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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
52718713 3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
74553c98 4
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5** Incompatible changes
6
7*** Obsolete features
8
de62ae86 9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
5f819b2f 10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
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11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
47db7ed1 13
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14** Warnings
15
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16*** Deprecated constructs
17
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18 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
19 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
20 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
518e8830 21
34904c57 22*** Warning categories are now displayed
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23
24 For instance:
25
26 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
27
28*** Useless semantic types
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29
30 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
31 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
32 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
33 types that trigger the warning:
34
35 %token <type1> term
36 %type <type2> nterm
37 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
38 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
39 %%
40 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
41
42 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
43 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
44
31557b9e 45*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 46
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47 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
48 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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49
50 %printer {} symbol1
51 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 52 %type <type> symbol3
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53 %%
54 exp: "a";
55
73370a9d 56*** Useless destructors or printers
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57
58 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
59 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
60 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
61 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
62
63 %token <type1> token1
64 <type2> token2
65 <type3> token3
66 <type4> token4
67 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
68 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
69
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70*** Conflicts
71
72 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
73 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
74
75 %glr-parser
76 %%
77 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
78
79 compare the previous version of bison:
80
81 $ bison foo.y
82 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
83 $ bison -Werror foo.y
84 bison: warnings being treated as errors
85 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
86
87 with the new behavior:
88
89 $ bison foo.y
90 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
91 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
92 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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93 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
94 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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95
96 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
97
98 %expect 0
99 %glr-parser
100 %%
101 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
102
103 Former behavior:
104
105 $ bison bar.y
106 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
107 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
108 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
109
110 New one:
111
112 $ bison bar.y
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113 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
114 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 115
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116** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
117
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118 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
119 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
120 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 121
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122 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
123 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
124 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
125 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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126
127 one may now declare
128
e436fa67 129 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
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130
131** Java skeleton improvements
0ea583d2 132
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133 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
134 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
135 and "%define init_throws".
0ea583d2 136
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137** C++ skeletons improvements
138
e4c0985b 139*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
93549bcd 140
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141 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
142 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
143 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
93549bcd 144
e4c0985b 145*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
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146
147 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
148
149*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
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150
151 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
152 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
153 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
154 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
155 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
156 factory invoked by the user actions).
157
4c6622c2 158** Variable api.tokens.prefix
99c08fb6 159
4c6622c2 160 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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161 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
162 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
163
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164 %token FILE for ERROR
165 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
166 %%
167 start: FILE for ERROR;
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168
169 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
170 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
171 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
172 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
173
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174** Variable api.namespace
175
1f77b2e0 176 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
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177 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
178
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179** Variable parse.error
180
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181 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
182 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
183 verbose".
31b850d2 184
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185** Semantic predicates
186
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187 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
188 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 189 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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190 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
191 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
192 expressions.
ca2a6d15 193
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194** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
195
196 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
197 reduce/reduce conflicts.
198
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199* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
200
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201** Bug fixes
202
203 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
204
205 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
206 users to the appropriate place to report them.
207
208 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
209
210 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
211 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 212
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213** Changes in the format of errors and exceptions output
214
215 This used to be the format of many error reports:
216
217 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
218 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
219
220 It is now:
221
222 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
223 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
224
e1eeecd3 225* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 226
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227** Bug fixes
228
229 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
230 suite have been fixed.
231
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232** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
233
234 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
235 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 236
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237** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
238
239 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
240
77b214ef 241* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 242
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243 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
244
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245** Future Changes
246
247 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
248 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
249 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
250
251 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
252
253 write:
254
255 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
256
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257** Bug fixes
258
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259*** Type names are now properly escaped.
260
261*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 262
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263*** Stray @ or $ in actions
264
265 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
266 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
267 now does.
268
cd735a8c 269** Type names in actions
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270
271 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 272 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
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273
274 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
275
276 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 277 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 278
1505e8bb 279* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 280
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281** Future changes:
282
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283 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
284 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 285
aaf61036 286*** K&R C parsers
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287
288 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 289 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
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290 compilers.
291
258cddbc 292*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 293
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294 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
295 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 296
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297 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
298 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
299
300 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
301 %error-verbose.
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302
303*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
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304
305 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
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306 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
307 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
308 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
309 it.
0f11eec2 310
c2425191 311** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 312
258cddbc 313*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
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314
315 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 316 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 317
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318 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
319 # define YY_FOO_H
320 ...
321 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 322
258cddbc 323*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
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324
325 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
326 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
327
e29f0771 328 int bar_parse (void);
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329
330 rather than
331
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332 #define yyparse bar_parse
333 int yyparse (void);
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334
335 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
336 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 337
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338*** Exported symbols in C++
339
340 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
341 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
342 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
343
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344*** YYLSP_NEEDED
345
346 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
347 longer defined.
348
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349** New %define variable: api.prefix
350
351 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
352 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
353 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
354 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
355 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
356 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
357 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
358
359 The following examples compares both:
360
361 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
362 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
363 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
364 %% %%
365 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
366
367 bison generates:
368
369 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
370 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
371
372 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
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373 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
374 > # if defined YYDEBUG
375 > # if YYDEBUG
376 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
377 > # else
378 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
379 > # endif
380 > # else
381 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
382 > # endif
383 # endif | # endif
384
385 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
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386 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
387 # endif # endif
388
389 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
390 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
391 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
392 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
393 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
394 }; };
395 # endif # endif
396
397 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
398 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
399 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
400 { {
401 int ival; int ival;
402 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
403 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
404 #endif #endif
405
406 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
407
408 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
409
410 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
411
dfaac272 412* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 413
debe2c03 414** Future changes:
765e1bd4 415
e4ab1254 416 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 417
466b4cf2 418** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 419
d834eca0 420** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 421
d834eca0 422*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 423
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424 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
425 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 426
d834eca0 427*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 428
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429 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
430 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 431
466b4cf2 432** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 433
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434 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
435 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 436
22172d47 437** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 438
22172d47 439*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 440
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441 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
442 or higher.
936c88d1 443
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444*** Header guards
445
446 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
447 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
448
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449 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
450 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
451 ...
452 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
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453
454 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
455 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
456 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
457
458 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
459
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460 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
461 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
462 ...
463 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
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464
465*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 466
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467 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
468 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
469 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 470
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471** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
472
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473** Changes in the manual:
474
475*** %printer is documented
476
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477 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
478 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 479
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480 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
481 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
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482
483*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 484
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485 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
486 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
487 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
488 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 489
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490** Building bison:
491
492*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 493
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494 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
495 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 496
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497*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
498
499*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 500
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501 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
502 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 503
91aadcc7 504*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 505
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506 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
507 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 508
28801043 509* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 510
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511** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
512
513 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
514 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
515 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
516 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
517 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
518
f1b238df 519** Named references:
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520
521 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
522 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
523 actions code.
524
525 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
526 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
527 as named references:
528
4b568fc0 529 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
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530 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
531
532 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
533
4b568fc0 534 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
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535 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
536
5b1ff423 537 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
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538 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
539 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
540
5b1ff423 541 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
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542 will help to stabilize them.
543
f1b238df 544** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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545
546 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
547 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 548 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
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549 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
550 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
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551 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
552 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
553 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
554 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
555
556 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
557 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
558 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
559 file with these directives:
560
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561 %define lr.type lalr
562 %define lr.type ielr
563 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 564
7fceb615 565 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
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566 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
567 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 568 manual.
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569
570 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
571 stabilize them.
572
7fceb615 573** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
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574
575 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
576 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
577 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 578 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
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579 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
580 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
581 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 582 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 583 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
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584 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
585 tokens.
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586
587 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
588 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
589 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
590 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
591 inconsistent states.
592
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593 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
594 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
595 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
596 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
597 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
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598 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
599 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
600 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
601 power.
602
603 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
604 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
605
606 %define parse.lac full
607
e4ab1254 608 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 609 details including a few caveats.
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610
611 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
612 stabilize it.
613
d397d9f0 614** %define improvements:
cf499cff 615
f1b238df 616*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 617
de5ab940 618 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 619
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620 -D NAME[=VALUE]
621 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
622
623 -F NAME[=VALUE]
624 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
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625
626 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
627
de5ab940 628 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 629
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630 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
631 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
632 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 633 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 634
f1b238df 635*** Variables renamed:
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636
637 The following %define variables
638
639 api.push_pull
640 lr.keep_unreachable_states
641
642 have been renamed to
643
644 api.push-pull
645 lr.keep-unreachable-states
646
647 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
648 for backward compatibility.
649
7262f54f 650*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
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651
652 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
653 within quotations marks. For example,
654
655 %define api.push-pull "push"
656
657 can be rewritten as
658
659 %define api.push-pull push
660
d397d9f0 661*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 662
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663*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
664
665** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
666
667** Character literals not of length one:
668
669 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
670 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
671 the following grammar to be the same token:
672
673 exp: exp '++'
674 | exp '+' exp
675 ;
676
677 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
678 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
679
680** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
681
682 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
683 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
684 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
685 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
686
687** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
688
689 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
690 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
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691 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
692 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 693
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694 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
695 do \
696 if (N) \
697 { \
698 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
699 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
700 } \
701 else \
702 { \
703 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
704 } \
705 while (false)
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706
707 use:
708
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709 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
710 do \
711 if (N) \
712 { \
713 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
714 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
715 } \
716 else \
717 { \
718 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
719 } \
720 while (false)
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721
722** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
723
724 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
725 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
726 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
727 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 728
f1b238df 729** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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730
731 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
732 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
733 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
734 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
735 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
736 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
737 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
738 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
739
f1b238df 740** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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741
742 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
743 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
744 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
745 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
746
747 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
748
749 instead of
750
751 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
752
753 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
754 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
755 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
756 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
757 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
758 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
759 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
760
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761** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
762
e4ab1254 763 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
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764 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
765 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
766 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
767 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
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768
769*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
770 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
771 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
772 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
773 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 774 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
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775 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
776 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
777 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
778 shifted or discarded.
779
780*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
781 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
782 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
783 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
784
785*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
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786 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
787 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
788 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
789 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
790 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
791 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
792 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
793 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
794 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
795 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
796 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
797 by default.
53f036ce 798
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799** Java skeleton fixes:
800
801*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
802
803*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
804 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 805
02803d55
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806*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
807
86408959
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808** -W/--warnings fixes:
809
e4ab1254 810*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
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811
812 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
813 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
814
815 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
816
786743d5
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817*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
818
819 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
820 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 821 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
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822 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
823 example:
824
825 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
826 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
827 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
828 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
829
830 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
831 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
832 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
833 then have no effect on the conflict report.
834
e4ab1254 835*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
836
837 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
838 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
839
840 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
841
e4ab1254 842*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 843
e4ab1254 844 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
845 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
846 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
847 suppress all warnings:
848
849 bison -Wnone gram.y
850
1f36f544
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851** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
852
853 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
854 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
855 produced an assertion failure. For example:
856
857 %left END 0
858
859 This bug has been fixed.
860
64877e5e 861* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 862
2bfcac9a
JD
863** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
864 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
865
8b9e021f
JD
866** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
867 been fixed.
868
4ad3921d
JD
869** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
870
06cb07d5
JD
871** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
872 been fixed.
873
9b5049bd
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874** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
875 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
876 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
877 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
878
93d7dde9
JD
879** Minor documentation fixes.
880
e19a049c 881* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 882
f39ab286
JD
883** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
884 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
885 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
886 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
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887 affected platforms.
888
e4ab1254 889** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
890
891 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
892 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
893 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
894 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
895 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
896 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
897 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
898 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
899 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 900
d8911864
EB
901** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
902
a603c6e0
JD
903** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
904 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
905 avoided.
c938d650 906
98a345a2
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907** %code is now a permanent feature.
908
909 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
910
911 %{CODE%}
912
913 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
914 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
915
916 %code {CODE}
917 %code requires {CODE}
918 %code provides {CODE}
919 %code top {CODE}
920
921 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
922 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
923 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
924 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
925 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
926
927 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
928 is still considered experimental.
929
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JD
930** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
931
932 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
933 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
934 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
935 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
936 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
937 specified by POSIX.
938
939 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
940 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
941 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
942 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
943 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 944 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
945 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
946
947 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
948
949 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
950 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
951 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
952 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
953 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
954 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 955 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
956 be removed altogether.
957
958 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
959 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
960 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
961 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
962 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 963 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
964 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
965 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
966 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
967 2.4.2 is not necessary.
968
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969** Internationalization.
970
971 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
972 message translations were not installed although supported by the
973 host system.
974
74553c98 975* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 976
0ea583d2
AD
977** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
978 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 979
0ea583d2
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980** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
981
982 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
983 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
984
985 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
986
987 instead of
988
989 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
990
e4ab1254 991 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
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992 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
993 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
994 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
995 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
996 feature.
997
998** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 999
402b123d 1000* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1001
402b123d 1002** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1003
1004 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1005 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1006 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1007 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1008 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1009
402b123d 1010** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1011
402b123d 1012** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1013 fixed.
1014
402b123d 1015* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1016
402b123d 1017** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1018 are now deprecated:
1019
1020 %define NAME "VALUE"
1021
e4ab1254 1022** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1023
1024 %define api.pure
1025
1026 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1027 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1028
402b123d 1029** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1030
1031 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1032 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1033 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1034 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1035 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1036
1037 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1038 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1039
e4ab1254 1040 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1041
59da312b
JD
1042 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1043 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1044
402b123d 1045** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1046 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1047 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1048
402b123d 1049** Java
59da312b
JD
1050
1051 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1052 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1053 %skeleton to select it.
1054
e4ab1254 1055 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1056
1057 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1058 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1059
402b123d 1060** %language
59da312b
JD
1061
1062 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1063 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1064 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1065 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1066
402b123d 1067** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1068
1069 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1070 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1071 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
c373bf8b 1072
402b123d 1073** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1074 %defines. For example:
1075
1076 %defines "parser.h"
1077
402b123d 1078** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1079 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1080 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1081 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1082
402b123d 1083** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1084
1085 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1086 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1087 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
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1088
1089 1. Removes unreachable states.
1090
1091 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1092 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1093 directives in existing grammar files.
1094
1095 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1096 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1097
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1098 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1099
1100 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1101
e4ab1254 1102 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
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1103 for further discussion.
1104
e4ab1254 1105** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1106
e4ab1254
AD
1107 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1108 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1109 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1110 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1111 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1112 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1113 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1114 code.
1115
e4ab1254 1116** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1117 name.
1bb2bd75 1118
e4ab1254 1119** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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1120 deprecated:
1121
1122 %file-prefix "parser"
1123 %name-prefix "c_"
1124 %output "parser.c"
1125
e4ab1254 1126** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
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1127
1128 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1129 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1130 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1131 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1132 it:
1133
e4ab1254
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1134 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1135 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1136 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1137 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1138
e4ab1254
AD
1139 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1140 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1141 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1142 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1143
1144 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1145 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1146
402b123d 1147** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1148
1149 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1150 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1151 about unused $2 in:
1152
1153 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1154
1155 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1156 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1157
1158 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1159
1160 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1161 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1162 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1163
e4ab1254
AD
1164 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1165 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1166
e4ab1254 1167** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1168
1169 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1170 %printer's:
1171
e4ab1254 1172 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1173 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1174 declared semantic type tags.
1175
e4ab1254 1176 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1177 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1178 type tags.
1179
e4ab1254
AD
1180 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1181 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1182 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1183 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1184
85894313
JD
1185 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1186 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1187 features.
1188
e4ab1254 1189 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1190 details.
1191
402b123d 1192** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1193 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1194 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1195
402b123d 1196** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1197 completely removed from Bison.
1198
402b123d 1199* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1200
402b123d 1201** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1202 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1203 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1204 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1205 and is required by POSIX.
1206
402b123d 1207** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1208 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1209
402b123d 1210** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1211
1212 For example:
1213
b2a0b7ca
JD
1214 %union { char *string; }
1215 %token <string> STRING1
1216 %token <string> STRING2
1217 %type <string> string1
1218 %type <string> string2
1219 %union { char character; }
1220 %token <character> CHR
1221 %type <character> chr
1222 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1223 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1224 %destructor { } <character>
1225
1226 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1227 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1228 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1229 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1230 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1231
85894313
JD
1232 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1233 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1234 future versions.]
1235
e4ab1254
AD
1236** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1237 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1238 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1239 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1240 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1241
402b123d 1242** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1243 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1244
1245 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1246 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1247 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1248 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1249 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1250
34f98f46 1251 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1252 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1253 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1254 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1255 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1256 after the token definitions.
1257
1258 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1259 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1260
402b123d 1261** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1262 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1263 %after-header.
