b5 1193 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
1194 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1195
d6fb461d 1196** Output Directory
8c165d89 1197 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e88dbdbf 1198 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
8c165d89
AD
1199 now creates `bar.c'.
1200
d6fb461d 1201** Undefined token
007a50a4 1202 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 1203 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 1204
d6fb461d 1205** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 1206 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
1207 no longer the case.
1208
d6fb461d 1209** Error token
e88dbdbf 1210 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
1211 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1212 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1213 will be mapped onto another number.
1214
d6fb461d 1215** Verbose error messages
e88dbdbf 1216 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
217598da
AD
1217 error recovery is possible.
1218
d6fb461d 1219** End token
217598da
AD
1220 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1221
d6fb461d 1222** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
1223 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1224 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1225 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1226 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1227 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1228 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
1229 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1230 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 1231
d6fb461d 1232** Traces
5504898e
AD
1233 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1234
d6fb461d 1235** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
1236 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1237 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1238 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1239 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 1240
d6fb461d 1241** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
1242 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1243 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1244 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 1245
d6fb461d 1246** Useless rules
643a5994 1247 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 1248 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 1249
d6fb461d 1250** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
1251 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1252
d6fb461d 1253** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
1254 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1255 reported.
1256
d6fb461d 1257** Incorrect `Token not used'
11652ab3
AD
1258 On a grammar such as
1259
1260 %token useless useful
1261 %%
1262 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1263
1264 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1265 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1266
d6fb461d 1267** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 1268 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 1269
d6fb461d 1270** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
1271 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1272 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1273 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1274 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 1275
d6fb461d 1276** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
1277 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1278 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
a861a339 1279 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 1280 For instance
7bd6c77e 1281 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 1282 or
7bd6c77e 1283 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 1284
d6fb461d 1285** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
1286 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1287
d6fb461d 1288** New translations
a861a339 1289 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
1290 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1291
d6fb461d 1292** Incorrect token definitions
e88dbdbf 1293 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
b87f8b21 1294
d6fb461d 1295** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
1296 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1297 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 1298 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 1299
d6fb461d 1300** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
1301 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1302 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
1303 - itemset
1304 complete the core item sets with their closure
9e6e7ed2
PE
1305 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1306 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
1307 - solved
1308 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1309 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1310 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 1311
d6fb461d 1312** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
1313 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1314 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1315
1316 %type <foo> bar
1317 %%
1318 bar: '0' {} '0';
1319
1320 This is fixed.
a861a339 1321
d6fb461d 1322** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 1323\f
d6fb461d 1324* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 1325
d6fb461d 1326** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
1327 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1328 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1329 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1330
1331 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1332 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1333 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1334 kludge will be disabled.
1335
1336 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1337 extended.
76551463 1338\f
d6fb461d 1339* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 1340
d6fb461d 1341** File name clashes are detected
76551463
AD
1342 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1343 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1344
d6fb461d 1345** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
1346 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1347 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1348 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1349 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1350 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1351
d6fb461d 1352** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
1353 many portability hassles.
1354
d6fb461d 1355** DJGPP support added.
76551463 1356
d6fb461d 1357** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 1358\f
d6fb461d 1359* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 1360
d6fb461d 1361** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
1362 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1363 under some conditions.
1364
d6fb461d 1365** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
1366 As is done with $n.
1367\f
d6fb461d 1368* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 1369
d6fb461d 1370** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 1371
d6fb461d 1372** Portability fixes
76551463 1373
d6fb461d 1374** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 1375\f
d6fb461d 1376* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 1377
d6fb461d 1378** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 1379
d6fb461d 1380** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1381 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1382 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1383 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1384 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1385
d6fb461d 1386** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
1387 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1388 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1389
1390 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1391 problems as on AIX.
1392
d6fb461d 1393** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 1394
d6fb461d 1395** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
1396 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1397
d6fb461d 1398** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
1399 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1400 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1401 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1402
d6fb461d 1403** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 1404 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 1405 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 1406
d6fb461d 1407** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
1408 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1409
d6fb461d 1410** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
1411 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1412
d6fb461d 1413** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
1414 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1415
d6fb461d 1416** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1417 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1418 any warning.
1419
d6fb461d 1420** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 1421
d6fb461d 1422** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 1423
d6fb461d 1424** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 1425
d6fb461d 1426** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
1427 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1428 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1429 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1430
d6fb461d 1431** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
1432 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1433 previous allocations were not freed.
1434
d6fb461d 1435** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
1436 Some newlines were missing.
1437 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1438
d6fb461d 1439** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
1440 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1441
d6fb461d 1442** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1443 Was not used.
1444 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1445
d6fb461d 1446** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 1447
d6fb461d 1448** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 1449
d6fb461d 1450** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 1451
d6fb461d 1452** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
1453 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1454
d6fb461d 1455** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 1456
d6fb461d 1457** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
1458 New.
1459
d6fb461d 1460** --output
52d1aeee
MA
1461 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1462\f
d6fb461d 1463* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 1464
d6fb461d 1465** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
fdac0091 1466 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
1467 argument.
1468
d6fb461d 1469** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
1470 experiment.
1471
d6fb461d 1472** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 1473\f
d6fb461d 1474* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 1475
d6fb461d 1476** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
1477 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1478 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
7e508a2b 1479 `-Dconst='. Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 1480
d6fb461d 1481** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
f87a2205 1482
d6fb461d 1483** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 1484
d6fb461d 1485** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 1486
d6fb461d 1487** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 1488
d6fb461d 1489** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 1490
d6fb461d 1491** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 1492
d6fb461d 1493** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
6deb4447 1494
d6fb461d 1495** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
cd5bd6ac 1496
d6fb461d 1497** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
62ab6972 1498
d6fb461d 1499** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
1500 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1501
d6fb461d 1502** New directives.
4ecbf796
MA
1503 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1504 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
f987e9d2 1505
d6fb461d 1506** @$
f987e9d2 1507 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 1508\f
d6fb461d 1509* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 1510
d6fb461d 1511** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 1512
d6fb461d 1513** Added NLS.
d2e00347 1514
d6fb461d 1515** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 1516
d6fb461d 1517** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 1518\f
d6fb461d 1519* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 1520
d6fb461d 1521** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
1522 some systems has been fixed.
1523\f
d6fb461d 1524* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 1525
7e508a2b 1526** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 1527
d6fb461d 1528** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 1529
d6fb461d 1530** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 1531
d6fb461d 1532** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 1533
d6fb461d 1534** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 1535
d6fb461d 1536** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 1537
d6fb461d 1538** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 1539 not provide alloca().
4be07551 1540\f
d6fb461d 1541* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 1542
d6fb461d 1543** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 1544the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 1545
d6fb461d 1546** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 1547example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 1548of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 1549
d6fb461d 1550** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
1551and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1552table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1553purposes.
1554
d6fb461d 1555** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
1556directives in the parser file.
1557
d6fb461d 1558** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
1559Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1560
d6fb461d 1561** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
1562the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1563The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1564a switch statement body.
1565\f
d6fb461d 1566* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 1567
4d019228
DM
1568The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1569passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1570actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1571by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 1572
6780ca7a 1573Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 1574\f
d6fb461d 1575* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
1576
1577--help option added.
6780ca7a 1578\f
d6fb461d 1579* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
1580
1581Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 1582
76551463
AD
1583-----
1584
c932d613 1585Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 1586
8defe11b 1587This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 1588
f16b0819 1589This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 1590it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
1591the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1592(at your option) any later version.
76551463 1593
f16b0819 1594This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
1595but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1596MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1597GNU General Public License for more details.
1598
1599You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 1600along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
1601
1602 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1603 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1604 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1605 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1606 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1607 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1608 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1609 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1610 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1611 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1612 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1613 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1614 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1615 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1616 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1617 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ
1618
1619Local Variables:
1620mode: outline
1621End: