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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
c4e686a1 3* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.4 (2015-01-23) [stable]
11d82017 4
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5** Bug fixes
6
7*** C++ with Variants (lalr1.cc)
8
9 Fix a compiler warning when no %destructor use $$.
11d82017 10
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11*** Test suites
12
13 Several portability issues in tests were fixed.
14
da6f0746 15* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.3 (2015-01-15) [stable]
0bd5ee5f 16
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17** Bug fixes
18
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19*** C++ with Variants (lalr1.cc)
20
21 Problems with %destructor and '%define parse.assert' have been fixed.
22
23*** Named %union support (yacc.c, glr.c)
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24
25 Bison 3.0 introduced a regression on named %union such as
26
27 %union foo { int ival; };
28
ee028dce 29 The possibility to use a name was introduced "for Yacc compatibility".
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30 It is however not required by POSIX Yacc, and its usefulness is not clear.
31
ee028dce 32*** %define api.value.type union with %defines (yacc.c, glr.c)
8d4dc896 33
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34 The C parsers were broken when %defines was used together with "%define
35 api.value.type union".
8d4dc896 36
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37*** Redeclarations are reported in proper order
38
39 On
40
41 %token FOO "foo"
42 %printer {} "foo"
43 %printer {} FOO
44
45 bison used to report:
46
47 /tmp/foo.yy:2.10-11: error: %printer redeclaration for FOO
48 %printer {} "foo"
49 ^^
50 /tmp/foo.yy:3.10-11: previous declaration
51 %printer {} FOO
52 ^^
53
54 Now, the "previous" declaration is always the first one.
55
0bd5ee5f 56
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57** Documentation
58
59 Bison now installs various files in its docdir (which defaults to
60 '/usr/local/share/doc/bison'), including the three fully blown examples
61 extracted from the documentation:
62
63 - rpcalc
64 Reverse polish calculator, a simple introductory example.
65 - mfcalc
66 Multi-function Calc, a calculator with memory and functions and located
67 error messages.
68 - calc++
69 a calculator in C++ using variant support and token constructors.
70
a3efd13e 71* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.2 (2013-12-05) [stable]
6d94eebb 72
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73** Bug fixes
74
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75*** Generated source files when errors are reported
76
77 When warnings are issued and -Werror is set, bison would still generate
78 the source files (*.c, *.h...). As a consequence, some runs of "make"
79 could fail the first time, but not the second (as the files were generated
80 anyway).
81
82 This is fixed: bison no longer generates this source files, but, of
83 course, still produces the various reports (*.output, *.xml, etc.).
84
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85*** %empty is used in reports
86
87 Empty right-hand sides are denoted by '%empty' in all the reports (text,
88 dot, XML and formats derived from it).
89
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90*** YYERROR and variants
91
92 When C++ variant support is enabled, an error triggered via YYERROR, but
93 not caught via error recovery, resulted in a double deletion.
6d94eebb 94
c2ecada3 95* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.1 (2013-11-12) [stable]
e386b50f 96
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97** Bug fixes
98
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99*** Errors in caret diagnostics
100
101 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
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102
103*** Fixes of the -Werror option
104
105 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
106 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
107
108 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
109 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
110 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
e386b50f 111
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112*** GLR Predicates
113
114 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
115 "%?" and its "{".
116
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117*** Installation
118
119 The yacc.1 man page is no longer installed if --disable-yacc was
120 specified.
121
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122*** Fixes in the test suite
123
124 Bugs and portability issues.
125
534497f5 126* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 127
8458a411 128** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 129
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130 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
131 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
132 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
133
8458a411 134** Backward incompatible changes
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135
136*** Obsolete features
137
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138 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
139
140 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
141 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
142
143 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
144 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 145
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146 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
147 in the release 2.5).
148
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149*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
150
151 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
152 Bison extensions.
153
154 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
155 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
156 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
157
158 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
159 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
160 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
161 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
162 warnings for Bison extensions.
163
164 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
165 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
166 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
167 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
168
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169** Bug fixes
170
c21e515e 171*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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172
173 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
174 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
175 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
176 preprocessor expansion:
177
178 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
179
6c7022f7 180 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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181 identifiers for user-provided variables.
182
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183*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
184
185 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
186 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
187
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188*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
189
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190** Diagnostics reported by Bison