1264
1265 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1266 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1267 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1268 convenient for you:
1269
1270 %before-header {
1271 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1272 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1273 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1274 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1275 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1276 }
1277 %start-header {
1278 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1279 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1280 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1281 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1282 }
1283 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1284 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1285 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1286 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1287 }
34f98f46
JD
1288 %end-header {
1289 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1290 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1291 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1292 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1293 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1294 }
34f98f46
JD
1295 %after-header {
1296 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1297 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1298 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1299 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1300 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1301 }
1302
1303 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1304 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1305
85894313
JD
1306 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1307 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1308
e4ab1254 1309** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1310 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1311 in a future release.
742e4900 1312
402b123d 1313* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1314
e4ab1254 1315** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1316 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1317
402b123d 1318** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1319 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1320
402b123d 1321* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1322
402b123d 1323** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1324 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1325 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1326
402b123d 1327** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1328
402b123d 1329** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1330
402b123d 1331** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1332 their contents together.
1333
402b123d 1334** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1335 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1336 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1337
8f3596a6 1338 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1339 | exp "+" exp
1340 ;
affac613 1341
8f3596a6
AD
1342 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1343 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1344 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1345
4e26c69e 1346 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1347 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1348 | exp "+" exp
1349 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1350 ;
affac613 1351
4e26c69e
PE
1352 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1353 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1354 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1355
8f3596a6 1356 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1357 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1358 ;
721be13c 1359
84866159
AD
1360 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1361 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1362
1363 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1364
721be13c
PE
1365 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1366 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1367
402b123d 1368** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1369 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1370 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1371 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1372
402b123d 1373** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1374 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1375 instead of warnings.
1376
402b123d 1377** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1378 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1379 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1380
e4ab1254 1381** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1382
402b123d 1383** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1384 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1385 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1386
402b123d 1387** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1388 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1389 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1390 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1391 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1392
1393 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1394 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1395 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1396 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1397
b50d2359 1398 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1399 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1400
402b123d 1401** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1402\f
402b123d 1403* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1404
402b123d 1405** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 1406
402b123d 1407** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
1408 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1409 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
1410 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1411 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1412 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 1413
402b123d 1414** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
1415 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1416 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1417 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1418
402b123d 1419** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
1420 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1421 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1422
402b123d 1423** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
1424 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1425 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1426 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1427 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 1428\f
402b123d 1429* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 1430
402b123d 1431** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 1432
82de6b0d
PE
1433 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1434 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1435 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1436 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1437 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 1438
82de6b0d
PE
1439 - Error token location.
1440 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1441 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1442 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1443 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 1444
82de6b0d
PE
1445 - Semicolon changes:
1446 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1447 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 1448
82de6b0d
PE
1449 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1450 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1451 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1452 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 1453
82de6b0d 1454 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 1455
402b123d 1456** New features
1452af69 1457
82de6b0d 1458 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 1459
82de6b0d
PE
1460 - New directive: %initial-action.
1461 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1462 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 1463
82de6b0d
PE
1464 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1465 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 1466
e4ab1254 1467 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 1468 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 1469
e4ab1254 1470 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 1471 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1472
82de6b0d 1473 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1474
82de6b0d
PE
1475 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1476 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1477
402b123d 1478** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1479
82de6b0d
PE
1480 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1481 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1482 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1483 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1484 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1485 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1486
82de6b0d
PE
1487 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1488 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1489
82de6b0d 1490 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1491\f
402b123d 1492* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1493
402b123d 1494** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1495 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1496
402b123d 1497** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1498
dc546b0f
PE
1499 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1500 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1501
dc546b0f
PE
1502 - %destructor
1503 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1504 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1505
dc546b0f
PE
1506 - %error-verbose
1507 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1508
dc546b0f
PE
1509 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1510 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1511
402b123d 1512** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1513
dc546b0f
PE
1514 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1515 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1516 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1517
e4ab1254
AD
1518 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1519 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1520 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1521 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 1522 be consistent.
74724a70 1523
dc546b0f
PE
1524 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1525 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1526
dc546b0f
PE
1527 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1528 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1529
dc546b0f
PE
1530 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1531 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1532
dc546b0f 1533 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 1534 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
1535 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1536 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1537 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1538
dc546b0f 1539 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1540
dc546b0f
PE
1541 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1542 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1543 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1544
402b123d 1545** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1546
e4ab1254
AD
1547 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1548 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1549 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1550 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1551 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 1552 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1553
e4ab1254 1554 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 1555 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1556
dc546b0f 1557 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 1558 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 1559
e4ab1254 1560 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
1561 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1562 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1563
402b123d 1564** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1565
dc546b0f
PE
1566 - GLR and inline
1567 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 1568 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 1569
e4ab1254
AD
1570 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1571 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1572
18ad57b3
AD
1573** %parse-param and %lex-param
1574 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1575 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1576 shortcomings:
1577
1578 - a single argument only can be added,
1579 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 1580 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
1581 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1582
1583 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1584 For instance:
1585
1586 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1587 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1588 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1589
1590 results in the following signatures:
1591
1592 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1593 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1594
1595 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1596
1597 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1598 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1599
402b123d 1600** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 1601 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 1602 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1603
402b123d 1604** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1605 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1606
402b123d 1607** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1608 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1609 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1610 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1611\f
402b123d 1612* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 1613
402b123d 1614** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 1615
402b123d 1616** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 1617
402b123d 1618** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1619 Fix spurious parse errors.
1620
402b123d 1621** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1622 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1623 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1624
402b123d 1625** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
1626 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1627 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1628
e9690142 1629 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
1630
1631 but the converse remains an error:
1632
e9690142 1633 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 1634
402b123d 1635** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
1636 The following code:
1637
e9690142 1638 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
1639
1640 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1641 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 1642\f
402b123d 1643* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 1644
402b123d 1645** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
1646 The declaration
1647 %glr-parser
1648 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1649 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 1650 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
1651 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1652
7933f2b5 1653 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
1654 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1655
402b123d 1656** Output Directory
8c165d89 1657 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
1658 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1659 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 1660
402b123d 1661** Undefined token
007a50a4 1662 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 1663 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 1664
402b123d 1665** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 1666 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
1667 no longer the case.
1668
402b123d 1669** Error token
e88dbdbf 1670 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
1671 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1672 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1673 will be mapped onto another number.
1674
402b123d 1675** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 1676 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
1677 error recovery is possible.
1678
402b123d 1679** End token
e4ab1254 1680 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 1681
402b123d 1682** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
1683 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1684 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1685 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1686 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1687 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1688 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
1689 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1690 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 1691
402b123d 1692** Traces
5504898e
AD
1693 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1694
402b123d 1695** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
1696 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1697 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1698 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1699 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 1700
402b123d 1701** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
1702 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1703 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1704 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 1705
402b123d 1706** Useless rules
643a5994 1707 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 1708 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 1709
402b123d 1710** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
1711 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1712
402b123d 1713** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
1714 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1715 reported.
1716
e4ab1254 1717** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
1718 On a grammar such as
1719
e29f0771
AD
1720 %token useless useful
1721 %%
1722 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
1723
1724 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 1725 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 1726
402b123d 1727** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 1728 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 1729
402b123d 1730** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
1731 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1732 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1733 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1734 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 1735
402b123d 1736** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
1737 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1738 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 1739 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 1740 For instance
e29f0771 1741 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 1742 or
e29f0771 1743 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 1744
402b123d 1745** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
1746 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1747
402b123d 1748** New translations
a861a339 1749 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
1750 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1751
402b123d 1752** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
1753 When given
1754 %token 'a' "A"
1755 bison used to output
1756 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 1757
402b123d 1758** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
1759 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1760 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 1761 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 1762
402b123d 1763** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
1764 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1765 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
1766 - itemset
1767 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 1768 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 1769 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
1770 - solved
1771 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1772 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1773 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 1774
402b123d 1775** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
1776 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1777 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1778
e29f0771
AD
1779 %type <foo> bar
1780 %%
1781 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
1782
1783 This is fixed.
a861a339 1784
402b123d 1785** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 1786\f
402b123d 1787* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 1788
402b123d 1789** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
1790 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1791 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1792 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1793
1794 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1795 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1796 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1797 kludge will be disabled.
1798
1799 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1800 extended.
76551463 1801\f
402b123d 1802* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 1803
402b123d 1804** File name clashes are detected
76551463 1805 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 1806 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 1807
e4ab1254 1808** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
1809 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1810 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1811 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1812 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1813 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1814
402b123d 1815** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
1816 many portability hassles.
1817
402b123d 1818** DJGPP support added.
76551463 1819
402b123d 1820** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 1821\f
402b123d 1822* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 1823
402b123d 1824** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
1825 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1826 under some conditions.
1827
402b123d 1828** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
1829 As is done with $n.
1830\f
402b123d 1831* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 1832
402b123d 1833** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 1834
402b123d 1835** Portability fixes
76551463 1836
402b123d 1837** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 1838\f
402b123d 1839* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 1840
402b123d 1841** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 1842
402b123d 1843** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1844 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1845 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1846 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 1847 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 1848
402b123d 1849** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
1850 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1851 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1852
1853 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1854 problems as on AIX.
1855
402b123d 1856** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 1857
402b123d 1858** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
1859 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1860
402b123d 1861** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
1862 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1863 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1864 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1865
402b123d 1866** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 1867 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 1868 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 1869
402b123d 1870** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
1871 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1872
402b123d 1873** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
1874 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1875
402b123d 1876** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
1877 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1878
402b123d 1879** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1880 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1881 any warning.
1882
402b123d 1883** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 1884
402b123d 1885** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 1886
402b123d 1887** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 1888
402b123d 1889** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
1890 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1891 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1892 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1893
402b123d 1894** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
1895 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1896 previous allocations were not freed.
1897
402b123d 1898** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
1899 Some newlines were missing.
1900 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1901
402b123d 1902** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
1903 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1904
402b123d 1905** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1906 Was not used.
1907 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1908
402b123d 1909** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 1910
402b123d 1911** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 1912
402b123d 1913** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 1914
402b123d 1915** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
1916 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1917
402b123d 1918** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 1919
402b123d 1920** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
1921 New.
1922
402b123d 1923** --output
e4ab1254 1924 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 1925\f
402b123d 1926* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 1927
e4ab1254
AD
1928** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1929 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
1930 argument.
1931
e4ab1254 1932** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
1933 experiment.
1934
402b123d 1935** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 1936\f
402b123d 1937* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 1938
402b123d 1939** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
1940 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1941 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 1942 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 1943
e4ab1254 1944** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 1945
402b123d 1946** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 1947
402b123d 1948** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 1949
402b123d 1950** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 1951
402b123d 1952** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 1953
402b123d 1954** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 1955
e4ab1254 1956** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 1957
e4ab1254 1958** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 1959
e4ab1254 1960** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 1961
402b123d 1962** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
1963 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1964
402b123d 1965** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
1966 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1967 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 1968
402b123d 1969** @$
f987e9d2 1970 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 1971\f
402b123d 1972* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 1973
402b123d 1974** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 1975
402b123d 1976** Added NLS.
d2e00347 1977
402b123d 1978** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 1979
402b123d 1980** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 1981\f
402b123d 1982* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 1983
402b123d 1984** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
1985 some systems has been fixed.
1986\f
402b123d 1987* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 1988
7e508a2b 1989** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 1990
402b123d 1991** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 1992
402b123d 1993** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 1994
402b123d 1995** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 1996
402b123d 1997** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 1998
402b123d 1999** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2000
402b123d 2001** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2002 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2003\f
402b123d 2004* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2005
402b123d 2006** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2007the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2008
402b123d 2009** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2010example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2011of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2012
402b123d 2013** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2014and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2015table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2016purposes.
2017
402b123d 2018** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2019directives in the parser file.
2020
402b123d 2021** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2022Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2023
402b123d 2024** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2025the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2026The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2027a switch statement body.
2028\f
402b123d 2029* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2030
4d019228
DM
2031The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2032passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2033actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2034by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2035
6780ca7a 2036Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2037\f
402b123d 2038* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2039
2040--help option added.
6780ca7a 2041\f
402b123d 2042* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2043
2044Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2045
76551463
AD
2046-----
2047
34136e65 2048Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2049
74553c98 2050This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2051
f16b0819 2052This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2053it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2054the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2055(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2056
f16b0819 2057This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2058but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2059MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2060GNU General Public License for more details.
2061
2062You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2063along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2064
2065 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2066 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2067 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2068 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2069 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2070 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2071 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2072 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2073 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2074 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2075 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2076 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2077 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2078 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2079 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2080 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2081 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1
AD
2082 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2083 LocalWords: TOK
7e508a2b
AD
2084
2085Local Variables:
2086mode: outline
e4ab1254 2087fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2088End: