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4* Changes in version 2.5.1 (????-??-??):
5
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6** Some portability problems in the test suite have been fixed.
7
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8** Minor improvements have been made to the manual.
9
b2bc8a1b 10* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
006faedf 11
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12** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
13
14 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
15 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
16 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
17 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
18 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
19
3b1977ea 20** Named references:
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21
22 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
23 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
24 actions code.
25
26 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
27 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
28 as named references:
29
ac3297d5 30 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
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31 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
32
33 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
34
ac3297d5 35 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
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36 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
37
f840c05a 38 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
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39 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
40 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
41
f840c05a 42 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
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43 will help to stabilize them.
44
3b1977ea 45** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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46
47 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
48 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
723206df 49 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
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50 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
51 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
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52 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
53 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
54 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
55 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
56
57 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
58 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
59 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
60 file with these directives:
61
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62 %define lr.type lalr
63 %define lr.type ielr
64 %define lr.type canonical-lr
34a6c2d1 65
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66 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
67 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
68 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
69 manual.
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70
71 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
72 stabilize them.
73
6f04ee6c 74** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
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75
76 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
77 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
78 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
6f04ee6c 79 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
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80 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
81 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
82 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
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83 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
84 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
85 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
86 tokens.
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87
88 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
89 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
90 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
91 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
92 inconsistent states.
93
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94 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
95 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
96 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
97 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
98 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
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99 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
100 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
101 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
102 power.
103
104 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
105 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
106
107 %define parse.lac full
108
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109 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
110 details including a few caveats.
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111
112 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
113 stabilize it.
114
6ee881f6 115** %define improvements:
f37495f6 116
3b1977ea 117*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
4ecd3681 118
34d41938 119 Each of these command-line options
4ecd3681 120
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121 -D NAME[=VALUE]
122 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
123
124 -F NAME[=VALUE]
125 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
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126
127 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
128
34d41938 129 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
4ecd3681 130
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131 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
132 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
133 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
ac3297d5 134 details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual.
4ecd3681 135
3b1977ea 136*** Variables renamed:
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137
138 The following %define variables
139
140 api.push_pull
141 lr.keep_unreachable_states
142
143 have been renamed to
144
145 api.push-pull
146 lr.keep-unreachable-states
147
148 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
149 for backward compatibility.
150
723206df 151*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
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152
153 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
154 within quotations marks. For example,
155
156 %define api.push-pull "push"
157
158 can be rewritten as
159
160 %define api.push-pull push
161
6ee881f6 162*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
c046698e 163
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164*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
165
166** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
167
168** Character literals not of length one:
169
170 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
171 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
172 the following grammar to be the same token:
173
174 exp: exp '++'
175 | exp '+' exp
176 ;
177
178 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
179 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
180
181** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
182
183 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
184 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
185 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
186 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
187
188** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
189
190 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
191 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
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192 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first'
193 and `last' members, instead of
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194
195 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
196 do \
197 if (N) \
198 { \
199 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
200 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
201 } \
202 else \
203 { \
204 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
205 } \
206 while (false)
207
208 use:
209
210 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
211 do \
212 if (N) \
213 { \
214 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
215 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
216 } \
217 else \
218 { \
219 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
220 } \
221 while (false)
222
223** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
224
225 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
226 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
227 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
228 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
c046698e 229
3b1977ea 230** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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231
232 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
233 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
234 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
235 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
236 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
237 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
238 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
239 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
240
3b1977ea 241** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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242
243 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
244 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
245 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
246 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
247
248 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
249
250 instead of
251
252 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
253
254 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
255 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
256 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
257 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
258 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
259 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
260 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
261
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262** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
263
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264 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
265 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
266 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
267 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
268 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
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269
270*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
271 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
272 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
273 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
274 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
ac3297d5 275 reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this
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276 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
277 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
278 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
279 shifted or discarded.
280
281*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
282 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
283 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
284 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
285
286*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
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287 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
288 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
289 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
290 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
291 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
292 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
293 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
294 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
295 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
296 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
297 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
298 by default.
1fa30307 299
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300** Java skeleton fixes:
301
302*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
303
304*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
305 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
77768165 306
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307*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
308
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309** -W/--warnings fixes:
310
ac3297d5 311*** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories:
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312
313 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
314 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
315
316 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
317
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318*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
319
320 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
321 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
ac3297d5 322 `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important
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323 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
324 example:
325
326 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
327 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
328 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
329 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
330
331 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
332 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
333 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
334 then have no effect on the conflict report.
335
ac3297d5 336*** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error':
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337
338 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
339 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
340
341 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
342
b2bc8a1b 343*** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings:
8ffd7912 344
ac3297d5 345 Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for
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346 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
347 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
348 suppress all warnings:
349
350 bison -Wnone gram.y
351
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352** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
353
354 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
355 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
356 produced an assertion failure. For example:
357
358 %left END 0
359
360 This bug has been fixed.
361
7527c744 362* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
7a9c3cb3 363
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364** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
365 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
366
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367** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
368 been fixed.
369
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370** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
371
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372** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
373 been fixed.
374
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375** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
376 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
377 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
378 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
379
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380** Minor documentation fixes.
381
ea66d039 382* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
8defe11b 383
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384** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
385 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
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386 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
387 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
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388 affected platforms.
389
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390** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
391
392 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
393 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
394 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
395 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
396 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
397 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
398 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
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399 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
400 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
2c203528 401
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402** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
403
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404** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
405 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
406 avoided.
af2ffe5c 407
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408** %code is now a permanent feature.
409
410 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
411
412 %{CODE%}
413
414 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
415 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
416
417 %code {CODE}
418 %code requires {CODE}
419 %code provides {CODE}
420 %code top {CODE}
421
422 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
423 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
424 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
425 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
426 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
427
428 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
429 is still considered experimental.
430
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431** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
432
433 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
434 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
435 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
436 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
437 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
438 specified by POSIX.
439
440 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
441 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
442 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
443 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
444 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
445 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
446 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
447
448 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
449
450 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
451 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
452 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
453 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
454 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
455 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
456 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
457 be removed altogether.
458
459 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
460 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
461 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
462 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
463 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
464 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
465 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
466 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
467 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
468 2.4.2 is not necessary.
469
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470** Internationalization.
471
472 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
473 message translations were not installed although supported by the
474 host system.
475
41930e7a 476* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 477
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478** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
479 declarations have been fixed.
480
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481** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
482
483 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
484 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
485
486 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
487
488 instead of
489
490 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
491
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492 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
493 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
494 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
495 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
496 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
497 feature.
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498
499** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 500
d6fb461d 501* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 502
d6fb461d 503** %language is an experimental feature.
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504
505 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
506 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
507 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
508 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
509 in future releases.
7bd1665a 510
d6fb461d 511** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 512
d6fb461d 513** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
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514 fixed.
515
d6fb461d 516* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 517
d6fb461d 518** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
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519 are now deprecated:
520
521 %define NAME "VALUE"
522
d6fb461d 523** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
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524
525 %define api.pure
526
527 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
528 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
529
d6fb461d 530** Push Parsing
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531
532 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
ef1b4273 533 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
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534 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
535 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
536 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
537
538 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
539 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
540
541 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
542
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543 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
544 feedback will help to stabilize it.
545
d6fb461d 546** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
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547 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
548 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 549
d6fb461d 550** Java
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551
552 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
553 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
554 %skeleton to select it.
555
556 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
557
558 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
559 feedback will help to stabilize it.
560
d6fb461d 561** %language
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562
563 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
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564 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
565 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
566 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 567
d6fb461d 568** XML Automaton Report
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569
570 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
571 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
572 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
c373bf8b 573
d6fb461d 574** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
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575 %defines. For example:
576
577 %defines "parser.h"
578
d6fb461d 579** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
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580 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
581 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
582 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 583
d6fb461d 584** Unreachable State Removal
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585
586 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
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587 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
588 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
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589
590 1. Removes unreachable states.
591
592 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
593 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
594 directives in existing grammar files.
595
596 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 597 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 598
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599 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
600
601 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
602
603 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
604 for further discussion.
605
d6fb461d 606** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
b1cc23c4 607
c373bf8b 608 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
88c78747
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609 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
610 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
611 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
612 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
613 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
614 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
615 code.
616
d6fb461d 617** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
59da312b 618 name.
1bb2bd75 619
d6fb461d 620** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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621 deprecated:
622
623 %file-prefix "parser"
624 %name-prefix "c_"
625 %output "parser.c"
626
d6fb461d 627** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
c373bf8b
JD
628
629 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
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630 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
631 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
632 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
633 it:
634
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635 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
636 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
637 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
638 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
8e0a5e9e 639
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640 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
641 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
8e0a5e9e
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642 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
643 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
644
645 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
646 determine whether they should become permanent features.
647
d6fb461d 648** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
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649
650 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
651 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
652 about unused $2 in:
653
654 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
655
656 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
657 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
658
659 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
660
661 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
662 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
663 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
664
59da312b 665 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
17bd8a73
JD
666 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
667
d6fb461d 668** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
c373bf8b
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669
670 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
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671 %printer's:
672
673 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
674 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
675 declared semantic type tags.
676
3ebecc24 677 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
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678 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
679 type tags.
680
681 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
3ebecc24 682 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
683 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
684 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
685
85894313
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686 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
687 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
688 features.
689
12e35840
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690 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
691 details.
692
d6fb461d 693** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
ab7f29f8
JD
694 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
695 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
696
d6fb461d 697** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
698 completely removed from Bison.
699
d6fb461d 700* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 701
d6fb461d 702** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
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703 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
704 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
705 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
706 and is required by POSIX.
707
d6fb461d 708** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
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709 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
710
d6fb461d 711** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
712
713 For example:
714
b2a0b7ca
JD
715 %union { char *string; }
716 %token <string> STRING1
717 %token <string> STRING2
718 %type <string> string1
719 %type <string> string2
720 %union { char character; }
721 %token <character> CHR
722 %type <character> chr
723 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
724 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
725 %destructor { } <character>
726
727 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
728 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
729 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
730 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
731 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
ec5479ce 732
85894313
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733 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
734 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
735 future versions.]
736
d6fb461d 737** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
b931235e
JD
738 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
739 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
740 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
741 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
742
d6fb461d 743** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 744 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
745
746 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
747 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
748 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
749 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 750 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 751
34f98f46 752 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
753 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
754 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
755 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
756 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
757 after the token definitions.
758
759 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
760 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
761
d6fb461d 762** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
763 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
764 %after-header.
765
766 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
767 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
768 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
769 convenient for you:
770
771 %before-header {
772 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
773 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
774 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
775 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
776 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
777 }
778 %start-header {
779 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
780 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
781 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
782 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
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783 }
784 %union {
34f98f46
JD
785 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
786 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
787 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 788 }
34f98f46
JD
789 %end-header {
790 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
791 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
792 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
793 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
794 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 795 }
34f98f46
JD
796 %after-header {
797 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
798 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
799 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
800 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
801 * Bison-generated definitions. */
802 }
803
804 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
805 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 806
85894313
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807 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
808 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
809
d6fb461d 810** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
9e6e7ed2
PE
811 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
812 in a future release.
742e4900 813
d6fb461d 814* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 815
d6fb461d 816** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
4ad3ed84
PE
817 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
818
d6fb461d 819** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
820 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
821
d6fb461d 822* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 823
d6fb461d 824** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
825 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
826 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 827
d6fb461d 828** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 829
d6fb461d 830** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 831
d6fb461d 832** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
833 their contents together.
834
d6fb461d 835** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
836 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
837 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 838
8f3596a6 839 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
721be13c
PE
840 | exp "+" exp
841 ;
affac613 842
8f3596a6
AD
843 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
844 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 845 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 846
4e26c69e
PE
847 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
848 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
849 | exp "+" exp
850 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
721be13c 851 ;
affac613 852
4e26c69e
PE
853 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
854 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
855 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 856
8f3596a6 857 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
721be13c
PE
858 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
859 ;
860
84866159
AD
861 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
862 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
863
864 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
865
721be13c
PE
866 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
867 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 868
d6fb461d 869** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
870 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
871 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
872 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 873
d6fb461d 874** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
875 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
876 instead of warnings.
877
d6fb461d 878** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
879 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
880 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 881
d6fb461d 882** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
ad6a9b97 883
d6fb461d 884** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
885 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
886 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 887
d6fb461d 888** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
889 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
890 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
fb9712a9
AD
891 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
892 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
893
894 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
895 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
896 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
897 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 898
b50d2359 899 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
ab8d9dc5 900 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 901
d6fb461d 902** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 903\f
d6fb461d 904* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 905
d6fb461d 906** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 907
d6fb461d 908** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
909 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
910 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
911 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
912 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
913 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 914
d6fb461d 915** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
916 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
917 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
918 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
919
d6fb461d 920** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
921 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
922 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
923
d6fb461d 924** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
925 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
926 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
927 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
928 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 929\f
d6fb461d 930* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 931
d6fb461d 932** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 933
82de6b0d
PE
934 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
935 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
936 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
937 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
938 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 939
82de6b0d
PE
940 - Error token location.
941 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
942 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
943 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
944 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 945
82de6b0d
PE
946 - Semicolon changes:
947 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
948 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 949
82de6b0d
PE
950 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
951 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
952 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
953 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 954
82de6b0d 955 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 956
d6fb461d 957** New features
1452af69 958
82de6b0d 959 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 960
82de6b0d
PE
961 - New directive: %initial-action.
962 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
963 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 964
82de6b0d
PE
965 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
966 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 967
82de6b0d
PE
968 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
969 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 970
82de6b0d 971 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
9e6e7ed2 972 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 973
82de6b0d 974 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 975
82de6b0d
PE
976 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
977 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 978
d6fb461d 979** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 980
82de6b0d
PE
981 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
982 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
983 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
984 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
985 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
986 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 987
82de6b0d
PE
988 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
989 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 990
82de6b0d 991 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 992\f
d6fb461d 993* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 994
d6fb461d 995** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 996 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 997
d6fb461d 998** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 999
dc546b0f
PE
1000 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1001 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1002
dc546b0f
PE
1003 - %destructor
1004 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1005 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1006
dc546b0f
PE
1007 - %error-verbose
1008 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1009
dc546b0f
PE
1010 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1011 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1012
d6fb461d 1013** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1014
dc546b0f
PE
1015 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1016 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1017 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1018
dc546b0f
PE
1019 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1020 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1021 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1022 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1023 be consistent.
74724a70 1024
dc546b0f
PE
1025 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1026 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1027
dc546b0f
PE
1028 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1029 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1030
dc546b0f
PE
1031 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1032 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1033
dc546b0f
PE
1034 - Yacc command and library now available
1035 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1036 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1037 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1038 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1039
dc546b0f 1040 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1041
dc546b0f
PE
1042 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1043 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1044 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1045
d6fb461d 1046** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1047
dc546b0f
PE
1048 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1049 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1050 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1051 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1052 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1053 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1054
dc546b0f
PE
1055 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1056 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1057
dc546b0f
PE
1058 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1059 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
437c2d80 1060
dc546b0f
PE
1061 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1062 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1063 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1064
d6fb461d 1065** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1066
dc546b0f
PE
1067 - GLR and inline
1068 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1069 C keyword `inline'.
959e5f51 1070
dc546b0f
PE
1071 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1072 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1073
d6fb461d 1074** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
dc546b0f
PE
1075 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1076 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1077
d6fb461d 1078** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1079 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1080
d6fb461d 1081** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1082 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1083 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1084 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1085\f
d6fb461d 1086* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 1087
d6fb461d 1088** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 1089
d6fb461d 1090** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 1091
d6fb461d 1092** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1093 Fix spurious parse errors.
1094
d6fb461d 1095** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
1096 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1097 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1098
d6fb461d 1099** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
1100 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1101 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1102
1103 untyped: ... typed;
1104
1105 but the converse remains an error:
1106
1107 typed: ... untyped;
1108
d6fb461d 1109** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
1110 The following code:
1111
1112 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1113
1114 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1115 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 1116\f
d6fb461d 1117* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 1118
d6fb461d 1119** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
1120 The declaration
1121 %glr-parser
1122 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1123 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 1124 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
1125 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1126
7933f2b5 1127 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
1128 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1129
d6fb461d 1130** Output Directory
8c165d89 1131 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e88dbdbf 1132 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
8c165d89
AD
1133 now creates `bar.c'.
1134
d6fb461d 1135** Undefined token
007a50a4 1136 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 1137 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 1138
d6fb461d 1139** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 1140 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
1141 no longer the case.
1142
d6fb461d 1143** Error token
e88dbdbf 1144 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
1145 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1146 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1147 will be mapped onto another number.
1148
d6fb461d 1149** Verbose error messages
e88dbdbf 1150 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
217598da
AD
1151 error recovery is possible.
1152
d6fb461d 1153** End token
217598da
AD
1154 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1155
d6fb461d 1156** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
1157 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1158 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1159 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1160 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1161 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1162 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
1163 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1164 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 1165
d6fb461d 1166** Traces
5504898e
AD
1167 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1168
d6fb461d 1169** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
1170 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1171 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1172 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1173 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 1174
d6fb461d 1175** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
1176 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1177 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1178 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 1179
d6fb461d 1180** Useless rules
643a5994 1181 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 1182 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 1183
d6fb461d 1184** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
1185 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1186
d6fb461d 1187** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
1188 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1189 reported.
1190
d6fb461d 1191** Incorrect `Token not used'
11652ab3
AD
1192 On a grammar such as
1193
1194 %token useless useful
1195 %%
1196 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1197
1198 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1199 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1200
d6fb461d 1201** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 1202 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 1203
d6fb461d 1204** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
1205 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1206 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1207 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1208 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 1209
d6fb461d 1210** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
1211 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1212 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
a861a339 1213 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 1214 For instance
7bd6c77e 1215 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 1216 or
7bd6c77e 1217 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 1218
d6fb461d 1219** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
1220 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1221
d6fb461d 1222** New translations
a861a339 1223 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
1224 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1225
d6fb461d 1226** Incorrect token definitions
e88dbdbf 1227 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
b87f8b21 1228
d6fb461d 1229** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
1230 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1231 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 1232 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 1233
d6fb461d 1234** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
1235 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1236 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
1237 - itemset
1238 complete the core item sets with their closure
9e6e7ed2
PE
1239 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1240 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
1241 - solved
1242 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1243 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1244 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 1245
d6fb461d 1246** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
1247 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1248 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1249
1250 %type <foo> bar
1251 %%
1252 bar: '0' {} '0';
1253
1254 This is fixed.
a861a339 1255
d6fb461d 1256** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 1257\f
d6fb461d 1258* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 1259
d6fb461d 1260** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
1261 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1262 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1263 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1264
1265 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1266 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1267 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1268 kludge will be disabled.
1269
1270 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1271 extended.
76551463 1272\f
d6fb461d 1273* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 1274
d6fb461d 1275** File name clashes are detected
76551463
AD
1276 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1277 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1278
d6fb461d 1279** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
1280 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1281 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1282 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1283 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1284 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1285
d6fb461d 1286** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
1287 many portability hassles.
1288
d6fb461d 1289** DJGPP support added.
76551463 1290
d6fb461d 1291** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 1292\f
d6fb461d 1293* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 1294
d6fb461d 1295** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
1296 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1297 under some conditions.
1298
d6fb461d 1299** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
1300 As is done with $n.
1301\f
d6fb461d 1302* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 1303
d6fb461d 1304** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 1305
d6fb461d 1306** Portability fixes
76551463 1307
d6fb461d 1308** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 1309\f
d6fb461d 1310* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 1311
d6fb461d 1312** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 1313
d6fb461d 1314** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1315 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1316 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1317 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1318 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1319
d6fb461d 1320** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
1321 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1322 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1323
1324 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1325 problems as on AIX.
1326
d6fb461d 1327** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 1328
d6fb461d 1329** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
1330 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1331
d6fb461d 1332** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
1333 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1334 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1335 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1336
d6fb461d 1337** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 1338 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 1339 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 1340
d6fb461d 1341** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
1342 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1343
d6fb461d 1344** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
1345 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1346
d6fb461d 1347** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
1348 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1349
d6fb461d 1350** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1351 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1352 any warning.
1353
d6fb461d 1354** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 1355
d6fb461d 1356** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 1357
d6fb461d 1358** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 1359
d6fb461d 1360** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
1361 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1362 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1363 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1364
d6fb461d 1365** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
1366 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1367 previous allocations were not freed.
1368
d6fb461d 1369** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
1370 Some newlines were missing.
1371 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1372
d6fb461d 1373** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
1374 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1375
d6fb461d 1376** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
1377 Was not used.
1378 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1379
d6fb461d 1380** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 1381
d6fb461d 1382** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 1383
d6fb461d 1384** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 1385
d6fb461d 1386** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
1387 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1388
d6fb461d 1389** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 1390
d6fb461d 1391** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
1392 New.
1393
d6fb461d 1394** --output
52d1aeee
MA
1395 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1396\f
d6fb461d 1397* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 1398
d6fb461d 1399** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
fdac0091 1400 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
1401 argument.
1402
d6fb461d 1403** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
1404 experiment.
1405
d6fb461d 1406** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 1407\f
d6fb461d 1408* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 1409
d6fb461d 1410** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
1411 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1412 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1413 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1414
d6fb461d 1415** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
f87a2205 1416
d6fb461d 1417** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 1418
d6fb461d 1419** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 1420
d6fb461d 1421** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 1422
d6fb461d 1423** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 1424
d6fb461d 1425** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 1426
d6fb461d 1427** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
6deb4447 1428
d6fb461d 1429** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
cd5bd6ac 1430
d6fb461d 1431** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
62ab6972 1432
d6fb461d 1433** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
1434 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1435
d6fb461d 1436** New directives.
4ecbf796
MA
1437 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1438 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
f987e9d2 1439
d6fb461d 1440** @$
f987e9d2 1441 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 1442\f
d6fb461d 1443* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 1444
d6fb461d 1445** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 1446
d6fb461d 1447** Added NLS.
d2e00347 1448
d6fb461d 1449** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 1450
d6fb461d 1451** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 1452\f
d6fb461d 1453* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 1454
d6fb461d 1455** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
1456 some systems has been fixed.
1457\f
d6fb461d 1458* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 1459
d6fb461d 1460** Bison now uses automake.
4be07551 1461
d6fb461d 1462** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 1463
d6fb461d 1464** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 1465
d6fb461d 1466** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 1467
d6fb461d 1468** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 1469
d6fb461d 1470** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 1471
d6fb461d 1472** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 1473 not provide alloca().
4be07551 1474\f
d6fb461d 1475* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 1476
d6fb461d 1477** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 1478the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 1479
d6fb461d 1480** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5
RS
1481example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1482of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1483
d6fb461d 1484** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
1485and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1486table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1487purposes.
1488
d6fb461d 1489** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
1490directives in the parser file.
1491
d6fb461d 1492** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
1493Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1494
d6fb461d 1495** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
1496the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1497The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1498a switch statement body.
1499\f
d6fb461d 1500* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 1501
4d019228
DM
1502The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1503passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1504actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1505by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 1506
6780ca7a 1507Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 1508\f
d6fb461d 1509* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
1510
1511--help option added.
6780ca7a 1512\f
d6fb461d 1513* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
1514
1515Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6
AD
1516
1517Local Variables:
1518mode: outline
1519End:
76551463
AD
1520
1521-----
1522
c932d613 1523Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 1524
8defe11b 1525This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 1526
f16b0819 1527This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 1528it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
1529the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1530(at your option) any later version.
76551463 1531
f16b0819 1532This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
1533but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1534MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1535GNU General Public License for more details.
1536
1537You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 1538along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.