191
192 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
193 Santet.
73370a9d 194
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195*** Carets
196
197 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
198 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
199 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
200
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201 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
202 the caret information only. For instance on:
203
204 %%
205 exp: 'a' | 'a';
206
207 Bison 2.7 reports:
208
209 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
210 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
211
212 Now bison reports:
213
214 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
215 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
216 exp: 'a' | 'a';
217 ^^^
218
219 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
220
221 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
222 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
223
1048a1c9 224*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 225
1048a1c9 226 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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227 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
228 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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229
230 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 231 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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232 errors (and only those):
233
234 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
235
236 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
237 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
238
239 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
240
241 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
242
243 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
244 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
245
246 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
247 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
248 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 249
46bdb8ec 250*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 251
46bdb8ec 252 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 253
46bdb8ec 254 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 255
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256 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
257 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 258 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 259
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260 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
261 with failure):
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262
263 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 264 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 265
46bdb8ec 266 it now reports:
1048a1c9 267
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268 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
269
270*** Deprecated constructs
271
272 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
273 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
274 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
275
73370a9d 276*** Useless semantic types
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277
278 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
279 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
280 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
281 types that trigger the warning:
282
283 %token <type1> term
284 %type <type2> nterm
285 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
286 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
287 %%
288 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
289
290 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
291 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
292
31557b9e 293*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 294
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295 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
296 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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297
298 %printer {} symbol1
299 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 300 %type <type> symbol3
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301 %%
302 exp: "a";
303
73370a9d 304*** Useless destructors or printers
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305
306 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
307 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
308 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
309 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
310
311 %token <type1> token1
312 <type2> token2
313 <type3> token3
314 <type4> token4
315 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
316 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
317
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318*** Conflicts
319
320 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
321 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
322
323 %glr-parser
324 %%
325 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
326
327 compare the previous version of bison:
328
329 $ bison foo.y
330 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
331 $ bison -Werror foo.y
332 bison: warnings being treated as errors
333 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
334
335 with the new behavior:
336
337 $ bison foo.y
338 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
339 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
340 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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341 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
342 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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343
344 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
345
346 %expect 0
347 %glr-parser
348 %%
349 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
350
351 Former behavior:
352
353 $ bison bar.y
354 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
355 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
356 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
357
358 New one:
359
360 $ bison bar.y
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361 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
362 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 363
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364** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
365
366 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
367 with '-Wyacc'.
368
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369** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
370
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371 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
372 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
373 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 374
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375 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
376 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
377 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
378 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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379
380 one may now declare
381
e436fa67 382 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 383
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384** Types of values for %define variables
385
386 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
387 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
388 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
389 foo {bar}'.
390
391 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
392
393 %define lr.type lalr
394
395 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
396
397 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
398
399 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
400
2a6b66c5 401** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 402
2a6b66c5 403 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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404 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
405 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
406
e436fa67 407 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 408 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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409 %%
410 start: FILE for ERROR;
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411
412 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
413 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
414 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
415 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
416
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417** Variable api.value.type
418
419 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
420 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
421 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
422
423 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
424
425 %union
426 {
427 int ival;
428 char *sval;
429 }
430 %token <ival> INT "integer"
431 %token <sval> STRING "string"
432 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
433 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
434
435 /* In yylex(). */
436 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
437 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
438
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439 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
440
441 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 442 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 443 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 444
435575cb 445 %define api.value.type union
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446 %token <int> INT "integer"
447 %token <char *> STRING "string"
448 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
449 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
450
451 /* In yylex(). */
452 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
453 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
454
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455 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
456 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 457
435575cb 458 %define api.value.type variant
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459 %token <int> INT "integer"
460 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
461
630a0218 462 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 463 used to be used.
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464
465 %code requires
466 {
467 struct my_value
468 {
469 enum
470 {
471 is_int, is_string
472 } kind;
473 union
474 {
475 int ival;
476 char *sval;
477 } u;
478 };
479 }
435575cb 480 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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481 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
482 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
483 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
484 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
485
486 /* In yylex(). */
487 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
488 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
489
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490** Variable parse.error
491
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492 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
493 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
494 verbose".
31b850d2 495
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496** Renamed %define variables
497
498 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
499 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
500
501 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
502 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
503 namespace -> api.namespace
504 stype -> api.value.type
505
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506** Semantic predicates
507
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508 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
509
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510 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
511 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 512 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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513 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
514 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
515 expressions.
ca2a6d15 516
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517** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
518
519 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
520 reduce/reduce conflicts.
521
5202b6ac 522** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 523
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524 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
525
526 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
527 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
528 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
529 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
530
531 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
532 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
533 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
534
535 %right A B 'c' 'd'
536
537 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
538 input order is now preserved.
539
540 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
541 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
542 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 543
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544** Useless precedence and associativity
545
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546 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
547
1282c124 548 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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549 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
550 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
551 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
552 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
553 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
554 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
555
556*** Precedence warning category
557
558 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
559 useless precedence and associativity directives.
560
561*** Useless associativity
562
563 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
564 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
565 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
566 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
567 For example:
568
569 %left '+'
570 %left '*'
571 %%
572 exp:
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573 "number"
574 | exp '+' "number"
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575 | exp '*' exp
576 ;
577
578 will produce a
579
580 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
581 %left '+'
582 ^^^
583
584*** Useless precedence
585
586 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
587 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
588 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
589 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
590
591 %precedence '='
592 %%
1282c124 593 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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594
595 will produce a
596
597 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
598 %precedence '='
599 ^^^
600
601*** Useless precedence and associativity
602
603 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
604 as follows:
605
606 %nonassoc '='
607 %%
1282c124 608 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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609
610 The warning is:
611
612 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
613 %nonassoc '='
614 ^^^
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615
616** Empty rules
617
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618 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
619
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620 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
621 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
622 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
623 %empty. On the following grammar:
624
625 %%
626 s: a b c;
627 a: ;
628 b: %empty;
629 c: 'a' %empty;
630
631 bison reports:
632
633 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
634 a: {}
635 ^^
636 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
637 c: 'a' %empty {};
638 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 639
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640** Java skeleton improvements
641
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642 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
643 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
644 and "%define init_throws".
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645 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
646
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647 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
648 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
649
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650** C++ skeletons improvements
651
652*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
653
654 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
655 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
656 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
657
658*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
659
660 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
661
662*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
663
664 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
665 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
666 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
667 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
668 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
669 factory invoked by the user actions).
670
671*** %define api.value.type variant
672
673 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
674 from Théophile Ranquet.
675
676 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
677 instance:
678
679 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
680 %token <int> NUMBER;
681 %token SEMICOLON ";"
682 %type <::std::string> item;
683 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
684 %%
685 result:
686 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
687 ;
688
689 list:
6240346a 690 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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691 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
692 ;
693
694 item:
695 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
696 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
697 ;
698
699*** %define api.token.constructor
700
701 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
702 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
703 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
704
705 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
706 {
707 parser::location_type loc = ...;
708 ...
709 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
710 ...
711 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
712 ...
713 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
714 ...
715 }
716
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717*** C++ locations
718
719 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
720 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
721
1f5542fe 722* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 723
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724** Bug fixes
725
726*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
727
728 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 729
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730*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
731
c13bb348 732* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 733
edf9a06f 734** Bug fixes
7bada535 735
edf9a06f 736 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 737
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738 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
739
d4fe9e88 740** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 741
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742 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
743
d4fe9e88 744*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 745
d4fe9e88 746 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 747
d4fe9e88
AD
748 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
749 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 750
d4fe9e88 751 It is now:
1f1bd572 752
d4fe9e88
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753 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
754 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 755
d4fe9e88 756*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 757
d4fe9e88 758 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 759
d4fe9e88
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760 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
761 %type <sval> exp
762 ^^^^^^
763 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
764 %type <ival> exp
765 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 766
d4fe9e88 767 or
cbaea010 768
7bada535 769 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 770 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 771 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
772 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
773 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
774 ^^^
775 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
776 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
777 ^^^
778 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
779 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
780 ^^^
7bada535 781
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782 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
783 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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784 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
785 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 786
1f1bd572 787** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 788
1f1bd572 789 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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790 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
791 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
792 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
793 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
794 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
795
796 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
797 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 798
7287be84 799** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
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800
801 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
802 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
803 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
804 then responsible to define her type.
805
806 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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807 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
808 them.
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809
810 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
811 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
812 compatibility).
813
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814 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
815 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
816 api.position.type.
817
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818** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
819
820 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
821 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
822 before re-throwing the exception.
823
824 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
825 appreciated.
826
9c16d399 827** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 828
8458a411
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829 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
830
fc4fdd62
TR
831 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
832 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
833 numbered and left-justified.
834
835 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
836 diamond shaped nodes.
837
9c16d399
TR
838 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
839 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
840
d4fe9e88 841** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 842
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843 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
844 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 845
53e2cd1e
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846** Documentation
847
848 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
849 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 850
d4fe9e88
AD
851 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
852 were not properly documented.
853
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854 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
855
9d3f7eaf 856* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 857
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858 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
859 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
860 reporting them to us.
861
862** Bug fixes
863
864 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
865 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
866 3.2.
867
868 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 869
1282c124 870 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 871
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872 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
873 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
874
0ac15849 875* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 876
468455e1 877 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 878
6eb8f74f 879* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 880
6b4cb804
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881** Bug fixes
882
a1a77e1f 883 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
AD
884
885 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
886 users to the appropriate place to report them.
887
888 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
889
890 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
891 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 892
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TR
893 All the generated headers are self-contained.
894
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895** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
896
897 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
898 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
899 For instance the header generated from
900
901 %define api.prefix "calc"
902 %defines "lib/parse.h"
903
904 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
905
c12c4c50 906** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
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AD
907
908 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
909 warnings such as:
910
911 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
912 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
913 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
914 *++yyvsp = yylval;
915 ^
916
917 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
918
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AD
919 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
920 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
921 addressed.
922
e1eeecd3 923* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 924
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AD
925** Bug fixes
926
927 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
928 suite have been fixed.
929
c9d546b2
AD
930** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
931
932 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
933 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 934
dcd5344d
AD
935** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
936
937 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
938
77b214ef 939* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 940
8617d87e
AD
941 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
942
e20e6a50
AD
943** Future Changes
944
945 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
946 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
947 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
948
949 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
950
951 write:
952
953 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
954
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AD
955** Bug fixes
956
0e164d43
AD
957*** Type names are now properly escaped.
958
959*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 960
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AD
961*** Stray @ or $ in actions
962
963 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
964 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
965 now does.
966
cd735a8c 967** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
968
969 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 970 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
971
972 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
973
974 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 975 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 976
1505e8bb 977* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 978
d0a30438 979** Future changes
9553083c 980
55d1006f
AD
981 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
982 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 983
aaf61036 984*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
AD
985
986 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 987 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
988 compilers.
989
258cddbc 990*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 991
258cddbc
AD
992 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
993 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 994
258cddbc
AD
995 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
996 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
997
998 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
999 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
1000
1001*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
1002
1003 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
1004 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
1005 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
1006 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
1007 it.
0f11eec2 1008
c2425191 1009** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 1010
258cddbc 1011*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
1012
1013 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 1014 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 1015
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AD
1016 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
1017 # define YY_FOO_H
1018 ...
1019 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 1020
258cddbc 1021*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
1022
1023 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
1024 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
1025
e29f0771 1026 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
1027
1028 rather than
1029
e29f0771
AD
1030 #define yyparse bar_parse
1031 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
1032
1033 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
1034 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 1035
258cddbc
AD
1036*** Exported symbols in C++
1037
1038 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
1039 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
1040 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
1041
694af10c
AD
1042*** YYLSP_NEEDED
1043
1044 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
1045 longer defined.
1046
4b3847c3
AD
1047** New %define variable: api.prefix
1048
1049 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
1050 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
1051 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
1052 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
1053 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
1054 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
1055 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
1056
1057 The following examples compares both:
1058
1059 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
1060 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
1061 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
1062 %% %%
1063 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
1064
1065 bison generates:
1066
1067 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
1068 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
1069
1070 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
1071 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
1072 > # if defined YYDEBUG
1073 > # if YYDEBUG
1074 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
1075 > # else
1076 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
1077 > # endif
1078 > # else
1079 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
1080 > # endif
1081 # endif | # endif
1082
1083 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
1084 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
1085 # endif # endif
1086
1087 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
1088 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
1089 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
1090 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
1091 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
1092 }; };
1093 # endif # endif
1094
1095 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
1096 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1097 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1098 { {
1099 int ival; int ival;
1100 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1101 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1102 #endif #endif
1103
1104 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1105
1106 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1107
1108 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1109
dfaac272 1110* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1111
debe2c03 1112** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1113
e4ab1254 1114 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1115
466b4cf2 1116** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1117
d834eca0 1118** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1119
d834eca0 1120*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1121
e4ab1254
AD
1122 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1123 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1124
d834eca0 1125*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1126
e4ab1254
AD
1127 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1128 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1129
466b4cf2 1130** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1131
e4ab1254
AD
1132 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1133 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1134
22172d47 1135** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1136
22172d47 1137*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1138
e4ab1254
AD
1139 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1140 or higher.
936c88d1 1141
22172d47
AD
1142*** Header guards
1143
1144 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1145 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1146
e29f0771
AD
1147 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1148 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1149 ...
1150 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1151
1152 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1153 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1154 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1155
1156 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1157
e29f0771
AD
1158 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1159 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1160 ...
1161 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1162
1163*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1164
e4ab1254
AD
1165 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1166 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1167 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1168
466b4cf2
AD
1169** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1170
7e508a2b
AD
1171** Changes in the manual:
1172
1173*** %printer is documented
1174
e4ab1254
AD
1175 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1176 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1177
e4ab1254
AD
1178 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1179 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1180
1181*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1182
e4ab1254
AD
1183 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1184 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1185 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1186 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1187
86b08b49
AD
1188** Building bison:
1189
1190*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1191
e4ab1254
AD
1192 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1193 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1194
8ef26c2a
AD
1195*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1196
1197*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1198
e4ab1254
AD
1199 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1200 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1201
91aadcc7 1202*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1203
e4ab1254
AD
1204 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1205 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1206
28801043 1207* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1208
82f3355e
JD
1209** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1210
1211 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1212 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1213 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1214 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1215 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1216
f1b238df 1217** Named references:
66381412
AR
1218
1219 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1220 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1221 actions code.
1222
1223 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1224 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1225 as named references:
1226
4b568fc0 1227 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1228 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1229
1230 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1231
4b568fc0 1232 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1233 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1234
5b1ff423 1235 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1236 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1237 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1238
5b1ff423 1239 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1240 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1241 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1242
f1b238df 1243** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1244
1245 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1246 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1247 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1248 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1249 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1250 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1251 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1252 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1253 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1254
1255 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1256 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1257 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1258 file with these directives:
1259
cf499cff
JD
1260 %define lr.type lalr
1261 %define lr.type ielr
1262 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1263
7fceb615 1264 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1265 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1266 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1267 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1268
1269 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1270 stabilize them.
1271
8458a411
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1272** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1273
1274 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1275
1276 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1277 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1278 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1279 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1280 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1281 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1282 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1283 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1284 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1285 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1286 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1287
1288 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1289 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1290 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1291 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1292 inconsistent states.
1293
7fceb615
JD
1294 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1295 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1296 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1297 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1298 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1299 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1300 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1301 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1302 power.
1303
1304 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1305 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1306
1307 %define parse.lac full
1308
e4ab1254 1309 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1310 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1311
1312 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1313 stabilize it.
1314
d397d9f0 1315** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1316
f1b238df 1317*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1318
de5ab940 1319 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1320
de5ab940
JD
1321 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1322 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1323
1324 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1325 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1326
1327 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1328
de5ab940 1329 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1330
de5ab940
JD
1331 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1332 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1333 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1334 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1335
f1b238df 1336*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1337
1338 The following %define variables
1339
1340 api.push_pull
1341 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1342
1343 have been renamed to
1344
1345 api.push-pull
1346 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1347
1348 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1349 for backward compatibility.
1350
7262f54f 1351*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1352
1353 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1354 within quotations marks. For example,
1355
1356 %define api.push-pull "push"
1357
1358 can be rewritten as
1359
1360 %define api.push-pull push
1361
d397d9f0 1362*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1363
d397d9f0
JD
1364*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1365
1366** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1367
1368** Character literals not of length one:
1369
1370 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1371 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1372 the following grammar to be the same token:
1373
1374 exp: exp '++'
1375 | exp '+' exp
1376 ;
1377
1378 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1379 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1380
1381** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1382
1383 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1384 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1385 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1386 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1387
1388** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1389
1390 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1391 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1392 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1393 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1394
e29f0771
AD
1395 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1396 do \
1397 if (N) \
1398 { \
1399 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1400 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1401 } \
1402 else \
1403 { \
1404 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1405 } \
1406 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1407
1408 use:
1409
e29f0771
AD
1410 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1411 do \
1412 if (N) \
1413 { \
1414 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1415 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1416 } \
1417 else \
1418 { \
1419 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1420 } \
1421 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1422
1423** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1424
1425 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1426 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1427 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1428 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1429
f1b238df 1430** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1431
1432 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1433 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1434 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1435 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1436 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1437 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1438 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1439 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1440
f1b238df 1441** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1442
1443 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1444 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1445 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1446 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1447
1448 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1449
1450 instead of
1451
1452 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1453
1454 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1455 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1456 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1457 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1458 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1459 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1460 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1461
d2060f06
JD
1462** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1463
e4ab1254 1464 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1465 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1466 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1467 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1468 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1469
1470*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1471 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1472 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1473 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1474 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1475 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1476 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1477 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1478 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1479 shifted or discarded.
1480
1481*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1482 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1483 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1484 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1485
1486*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1487 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1488 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1489 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1490 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1491 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1492 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1493 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1494 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1495 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1496 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1497 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1498 by default.
53f036ce 1499
1a33f4f6
JD
1500** Java skeleton fixes:
1501
1502*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1503
1504*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1505 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1506
02803d55
JD
1507*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1508
86408959
JD
1509** -W/--warnings fixes:
1510
e4ab1254 1511*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1512
1513 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1514 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1515
1516 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1517
786743d5
JD
1518*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1519
1520 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1521 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1522 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1523 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1524 example:
1525
1526 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1527 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1528 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1529 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1530
1531 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1532 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1533 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1534 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1535
e4ab1254 1536*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1537
1538 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1539 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1540
1541 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1542
e4ab1254 1543*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1544
e4ab1254 1545 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1546 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1547 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1548 suppress all warnings:
1549
1550 bison -Wnone gram.y
1551
1f36f544
JD
1552** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1553
1554 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1555 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1556 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1557
1558 %left END 0
1559
1560 This bug has been fixed.
1561
64877e5e 1562* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1563
2bfcac9a
JD
1564** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1565 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1566
8b9e021f
JD
1567** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1568 been fixed.
1569
4ad3921d
JD
1570** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1571
06cb07d5
JD
1572** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1573 been fixed.
1574
9b5049bd
JD
1575** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1576 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1577 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1578 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1579
93d7dde9
JD
1580** Minor documentation fixes.
1581
e19a049c 1582* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1583
f39ab286
JD
1584** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1585 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1586 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1587 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1588 affected platforms.
1589
e4ab1254 1590** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1591
1592 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1593 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1594 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1595 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1596 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1597 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1598 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1599 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1600 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1601
d8911864
EB
1602** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1603
a603c6e0
JD
1604** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1605 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1606 avoided.
c938d650 1607
98a345a2
JD
1608** %code is now a permanent feature.
1609
1610 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1611
1612 %{CODE%}
1613
1614 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1615 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1616
1617 %code {CODE}
1618 %code requires {CODE}
1619 %code provides {CODE}
1620 %code top {CODE}
1621
1622 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1623 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1624 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1625 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1626 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1627
1628 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1629 is still considered experimental.
1630
1625df5b
JD
1631** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1632
1633 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1634 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1635 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1636 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1637 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1638 specified by POSIX.
1639
1640 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1641 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1642 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1643 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1644 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1645 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1646 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1647
1648 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1649
1650 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1651 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1652 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1653 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1654 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1655 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1656 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1657 be removed altogether.
1658
1659 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1660 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1661 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1662 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1663 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1664 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1665 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1666 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1667 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1668 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1669
2755de8f
AD
1670** Internationalization.
1671
1672 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1673 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1674 host system.
1675
74553c98 1676* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1677
0ea583d2
AD
1678** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1679 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1680
0ea583d2
AD
1681** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1682
1683 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1684 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1685
1686 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1687
1688 instead of
1689
1690 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1691
e4ab1254 1692 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1693 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1694 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1695 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1696 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1697 feature.
1698
1699** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1700
402b123d 1701* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1702
402b123d 1703** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1704
1705 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1706 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1707 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1708 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1709 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1710
402b123d 1711** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1712
402b123d 1713** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1714 fixed.
1715
402b123d 1716* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1717
402b123d 1718** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1719 are now deprecated:
1720
1721 %define NAME "VALUE"
1722
e4ab1254 1723** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1724
1725 %define api.pure
1726
1727 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1728 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1729
402b123d 1730** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1731
1732 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1733 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1734 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1735 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1736 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1737
1738 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1739 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1740
e4ab1254 1741 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1742
59da312b
JD
1743 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1744 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1745
402b123d 1746** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1747 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1748 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1749
402b123d 1750** Java
59da312b
JD
1751
1752 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1753 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1754 %skeleton to select it.
1755
e4ab1254 1756 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1757
1758 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1759 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1760 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1761
402b123d 1762** %language
59da312b
JD
1763
1764 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1765 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1766 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1767 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1768
402b123d 1769** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1770
1771 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1772 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1773 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1774 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1775
402b123d 1776** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1777 %defines. For example:
1778
1779 %defines "parser.h"
1780
402b123d 1781** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1782 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1783 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1784 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1785
402b123d 1786** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1787
1788 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1789 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1790 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1791
1792 1. Removes unreachable states.
1793
1794 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1795 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1796 directives in existing grammar files.
1797
1798 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1799 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1800
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1801 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1802
1803 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1804
e4ab1254 1805 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
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1806 for further discussion.
1807
e4ab1254 1808** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1809
e4ab1254
AD
1810 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1811 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1812 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1813 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1814 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1815 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1816 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
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1817 code.
1818
e4ab1254 1819** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1820 name.
1bb2bd75 1821
e4ab1254 1822** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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1823 deprecated:
1824
1825 %file-prefix "parser"
1826 %name-prefix "c_"
1827 %output "parser.c"
1828
e4ab1254 1829** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1830
1831 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1832 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1833 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1834 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1835 it:
1836
e4ab1254
AD
1837 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1838 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1839 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1840 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1841
e4ab1254
AD
1842 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1843 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1844 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1845 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1846
1847 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1848 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1849
402b123d 1850** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1851
1852 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1853 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1854 about unused $2 in:
1855
1856 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1857
1858 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1859 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1860
1861 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1862
1863 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1864 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1865 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1866
e4ab1254
AD
1867 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1868 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1869
e4ab1254 1870** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1871
1872 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1873 %printer's:
1874
e4ab1254 1875 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1876 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1877 declared semantic type tags.
1878
e4ab1254 1879 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1880 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1881 type tags.
1882
e4ab1254
AD
1883 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1884 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1885 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1886 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1887
85894313
JD
1888 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1889 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1890 features.
1891
e4ab1254 1892 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1893 details.
1894
402b123d 1895** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1896 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1897 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1898
402b123d 1899** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1900 completely removed from Bison.
1901
402b123d 1902* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1903
402b123d 1904** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1905 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1906 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1907 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1908 and is required by POSIX.
1909
402b123d 1910** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1911 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1912
402b123d 1913** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1914
1915 For example:
1916
b2a0b7ca
JD
1917 %union { char *string; }
1918 %token <string> STRING1
1919 %token <string> STRING2
1920 %type <string> string1
1921 %type <string> string2
1922 %union { char character; }
1923 %token <character> CHR
1924 %type <character> chr
1925 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1926 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1927 %destructor { } <character>
1928
1929 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1930 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1931 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1932 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1933 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1934
85894313
JD
1935 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1936 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1937 future versions.]
1938
e4ab1254
AD
1939** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1940 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1941 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1942 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1943 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1944
402b123d 1945** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1946 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1947
1948 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1949 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1950 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1951 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1952 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1953
34f98f46 1954 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1955 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1956 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1957 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1958 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1959 after the token definitions.
1960
1961 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1962 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1963
402b123d 1964** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1965 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1966 %after-header.
1967
1968 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1969 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1970 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1971 convenient for you:
1972
1973 %before-header {
1974 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1975 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1976 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1977 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1978 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1979 }
1980 %start-header {
1981 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1982 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1983 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1984 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1985 }
1986 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1987 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1988 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1989 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1990 }
34f98f46
JD
1991 %end-header {
1992 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1993 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1994 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1995 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1996 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1997 }
34f98f46
JD
1998 %after-header {
1999 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
2000 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
2001 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
2002 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
2003 * Bison-generated definitions. */
2004 }
2005
2006 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
2007 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 2008
85894313
JD
2009 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
2010 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
2011
e4ab1254 2012** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
2013 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
2014 in a future release.
742e4900 2015
402b123d 2016* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 2017
e4ab1254 2018** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
2019 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
2020
402b123d 2021** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
2022 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
2023
402b123d 2024* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 2025
402b123d 2026** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
2027 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
2028 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 2029
402b123d 2030** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 2031
402b123d 2032** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 2033
402b123d 2034** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
2035 their contents together.
2036
402b123d 2037** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
2038 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
2039 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 2040
8f3596a6 2041 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
2042 | exp "+" exp
2043 ;
affac613 2044
8f3596a6
AD
2045 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
2046 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 2047 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 2048
4e26c69e 2049 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
2050 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
2051 | exp "+" exp
2052 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
2053 ;
affac613 2054
4e26c69e
PE
2055 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
2056 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
2057 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 2058
8f3596a6 2059 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
2060 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
2061 ;
721be13c 2062
84866159
AD
2063 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
2064 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
2065
2066 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
2067
721be13c
PE
2068 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
2069 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 2070
402b123d 2071** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
2072 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
2073 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
2074 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 2075
402b123d 2076** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
2077 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
2078 instead of warnings.
2079
402b123d 2080** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
2081 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
2082 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 2083
e4ab1254 2084** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 2085
402b123d 2086** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
2087 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
2088 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 2089
402b123d 2090** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
2091 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
2092 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
2093 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
2094 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
2095
2096 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 2097 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
2098 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2099 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 2100
b50d2359 2101 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 2102 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 2103
402b123d 2104** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 2105\f
402b123d 2106* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 2107
402b123d 2108** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2109
402b123d 2110** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2111 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2112 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2113 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2114 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2115 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2116
402b123d 2117** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2118 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2119 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2120 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2121
402b123d 2122** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2123 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2124 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2125
402b123d 2126** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2127 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2128 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2129 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2130 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2131\f
402b123d 2132* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2133
402b123d 2134** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2135
82de6b0d
PE
2136 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2137 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2138 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2139 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2140 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2141
82de6b0d
PE
2142 - Error token location.
2143 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2144 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2145 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2146 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2147
82de6b0d
PE
2148 - Semicolon changes:
2149 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2150 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2151
82de6b0d
PE
2152 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2153 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2154 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2155 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2156
82de6b0d 2157 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2158
402b123d 2159** New features
1452af69 2160
82de6b0d 2161 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2162
82de6b0d
PE
2163 - New directive: %initial-action.
2164 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2165 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2166
82de6b0d
PE
2167 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2168 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2169
e4ab1254 2170 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2171 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2172
e4ab1254 2173 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2174 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2175
82de6b0d 2176 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2177
82de6b0d
PE
2178 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2179 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2180
402b123d 2181** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2182
82de6b0d
PE
2183 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2184 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2185 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2186 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2187 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2188 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2189
82de6b0d
PE
2190 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2191 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2192
82de6b0d 2193 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2194\f
402b123d 2195* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2196
402b123d 2197** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2198 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2199
402b123d 2200** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2201
dc546b0f
PE
2202 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2203 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2204
dc546b0f
PE
2205 - %destructor
2206 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2207 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2208
dc546b0f
PE
2209 - %error-verbose
2210 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2211
dc546b0f
PE
2212 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2213 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2214
402b123d 2215** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2216
dc546b0f
PE
2217 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2218 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2219 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2220
e4ab1254
AD
2221 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2222 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2223 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2224 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2225 be consistent.
74724a70 2226
dc546b0f
PE
2227 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2228 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2229
dc546b0f
PE
2230 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2231 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2232
dc546b0f
PE
2233 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2234 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2235
dc546b0f 2236 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2237 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2238 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2239 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2240 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2241
dc546b0f 2242 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2243
dc546b0f
PE
2244 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2245 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2246 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2247
402b123d 2248** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2249
e4ab1254
AD
2250 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2251 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2252 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2253 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2254 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2255 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2256
e4ab1254 2257 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2258 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2259
dc546b0f 2260 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2261 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2262
e4ab1254 2263 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2264 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2265 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2266
402b123d 2267** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2268
dc546b0f
PE
2269 - GLR and inline
2270 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2271 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2272
e4ab1254
AD
2273 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2274 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2275
18ad57b3
AD
2276** %parse-param and %lex-param
2277 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2278 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2279 shortcomings:
2280
2281 - a single argument only can be added,
2282 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2283 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2284 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2285
2286 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2287 For instance:
2288
2289 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2290 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2291 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2292
2293 results in the following signatures:
2294
2295 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2296 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2297
2298 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2299
2300 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2301 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2302
402b123d 2303** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2304 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2305 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2306
402b123d 2307** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2308 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2309
402b123d 2310** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2311 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2312 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2313 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2314\f
402b123d 2315* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2316
402b123d 2317** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2318
402b123d 2319** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2320
402b123d 2321** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2322 Fix spurious parse errors.
2323
402b123d 2324** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2325 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2326 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2327
402b123d 2328** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2329 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2330 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2331
e9690142 2332 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2333
2334 but the converse remains an error:
2335
e9690142 2336 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2337
402b123d 2338** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2339 The following code:
2340
e9690142 2341 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2342
2343 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2344 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2345\f
402b123d 2346* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2347
402b123d 2348** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2349 The declaration
2350 %glr-parser
2351 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2352 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2353 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2354 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2355
7933f2b5 2356 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2357 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2358
402b123d 2359** Output Directory
8c165d89 2360 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2361 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2362 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2363
402b123d 2364** Undefined token
007a50a4 2365 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2366 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2367
402b123d 2368** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2369 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2370 no longer the case.
2371
402b123d 2372** Error token
e88dbdbf 2373 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2374 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2375 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2376 will be mapped onto another number.
2377
402b123d 2378** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2379 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2380 error recovery is possible.
2381
402b123d 2382** End token
e4ab1254 2383 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2384
402b123d 2385** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2386 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2387 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2388 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2389 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2390 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2391 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2392 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2393 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2394
402b123d 2395** Traces
5504898e
AD
2396 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2397
402b123d 2398** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2399 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2400 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2401 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2402 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2403
402b123d 2404** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2405 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2406 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2407 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2408
402b123d 2409** Useless rules
643a5994 2410 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2411 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2412
402b123d 2413** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2414 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2415
402b123d 2416** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2417 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2418 reported.
2419
e4ab1254 2420** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2421 On a grammar such as
2422
e29f0771
AD
2423 %token useless useful
2424 %%
2425 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2426
2427 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2428 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2429
402b123d 2430** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2431 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2432
402b123d 2433** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2434 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2435 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2436 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2437 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2438
402b123d 2439** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2440 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2441 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2442 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2443 For instance
e29f0771 2444 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2445 or
e29f0771 2446 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2447
402b123d 2448** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2449 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2450
402b123d 2451** New translations
a861a339 2452 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2453 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2454
402b123d 2455** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2456 When given
2457 %token 'a' "A"
2458 bison used to output
2459 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2460
402b123d 2461** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2462 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2463 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2464 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2465
402b123d 2466** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2467 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2468 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2469 - itemset
2470 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2471 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2472 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2473 - solved
2474 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2475 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2476 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2477
402b123d 2478** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2479 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2480 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2481
e29f0771
AD
2482 %type <foo> bar
2483 %%
2484 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2485
2486 This is fixed.
a861a339 2487
402b123d 2488** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2489\f
402b123d 2490* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2491
402b123d 2492** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2493 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2494 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2495 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2496
2497 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2498 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2499 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2500 kludge will be disabled.
2501
2502 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2503 extended.
76551463 2504\f
402b123d 2505* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2506
402b123d 2507** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2508 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2509 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2510
e4ab1254 2511** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2512 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2513 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2514 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2515 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2516 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2517
402b123d 2518** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2519 many portability hassles.
2520
402b123d 2521** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2522
402b123d 2523** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2524\f
402b123d 2525* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2526
402b123d 2527** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2528 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2529 under some conditions.
2530
402b123d 2531** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2532 As is done with $n.
2533\f
402b123d 2534* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2535
402b123d 2536** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2537
402b123d 2538** Portability fixes
76551463 2539
402b123d 2540** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2541\f
402b123d 2542* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2543
402b123d 2544** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2545
402b123d 2546** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2547 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2548 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2549 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2550 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2551
402b123d 2552** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2553 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2554 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2555
2556 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2557 problems as on AIX.
2558
402b123d 2559** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2560
402b123d 2561** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2562 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2563
402b123d 2564** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2565 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2566 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2567 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2568
402b123d 2569** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2570 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2571 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2572
402b123d 2573** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2574 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2575
402b123d 2576** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2577 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2578
402b123d 2579** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2580 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2581
402b123d 2582** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2583 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2584 any warning.
2585
402b123d 2586** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2587
402b123d 2588** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2589
402b123d 2590** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2591
402b123d 2592** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2593 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2594 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2595 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2596
402b123d 2597** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2598 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2599 previous allocations were not freed.
2600
402b123d 2601** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2602 Some newlines were missing.
2603 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2604
402b123d 2605** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2606 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2607
402b123d 2608** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2609 Was not used.
2610 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2611
402b123d 2612** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2613
402b123d 2614** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2615
402b123d 2616** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2617
402b123d 2618** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2619 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2620
402b123d 2621** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2622
402b123d 2623** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2624 New.
2625
402b123d 2626** --output
e4ab1254 2627 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2628\f
402b123d 2629* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2630
e4ab1254
AD
2631** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2632 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2633 argument.
2634
e4ab1254 2635** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2636 experiment.
2637
402b123d 2638** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2639\f
402b123d 2640* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2641
402b123d 2642** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2643 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2644 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2645 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2646
e4ab1254 2647** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2648
402b123d 2649** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2650
402b123d 2651** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2652
402b123d 2653** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2654
402b123d 2655** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2656
402b123d 2657** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2658
e4ab1254 2659** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2660
e4ab1254 2661** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2662
e4ab1254 2663** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2664
402b123d 2665** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2666 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2667
402b123d 2668** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2669 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2670 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2671
402b123d 2672** @$
f987e9d2 2673 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2674\f
402b123d 2675* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2676
402b123d 2677** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2678
402b123d 2679** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2680
402b123d 2681** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2682
402b123d 2683** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2684\f
402b123d 2685* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2686
402b123d 2687** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2688 some systems has been fixed.
2689\f
402b123d 2690* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2691
7e508a2b 2692** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2693
402b123d 2694** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2695
402b123d 2696** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2697
402b123d 2698** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2699
402b123d 2700** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2701
402b123d 2702** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2703
402b123d 2704** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2705 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2706\f
402b123d 2707* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2708
402b123d 2709** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2710the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2711
402b123d 2712** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2713example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2714of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2715
402b123d 2716** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2717and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2718table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2719purposes.
2720
402b123d 2721** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2722directives in the parser file.
2723
402b123d 2724** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2725Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2726
402b123d 2727** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2728the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2729The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2730a switch statement body.
2731\f
402b123d 2732* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2733
4d019228
DM
2734The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2735passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2736actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2737by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2738
6780ca7a 2739Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2740\f
402b123d 2741* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2742
2743--help option added.
6780ca7a 2744\f
402b123d 2745* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2746
2747Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2748
76551463
AD
2749-----
2750
3209eb1c 2751Copyright (C) 1995-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2752
74553c98 2753This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2754
f16b0819 2755This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2756it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2757the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2758(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2759
f16b0819 2760This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2761but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2762MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2763GNU General Public License for more details.
2764
2765You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2766along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2767
2768 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2769 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2770 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2771 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2772 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2773 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2774 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2775 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2776 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2777 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2778 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2779 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2780 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2781 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2782 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
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2783 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2784 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2785 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
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2786 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2787 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2788 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2789 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2790 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2791 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
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2792
2793Local Variables:
2794mode: outline
e4ab1254 2795fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2796End: