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tests: split a large test case into several smaller ones
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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
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3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
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5** Bug fixes
6
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7*** C++ with Variants (lalr1.cc)
8
9 Problems with %destructor and '%define parse.assert' have been fixed.
10
11*** Named %union support (yacc.c, glr.c)
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12
13 Bison 3.0 introduced a regression on named %union such as
14
15 %union foo { int ival; };
16
ee028dce 17 The possibility to use a name was introduced "for Yacc compatibility".
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18 It is however not required by POSIX Yacc, and its usefulness is not clear.
19
ee028dce 20*** %define api.value.type union with %defines (yacc.c, glr.c)
8d4dc896 21
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22 The C parsers were broken when %defines was used together with "%define
23 api.value.type union".
8d4dc896 24
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25*** Redeclarations are reported in proper order
26
27 On
28
29 %token FOO "foo"
30 %printer {} "foo"
31 %printer {} FOO
32
33 bison used to report:
34
35 /tmp/foo.yy:2.10-11: error: %printer redeclaration for FOO
36 %printer {} "foo"
37 ^^
38 /tmp/foo.yy:3.10-11: previous declaration
39 %printer {} FOO
40 ^^
41
42 Now, the "previous" declaration is always the first one.
43
0bd5ee5f 44
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45** Documentation
46
47 Bison now installs various files in its docdir (which defaults to
48 '/usr/local/share/doc/bison'), including the three fully blown examples
49 extracted from the documentation:
50
51 - rpcalc
52 Reverse polish calculator, a simple introductory example.
53 - mfcalc
54 Multi-function Calc, a calculator with memory and functions and located
55 error messages.
56 - calc++
57 a calculator in C++ using variant support and token constructors.
58
a3efd13e 59* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.2 (2013-12-05) [stable]
6d94eebb 60
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61** Bug fixes
62
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63*** Generated source files when errors are reported
64
65 When warnings are issued and -Werror is set, bison would still generate
66 the source files (*.c, *.h...). As a consequence, some runs of "make"
67 could fail the first time, but not the second (as the files were generated
68 anyway).
69
70 This is fixed: bison no longer generates this source files, but, of
71 course, still produces the various reports (*.output, *.xml, etc.).
72
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73*** %empty is used in reports
74
75 Empty right-hand sides are denoted by '%empty' in all the reports (text,
76 dot, XML and formats derived from it).
77
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78*** YYERROR and variants
79
80 When C++ variant support is enabled, an error triggered via YYERROR, but
81 not caught via error recovery, resulted in a double deletion.
6d94eebb 82
c2ecada3 83* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.1 (2013-11-12) [stable]
e386b50f 84
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85** Bug fixes
86
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87*** Errors in caret diagnostics
88
89 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
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90
91*** Fixes of the -Werror option
92
93 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
94 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
95
96 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
97 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
98 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
e386b50f 99
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100*** GLR Predicates
101
102 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
103 "%?" and its "{".
104
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105*** Installation
106
107 The yacc.1 man page is no longer installed if --disable-yacc was
108 specified.
109
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110*** Fixes in the test suite
111
112 Bugs and portability issues.
113
534497f5 114* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 115
8458a411 116** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 117
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118 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
119 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
120 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
121
8458a411 122** Backward incompatible changes
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123
124*** Obsolete features
125
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126 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
127
128 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
129 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
130
131 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
132 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 133
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134 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
135 in the release 2.5).
136
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137*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
138
139 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
140 Bison extensions.
141
142 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
143 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
144 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
145
146 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
147 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
148 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
149 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
150 warnings for Bison extensions.
151
152 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
153 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
154 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
155 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
156
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157** Bug fixes
158
c21e515e 159*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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160
161 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
162 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
163 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
164 preprocessor expansion:
165
166 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
167
6c7022f7 168 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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169 identifiers for user-provided variables.
170
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171*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
172
173 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
174 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
175
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176*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
177
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178** Diagnostics reported by Bison
179
180 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
181 Santet.
73370a9d 182
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183*** Carets
184
185 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
186 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
187 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
188
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189 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
190 the caret information only. For instance on:
191
192 %%
193 exp: 'a' | 'a';
194
195 Bison 2.7 reports:
196
197 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
198 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
199
200 Now bison reports:
201
202 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
203 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
204 exp: 'a' | 'a';
205 ^^^
206
207 and "bison -fno-caret" 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 [-Wother]
211
1048a1c9 212*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 213
1048a1c9 214 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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215 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
216 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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217
218 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 219 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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220 errors (and only those):
221
222 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
223
224 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
225 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
226
227 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
228
229 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
230
231 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
232 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
233
234 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
235 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
236 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 237
46bdb8ec 238*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 239
46bdb8ec 240 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 241
46bdb8ec 242 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 243
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244 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
245 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 246 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 247
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248 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
249 with failure):
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250
251 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 252 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 253
46bdb8ec 254 it now reports:
1048a1c9 255
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256 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
257
258*** Deprecated constructs
259
260 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
261 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
262 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
263
73370a9d 264*** Useless semantic types
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265
266 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
267 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
268 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
269 types that trigger the warning:
270
271 %token <type1> term
272 %type <type2> nterm
273 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
274 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
275 %%
276 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
277
278 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
279 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
280
31557b9e 281*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 282
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283 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
284 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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285
286 %printer {} symbol1
287 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 288 %type <type> symbol3
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289 %%
290 exp: "a";
291
73370a9d 292*** Useless destructors or printers
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293
294 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
295 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
296 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
297 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
298
299 %token <type1> token1
300 <type2> token2
301 <type3> token3
302 <type4> token4
303 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
304 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
305
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306*** Conflicts
307
308 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
309 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
310
311 %glr-parser
312 %%
313 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
314
315 compare the previous version of bison:
316
317 $ bison foo.y
318 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
319 $ bison -Werror foo.y
320 bison: warnings being treated as errors
321 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
322
323 with the new behavior:
324
325 $ bison foo.y
326 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
327 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
328 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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329 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
330 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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331
332 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
333
334 %expect 0
335 %glr-parser
336 %%
337 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
338
339 Former behavior:
340
341 $ bison bar.y
342 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
343 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
344 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
345
346 New one:
347
348 $ bison bar.y
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349 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
350 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 351
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352** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
353
354 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
355 with '-Wyacc'.
356
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357** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
358
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359 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
360 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
361 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 362
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363 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
364 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
365 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
366 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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367
368 one may now declare
369
e436fa67 370 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 371
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372** Types of values for %define variables
373
374 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
375 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
376 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
377 foo {bar}'.
378
379 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
380
381 %define lr.type lalr
382
383 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
384
385 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
386
387 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
388
2a6b66c5 389** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 390
2a6b66c5 391 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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392 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
393 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
394
e436fa67 395 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 396 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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397 %%
398 start: FILE for ERROR;
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399
400 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
401 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
402 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
403 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
404
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405** Variable api.value.type
406
407 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
408 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
409 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
410
411 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
412
413 %union
414 {
415 int ival;
416 char *sval;
417 }
418 %token <ival> INT "integer"
419 %token <sval> STRING "string"
420 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
421 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
422
423 /* In yylex(). */
424 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
425 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
426
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427 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
428
429 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 430 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 431 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 432
435575cb 433 %define api.value.type union
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434 %token <int> INT "integer"
435 %token <char *> STRING "string"
436 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
437 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
438
439 /* In yylex(). */
440 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
441 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
442
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443 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
444 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 445
435575cb 446 %define api.value.type variant
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447 %token <int> INT "integer"
448 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
449
630a0218 450 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 451 used to be used.
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452
453 %code requires
454 {
455 struct my_value
456 {
457 enum
458 {
459 is_int, is_string
460 } kind;
461 union
462 {
463 int ival;
464 char *sval;
465 } u;
466 };
467 }
435575cb 468 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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469 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
470 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
471 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
472 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
473
474 /* In yylex(). */
475 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
476 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
477
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478** Variable parse.error
479
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480 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
481 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
482 verbose".
31b850d2 483
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484** Renamed %define variables
485
486 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
487 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
488
489 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
490 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
491 namespace -> api.namespace
492 stype -> api.value.type
493
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494** Semantic predicates
495
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496 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
497
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498 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
499 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 500 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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501 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
502 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
503 expressions.
ca2a6d15 504
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505** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
506
507 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
508 reduce/reduce conflicts.
509
5202b6ac 510** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 511
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512 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
513
514 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
515 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
516 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
517 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
518
519 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
520 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
521 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
522
523 %right A B 'c' 'd'
524
525 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
526 input order is now preserved.
527
528 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
529 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
530 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 531
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532** Useless precedence and associativity
533
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534 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
535
1282c124 536 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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537 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
538 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
539 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
540 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
541 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
542 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
543
544*** Precedence warning category
545
546 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
547 useless precedence and associativity directives.
548
549*** Useless associativity
550
551 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
552 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
553 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
554 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
555 For example:
556
557 %left '+'
558 %left '*'
559 %%
560 exp:
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561 "number"
562 | exp '+' "number"
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563 | exp '*' exp
564 ;
565
566 will produce a
567
568 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
569 %left '+'
570 ^^^
571
572*** Useless precedence
573
574 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
575 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
576 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
577 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
578
579 %precedence '='
580 %%
1282c124 581 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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582
583 will produce a
584
585 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
586 %precedence '='
587 ^^^
588
589*** Useless precedence and associativity
590
591 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
592 as follows:
593
594 %nonassoc '='
595 %%
1282c124 596 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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597
598 The warning is:
599
600 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
601 %nonassoc '='
602 ^^^
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603
604** Empty rules
605
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606 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
607
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608 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
609 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
610 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
611 %empty. On the following grammar:
612
613 %%
614 s: a b c;
615 a: ;
616 b: %empty;
617 c: 'a' %empty;
618
619 bison reports:
620
621 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
622 a: {}
623 ^^
624 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
625 c: 'a' %empty {};
626 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 627
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628** Java skeleton improvements
629
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630 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
631 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
632 and "%define init_throws".
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633 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
634
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635 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
636 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
637
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638** C++ skeletons improvements
639
640*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
641
642 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
643 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
644 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
645
646*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
647
648 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
649
650*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
651
652 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
653 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
654 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
655 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
656 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
657 factory invoked by the user actions).
658
659*** %define api.value.type variant
660
661 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
662 from Théophile Ranquet.
663
664 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
665 instance:
666
667 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
668 %token <int> NUMBER;
669 %token SEMICOLON ";"
670 %type <::std::string> item;
671 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
672 %%
673 result:
674 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
675 ;
676
677 list:
6240346a 678 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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679 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
680 ;
681
682 item:
683 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
684 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
685 ;
686
687*** %define api.token.constructor
688
689 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
690 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
691 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
692
693 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
694 {
695 parser::location_type loc = ...;
696 ...
697 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
698 ...
699 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
700 ...
701 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
702 ...
703 }
704
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705*** C++ locations
706
707 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
708 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
709
1f5542fe 710* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 711
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712** Bug fixes
713
714*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
715
716 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 717
e83be476
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718*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
719
c13bb348 720* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 721
edf9a06f 722** Bug fixes
7bada535 723
edf9a06f 724 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 725
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726 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
727
d4fe9e88 728** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 729
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730 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
731
d4fe9e88 732*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 733
d4fe9e88 734 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 735
d4fe9e88
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736 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
737 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 738
d4fe9e88 739 It is now:
1f1bd572 740
d4fe9e88
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741 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
742 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 743
d4fe9e88 744*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 745
d4fe9e88 746 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 747
d4fe9e88
AD
748 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
749 %type <sval> exp
750 ^^^^^^
751 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
752 %type <ival> exp
753 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 754
d4fe9e88 755 or
cbaea010 756
7bada535 757 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 758 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 759 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
760 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
761 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
762 ^^^
763 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
764 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
765 ^^^
766 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
767 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
768 ^^^
7bada535 769
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770 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
771 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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772 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
773 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 774
1f1bd572 775** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 776
1f1bd572 777 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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778 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
779 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
780 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
781 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
782 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
783
784 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
785 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 786
7287be84 787** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
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788
789 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
790 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
791 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
792 then responsible to define her type.
793
794 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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795 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
796 them.
db8ab2be
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797
798 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
799 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
800 compatibility).
801
7287be84
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802 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
803 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
804 api.position.type.
805
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806** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
807
808 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
809 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
810 before re-throwing the exception.
811
812 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
813 appreciated.
814
9c16d399 815** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 816
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817 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
818
fc4fdd62
TR
819 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
820 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
821 numbered and left-justified.
822
823 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
824 diamond shaped nodes.
825
9c16d399
TR
826 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
827 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
828
d4fe9e88 829** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 830
d4fe9e88
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831 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
832 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 833
53e2cd1e
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834** Documentation
835
836 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
837 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 838
d4fe9e88
AD
839 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
840 were not properly documented.
841
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842 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
843
9d3f7eaf 844* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 845
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846 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
847 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
848 reporting them to us.
849
850** Bug fixes
851
852 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
853 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
854 3.2.
855
856 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 857
1282c124 858 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 859
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860 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
861 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
862
0ac15849 863* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 864
468455e1 865 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 866
6eb8f74f 867* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 868
6b4cb804
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869** Bug fixes
870
a1a77e1f 871 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
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872
873 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
874 users to the appropriate place to report them.
875
876 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
877
878 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
879 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 880
a2b3f101
TR
881 All the generated headers are self-contained.
882
c9d5bcc9
AD
883** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
884
885 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
886 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
887 For instance the header generated from
888
889 %define api.prefix "calc"
890 %defines "lib/parse.h"
891
892 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
893
c12c4c50 894** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
321d3e35
AD
895
896 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
897 warnings such as:
898
899 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
900 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
901 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
902 *++yyvsp = yylval;
903 ^
904
905 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
906
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AD
907 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
908 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
909 addressed.
910
e1eeecd3 911* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 912
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AD
913** Bug fixes
914
915 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
916 suite have been fixed.
917
c9d546b2
AD
918** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
919
920 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
921 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 922
dcd5344d
AD
923** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
924
925 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
926
77b214ef 927* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 928
8617d87e
AD
929 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
930
e20e6a50
AD
931** Future Changes
932
933 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
934 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
935 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
936
937 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
938
939 write:
940
941 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
942
8617d87e
AD
943** Bug fixes
944
0e164d43
AD
945*** Type names are now properly escaped.
946
947*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 948
26313726
AD
949*** Stray @ or $ in actions
950
951 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
952 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
953 now does.
954
cd735a8c 955** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
956
957 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 958 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
959
960 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
961
962 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 963 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 964
1505e8bb 965* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 966
d0a30438 967** Future changes
9553083c 968
55d1006f
AD
969 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
970 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 971
aaf61036 972*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
AD
973
974 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 975 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
976 compilers.
977
258cddbc 978*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 979
258cddbc
AD
980 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
981 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 982
258cddbc
AD
983 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
984 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
985
986 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
987 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
988
989*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
990
991 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
992 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
993 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
994 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
995 it.
0f11eec2 996
c2425191 997** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 998
258cddbc 999*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
1000
1001 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 1002 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 1003
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AD
1004 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
1005 # define YY_FOO_H
1006 ...
1007 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 1008
258cddbc 1009*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
1010
1011 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
1012 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
1013
e29f0771 1014 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
1015
1016 rather than
1017
e29f0771
AD
1018 #define yyparse bar_parse
1019 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
1020
1021 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
1022 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 1023
258cddbc
AD
1024*** Exported symbols in C++
1025
1026 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
1027 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
1028 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
1029
694af10c
AD
1030*** YYLSP_NEEDED
1031
1032 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
1033 longer defined.
1034
4b3847c3
AD
1035** New %define variable: api.prefix
1036
1037 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
1038 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
1039 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
1040 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
1041 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
1042 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
1043 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
1044
1045 The following examples compares both:
1046
1047 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
1048 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
1049 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
1050 %% %%
1051 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
1052
1053 bison generates:
1054
1055 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
1056 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
1057
1058 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
1059 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
1060 > # if defined YYDEBUG
1061 > # if YYDEBUG
1062 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
1063 > # else
1064 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
1065 > # endif
1066 > # else
1067 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
1068 > # endif
1069 # endif | # endif
1070
1071 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
1072 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
1073 # endif # endif
1074
1075 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
1076 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
1077 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
1078 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
1079 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
1080 }; };
1081 # endif # endif
1082
1083 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
1084 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1085 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1086 { {
1087 int ival; int ival;
1088 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1089 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1090 #endif #endif
1091
1092 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1093
1094 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1095
1096 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1097
dfaac272 1098* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1099
debe2c03 1100** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1101
e4ab1254 1102 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1103
466b4cf2 1104** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1105
d834eca0 1106** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1107
d834eca0 1108*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1109
e4ab1254
AD
1110 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1111 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1112
d834eca0 1113*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1114
e4ab1254
AD
1115 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1116 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1117
466b4cf2 1118** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1119
e4ab1254
AD
1120 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1121 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1122
22172d47 1123** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1124
22172d47 1125*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1126
e4ab1254
AD
1127 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1128 or higher.
936c88d1 1129
22172d47
AD
1130*** Header guards
1131
1132 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1133 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1134
e29f0771
AD
1135 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1136 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1137 ...
1138 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1139
1140 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1141 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1142 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1143
1144 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1145
e29f0771
AD
1146 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1147 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1148 ...
1149 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1150
1151*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1152
e4ab1254
AD
1153 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1154 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1155 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1156
466b4cf2
AD
1157** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1158
7e508a2b
AD
1159** Changes in the manual:
1160
1161*** %printer is documented
1162
e4ab1254
AD
1163 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1164 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1165
e4ab1254
AD
1166 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1167 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1168
1169*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1170
e4ab1254
AD
1171 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1172 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1173 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1174 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1175
86b08b49
AD
1176** Building bison:
1177
1178*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1179
e4ab1254
AD
1180 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1181 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1182
8ef26c2a
AD
1183*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1184
1185*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1186
e4ab1254
AD
1187 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1188 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1189
91aadcc7 1190*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1191
e4ab1254
AD
1192 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1193 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1194
28801043 1195* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1196
82f3355e
JD
1197** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1198
1199 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1200 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1201 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1202 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1203 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1204
f1b238df 1205** Named references:
66381412
AR
1206
1207 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1208 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1209 actions code.
1210
1211 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1212 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1213 as named references:
1214
4b568fc0 1215 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1216 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1217
1218 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1219
4b568fc0 1220 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1221 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1222
5b1ff423 1223 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1224 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1225 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1226
5b1ff423 1227 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1228 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1229 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1230
f1b238df 1231** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1232
1233 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1234 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1235 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1236 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1237 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
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1238 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1239 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1240 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1241 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1242
1243 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1244 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1245 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1246 file with these directives:
1247
cf499cff
JD
1248 %define lr.type lalr
1249 %define lr.type ielr
1250 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1251
7fceb615 1252 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
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1253 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1254 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1255 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1256
1257 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1258 stabilize them.
1259
8458a411
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1260** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1261
1262 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1263
1264 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1265 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1266 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1267 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1268 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1269 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1270 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1271 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1272 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
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1273 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1274 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1275
1276 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1277 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1278 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1279 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1280 inconsistent states.
1281
7fceb615
JD
1282 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1283 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1284 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1285 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1286 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1287 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1288 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1289 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1290 power.
1291
1292 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1293 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1294
1295 %define parse.lac full
1296
e4ab1254 1297 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1298 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1299
1300 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1301 stabilize it.
1302
d397d9f0 1303** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1304
f1b238df 1305*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1306
de5ab940 1307 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1308
de5ab940
JD
1309 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1310 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1311
1312 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1313 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1314
1315 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1316
de5ab940 1317 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1318
de5ab940
JD
1319 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1320 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1321 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1322 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1323
f1b238df 1324*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1325
1326 The following %define variables
1327
1328 api.push_pull
1329 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1330
1331 have been renamed to
1332
1333 api.push-pull
1334 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1335
1336 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1337 for backward compatibility.
1338
7262f54f 1339*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1340
1341 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1342 within quotations marks. For example,
1343
1344 %define api.push-pull "push"
1345
1346 can be rewritten as
1347
1348 %define api.push-pull push
1349
d397d9f0 1350*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1351
d397d9f0
JD
1352*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1353
1354** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1355
1356** Character literals not of length one:
1357
1358 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1359 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1360 the following grammar to be the same token:
1361
1362 exp: exp '++'
1363 | exp '+' exp
1364 ;
1365
1366 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1367 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1368
1369** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1370
1371 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1372 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1373 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1374 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1375
1376** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1377
1378 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1379 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1380 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1381 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1382
e29f0771
AD
1383 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1384 do \
1385 if (N) \
1386 { \
1387 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1388 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1389 } \
1390 else \
1391 { \
1392 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1393 } \
1394 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1395
1396 use:
1397
e29f0771
AD
1398 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1399 do \
1400 if (N) \
1401 { \
1402 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1403 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1404 } \
1405 else \
1406 { \
1407 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1408 } \
1409 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1410
1411** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1412
1413 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1414 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1415 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1416 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1417
f1b238df 1418** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1419
1420 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1421 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1422 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1423 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1424 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1425 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1426 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1427 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1428
f1b238df 1429** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1430
1431 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1432 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1433 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1434 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1435
1436 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1437
1438 instead of
1439
1440 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1441
1442 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1443 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1444 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1445 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1446 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1447 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1448 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1449
d2060f06
JD
1450** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1451
e4ab1254 1452 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1453 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1454 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1455 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1456 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1457
1458*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1459 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1460 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1461 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1462 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1463 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1464 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1465 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1466 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1467 shifted or discarded.
1468
1469*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1470 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1471 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1472 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1473
1474*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1475 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1476 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1477 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1478 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1479 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1480 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1481 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1482 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1483 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1484 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1485 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1486 by default.
53f036ce 1487
1a33f4f6
JD
1488** Java skeleton fixes:
1489
1490*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1491
1492*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1493 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1494
02803d55
JD
1495*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1496
86408959
JD
1497** -W/--warnings fixes:
1498
e4ab1254 1499*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1500
1501 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1502 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1503
1504 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1505
786743d5
JD
1506*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1507
1508 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1509 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1510 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1511 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1512 example:
1513
1514 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1515 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1516 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1517 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1518
1519 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1520 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1521 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1522 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1523
e4ab1254 1524*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1525
1526 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1527 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1528
1529 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1530
e4ab1254 1531*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1532
e4ab1254 1533 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1534 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1535 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1536 suppress all warnings:
1537
1538 bison -Wnone gram.y
1539
1f36f544
JD
1540** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1541
1542 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1543 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1544 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1545
1546 %left END 0
1547
1548 This bug has been fixed.
1549
64877e5e 1550* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1551
2bfcac9a
JD
1552** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1553 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1554
8b9e021f
JD
1555** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1556 been fixed.
1557
4ad3921d
JD
1558** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1559
06cb07d5
JD
1560** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1561 been fixed.
1562
9b5049bd
JD
1563** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1564 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1565 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1566 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1567
93d7dde9
JD
1568** Minor documentation fixes.
1569
e19a049c 1570* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1571
f39ab286
JD
1572** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1573 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1574 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1575 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1576 affected platforms.
1577
e4ab1254 1578** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1579
1580 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1581 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1582 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1583 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1584 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1585 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1586 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1587 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1588 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1589
d8911864
EB
1590** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1591
a603c6e0
JD
1592** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1593 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1594 avoided.
c938d650 1595
98a345a2
JD
1596** %code is now a permanent feature.
1597
1598 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1599
1600 %{CODE%}
1601
1602 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1603 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1604
1605 %code {CODE}
1606 %code requires {CODE}
1607 %code provides {CODE}
1608 %code top {CODE}
1609
1610 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1611 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1612 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1613 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1614 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1615
1616 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1617 is still considered experimental.
1618
1625df5b
JD
1619** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1620
1621 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1622 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1623 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1624 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1625 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1626 specified by POSIX.
1627
1628 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1629 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1630 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1631 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1632 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1633 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1634 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1635
1636 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1637
1638 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1639 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1640 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1641 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1642 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1643 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1644 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1645 be removed altogether.
1646
1647 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1648 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1649 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1650 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1651 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1652 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1653 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1654 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1655 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1656 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1657
2755de8f
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1658** Internationalization.
1659
1660 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1661 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1662 host system.
1663
74553c98 1664* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1665
0ea583d2
AD
1666** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1667 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1668
0ea583d2
AD
1669** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1670
1671 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1672 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1673
1674 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1675
1676 instead of
1677
1678 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1679
e4ab1254 1680 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1681 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1682 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1683 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1684 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1685 feature.
1686
1687** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1688
402b123d 1689* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1690
402b123d 1691** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1692
1693 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1694 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1695 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1696 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1697 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1698
402b123d 1699** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1700
402b123d 1701** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1702 fixed.
1703
402b123d 1704* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1705
402b123d 1706** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1707 are now deprecated:
1708
1709 %define NAME "VALUE"
1710
e4ab1254 1711** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1712
1713 %define api.pure
1714
1715 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1716 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1717
402b123d 1718** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1719
1720 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1721 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1722 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1723 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1724 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1725
1726 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1727 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1728
e4ab1254 1729 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1730
59da312b
JD
1731 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1732 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1733
402b123d 1734** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1735 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1736 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1737
402b123d 1738** Java
59da312b
JD
1739
1740 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1741 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1742 %skeleton to select it.
1743
e4ab1254 1744 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1745
1746 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1747 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1748 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1749
402b123d 1750** %language
59da312b
JD
1751
1752 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1753 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1754 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1755 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1756
402b123d 1757** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1758
1759 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1760 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1761 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1762 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1763
402b123d 1764** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1765 %defines. For example:
1766
1767 %defines "parser.h"
1768
402b123d 1769** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1770 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1771 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1772 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1773
402b123d 1774** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1775
1776 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1777 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1778 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1779
1780 1. Removes unreachable states.
1781
1782 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1783 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1784 directives in existing grammar files.
1785
1786 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1787 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1788
31984206
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1789 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1790
1791 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1792
e4ab1254 1793 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
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1794 for further discussion.
1795
e4ab1254 1796** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1797
e4ab1254
AD
1798 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1799 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
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1800 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1801 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1802 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1803 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1804 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
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1805 code.
1806
e4ab1254 1807** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1808 name.
1bb2bd75 1809
e4ab1254 1810** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
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1811 deprecated:
1812
1813 %file-prefix "parser"
1814 %name-prefix "c_"
1815 %output "parser.c"
1816
e4ab1254 1817** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1818
1819 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1820 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1821 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1822 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1823 it:
1824
e4ab1254
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1825 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1826 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1827 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1828 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1829
e4ab1254
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1830 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1831 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1832 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1833 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1834
1835 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1836 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1837
402b123d 1838** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1839
1840 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1841 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1842 about unused $2 in:
1843
1844 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1845
1846 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1847 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1848
1849 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1850
1851 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1852 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1853 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1854
e4ab1254
AD
1855 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1856 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1857
e4ab1254 1858** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1859
1860 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1861 %printer's:
1862
e4ab1254 1863 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1864 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1865 declared semantic type tags.
1866
e4ab1254 1867 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1868 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1869 type tags.
1870
e4ab1254
AD
1871 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1872 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1873 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1874 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1875
85894313
JD
1876 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1877 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1878 features.
1879
e4ab1254 1880 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1881 details.
1882
402b123d 1883** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1884 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1885 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1886
402b123d 1887** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1888 completely removed from Bison.
1889
402b123d 1890* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1891
402b123d 1892** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1893 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1894 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1895 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1896 and is required by POSIX.
1897
402b123d 1898** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1899 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1900
402b123d 1901** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1902
1903 For example:
1904
b2a0b7ca
JD
1905 %union { char *string; }
1906 %token <string> STRING1
1907 %token <string> STRING2
1908 %type <string> string1
1909 %type <string> string2
1910 %union { char character; }
1911 %token <character> CHR
1912 %type <character> chr
1913 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1914 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1915 %destructor { } <character>
1916
1917 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1918 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1919 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1920 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1921 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1922
85894313
JD
1923 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1924 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1925 future versions.]
1926
e4ab1254
AD
1927** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1928 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1929 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1930 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1931 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1932
402b123d 1933** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1934 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1935
1936 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1937 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1938 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1939 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1940 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1941
34f98f46 1942 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1943 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1944 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1945 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1946 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1947 after the token definitions.
1948
1949 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1950 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1951
402b123d 1952** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1953 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1954 %after-header.
1955
1956 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1957 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1958 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1959 convenient for you:
1960
1961 %before-header {
1962 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1963 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1964 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1965 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1966 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1967 }
1968 %start-header {
1969 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1970 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1971 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1972 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1973 }
1974 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1975 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1976 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1977 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1978 }
34f98f46
JD
1979 %end-header {
1980 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1981 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1982 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1983 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1984 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1985 }
34f98f46
JD
1986 %after-header {
1987 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1988 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1989 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1990 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1991 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1992 }
1993
1994 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1995 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1996
85894313
JD
1997 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1998 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1999
e4ab1254 2000** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
2001 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
2002 in a future release.
742e4900 2003
402b123d 2004* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 2005
e4ab1254 2006** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
2007 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
2008
402b123d 2009** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
2010 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
2011
402b123d 2012* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 2013
402b123d 2014** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
2015 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
2016 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 2017
402b123d 2018** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 2019
402b123d 2020** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 2021
402b123d 2022** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
2023 their contents together.
2024
402b123d 2025** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
2026 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
2027 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 2028
8f3596a6 2029 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
2030 | exp "+" exp
2031 ;
affac613 2032
8f3596a6
AD
2033 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
2034 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 2035 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 2036
4e26c69e 2037 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
2038 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
2039 | exp "+" exp
2040 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
2041 ;
affac613 2042
4e26c69e
PE
2043 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
2044 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
2045 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 2046
8f3596a6 2047 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
2048 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
2049 ;
721be13c 2050
84866159
AD
2051 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
2052 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
2053
2054 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
2055
721be13c
PE
2056 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
2057 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 2058
402b123d 2059** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
2060 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
2061 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
2062 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 2063
402b123d 2064** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
2065 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
2066 instead of warnings.
2067
402b123d 2068** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
2069 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
2070 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 2071
e4ab1254 2072** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 2073
402b123d 2074** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
2075 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
2076 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 2077
402b123d 2078** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
2079 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
2080 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
2081 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
2082 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
2083
2084 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 2085 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
2086 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2087 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 2088
b50d2359 2089 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 2090 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 2091
402b123d 2092** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 2093\f
402b123d 2094* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 2095
402b123d 2096** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2097
402b123d 2098** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2099 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2100 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2101 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2102 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2103 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2104
402b123d 2105** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2106 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2107 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2108 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2109
402b123d 2110** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2111 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2112 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2113
402b123d 2114** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2115 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2116 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2117 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2118 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2119\f
402b123d 2120* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2121
402b123d 2122** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2123
82de6b0d
PE
2124 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2125 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2126 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2127 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2128 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2129
82de6b0d
PE
2130 - Error token location.
2131 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2132 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2133 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2134 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2135
82de6b0d
PE
2136 - Semicolon changes:
2137 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2138 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2139
82de6b0d
PE
2140 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2141 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2142 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2143 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2144
82de6b0d 2145 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2146
402b123d 2147** New features
1452af69 2148
82de6b0d 2149 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2150
82de6b0d
PE
2151 - New directive: %initial-action.
2152 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2153 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2154
82de6b0d
PE
2155 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2156 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2157
e4ab1254 2158 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2159 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2160
e4ab1254 2161 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2162 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2163
82de6b0d 2164 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2165
82de6b0d
PE
2166 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2167 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2168
402b123d 2169** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2170
82de6b0d
PE
2171 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2172 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2173 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2174 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2175 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2176 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2177
82de6b0d
PE
2178 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2179 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2180
82de6b0d 2181 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2182\f
402b123d 2183* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2184
402b123d 2185** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2186 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2187
402b123d 2188** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2189
dc546b0f
PE
2190 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2191 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2192
dc546b0f
PE
2193 - %destructor
2194 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2195 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2196
dc546b0f
PE
2197 - %error-verbose
2198 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2199
dc546b0f
PE
2200 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2201 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2202
402b123d 2203** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2204
dc546b0f
PE
2205 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2206 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2207 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2208
e4ab1254
AD
2209 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2210 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2211 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2212 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2213 be consistent.
74724a70 2214
dc546b0f
PE
2215 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2216 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2217
dc546b0f
PE
2218 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2219 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2220
dc546b0f
PE
2221 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2222 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2223
dc546b0f 2224 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2225 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2226 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2227 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2228 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2229
dc546b0f 2230 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2231
dc546b0f
PE
2232 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2233 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2234 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2235
402b123d 2236** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2237
e4ab1254
AD
2238 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2239 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2240 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2241 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2242 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2243 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2244
e4ab1254 2245 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2246 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2247
dc546b0f 2248 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2249 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2250
e4ab1254 2251 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2252 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2253 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2254
402b123d 2255** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2256
dc546b0f
PE
2257 - GLR and inline
2258 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2259 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2260
e4ab1254
AD
2261 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2262 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2263
18ad57b3
AD
2264** %parse-param and %lex-param
2265 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2266 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2267 shortcomings:
2268
2269 - a single argument only can be added,
2270 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2271 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2272 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2273
2274 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2275 For instance:
2276
2277 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2278 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2279 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2280
2281 results in the following signatures:
2282
2283 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2284 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2285
2286 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2287
2288 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2289 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2290
402b123d 2291** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2292 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2293 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2294
402b123d 2295** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2296 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2297
402b123d 2298** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2299 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2300 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2301 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2302\f
402b123d 2303* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2304
402b123d 2305** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2306
402b123d 2307** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2308
402b123d 2309** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2310 Fix spurious parse errors.
2311
402b123d 2312** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2313 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2314 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2315
402b123d 2316** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2317 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2318 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2319
e9690142 2320 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2321
2322 but the converse remains an error:
2323
e9690142 2324 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2325
402b123d 2326** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2327 The following code:
2328
e9690142 2329 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2330
2331 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2332 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2333\f
402b123d 2334* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2335
402b123d 2336** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2337 The declaration
2338 %glr-parser
2339 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2340 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2341 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2342 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2343
7933f2b5 2344 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2345 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2346
402b123d 2347** Output Directory
8c165d89 2348 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2349 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2350 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2351
402b123d 2352** Undefined token
007a50a4 2353 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2354 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2355
402b123d 2356** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2357 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2358 no longer the case.
2359
402b123d 2360** Error token
e88dbdbf 2361 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2362 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2363 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2364 will be mapped onto another number.
2365
402b123d 2366** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2367 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2368 error recovery is possible.
2369
402b123d 2370** End token
e4ab1254 2371 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2372
402b123d 2373** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2374 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2375 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2376 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2377 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2378 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2379 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2380 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2381 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2382
402b123d 2383** Traces
5504898e
AD
2384 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2385
402b123d 2386** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2387 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2388 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2389 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2390 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2391
402b123d 2392** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2393 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2394 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2395 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2396
402b123d 2397** Useless rules
643a5994 2398 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2399 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2400
402b123d 2401** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2402 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2403
402b123d 2404** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2405 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2406 reported.
2407
e4ab1254 2408** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2409 On a grammar such as
2410
e29f0771
AD
2411 %token useless useful
2412 %%
2413 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2414
2415 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2416 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2417
402b123d 2418** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2419 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2420
402b123d 2421** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2422 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2423 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2424 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2425 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2426
402b123d 2427** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2428 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2429 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2430 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2431 For instance
e29f0771 2432 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2433 or
e29f0771 2434 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2435
402b123d 2436** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2437 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2438
402b123d 2439** New translations
a861a339 2440 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2441 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2442
402b123d 2443** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2444 When given
2445 %token 'a' "A"
2446 bison used to output
2447 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2448
402b123d 2449** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2450 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2451 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2452 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2453
402b123d 2454** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2455 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2456 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2457 - itemset
2458 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2459 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2460 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2461 - solved
2462 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2463 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2464 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2465
402b123d 2466** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2467 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2468 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2469
e29f0771
AD
2470 %type <foo> bar
2471 %%
2472 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2473
2474 This is fixed.
a861a339 2475
402b123d 2476** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2477\f
402b123d 2478* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2479
402b123d 2480** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2481 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2482 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2483 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2484
2485 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2486 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2487 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2488 kludge will be disabled.
2489
2490 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2491 extended.
76551463 2492\f
402b123d 2493* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2494
402b123d 2495** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2496 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2497 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2498
e4ab1254 2499** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2500 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2501 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2502 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2503 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2504 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2505
402b123d 2506** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2507 many portability hassles.
2508
402b123d 2509** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2510
402b123d 2511** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2512\f
402b123d 2513* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2514
402b123d 2515** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2516 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2517 under some conditions.
2518
402b123d 2519** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2520 As is done with $n.
2521\f
402b123d 2522* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2523
402b123d 2524** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2525
402b123d 2526** Portability fixes
76551463 2527
402b123d 2528** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2529\f
402b123d 2530* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2531
402b123d 2532** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2533
402b123d 2534** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2535 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2536 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2537 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2538 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2539
402b123d 2540** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2541 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2542 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2543
2544 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2545 problems as on AIX.
2546
402b123d 2547** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2548
402b123d 2549** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2550 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2551
402b123d 2552** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2553 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2554 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2555 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2556
402b123d 2557** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2558 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2559 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2560
402b123d 2561** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2562 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2563
402b123d 2564** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2565 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2566
402b123d 2567** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2568 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2569
402b123d 2570** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2571 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2572 any warning.
2573
402b123d 2574** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2575
402b123d 2576** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2577
402b123d 2578** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2579
402b123d 2580** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2581 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2582 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2583 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2584
402b123d 2585** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2586 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2587 previous allocations were not freed.
2588
402b123d 2589** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2590 Some newlines were missing.
2591 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2592
402b123d 2593** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2594 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2595
402b123d 2596** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2597 Was not used.
2598 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2599
402b123d 2600** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2601
402b123d 2602** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2603
402b123d 2604** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2605
402b123d 2606** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2607 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2608
402b123d 2609** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2610
402b123d 2611** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2612 New.
2613
402b123d 2614** --output
e4ab1254 2615 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2616\f
402b123d 2617* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2618
e4ab1254
AD
2619** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2620 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2621 argument.
2622
e4ab1254 2623** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2624 experiment.
2625
402b123d 2626** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2627\f
402b123d 2628* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2629
402b123d 2630** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2631 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2632 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2633 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2634
e4ab1254 2635** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2636
402b123d 2637** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2638
402b123d 2639** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2640
402b123d 2641** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2642
402b123d 2643** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2644
402b123d 2645** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2646
e4ab1254 2647** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2648
e4ab1254 2649** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2650
e4ab1254 2651** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2652
402b123d 2653** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2654 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2655
402b123d 2656** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2657 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2658 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2659
402b123d 2660** @$
f987e9d2 2661 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2662\f
402b123d 2663* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2664
402b123d 2665** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2666
402b123d 2667** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2668
402b123d 2669** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2670
402b123d 2671** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2672\f
402b123d 2673* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2674
402b123d 2675** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2676 some systems has been fixed.
2677\f
402b123d 2678* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2679
7e508a2b 2680** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2681
402b123d 2682** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2683
402b123d 2684** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2685
402b123d 2686** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2687
402b123d 2688** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2689
402b123d 2690** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2691
402b123d 2692** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2693 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2694\f
402b123d 2695* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2696
402b123d 2697** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2698the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2699
402b123d 2700** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2701example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2702of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2703
402b123d 2704** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2705and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2706table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2707purposes.
2708
402b123d 2709** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2710directives in the parser file.
2711
402b123d 2712** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2713Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2714
402b123d 2715** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2716the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2717The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2718a switch statement body.
2719\f
402b123d 2720* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2721
4d019228
DM
2722The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2723passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2724actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2725by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2726
6780ca7a 2727Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2728\f
402b123d 2729* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2730
2731--help option added.
6780ca7a 2732\f
402b123d 2733* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2734
2735Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2736
76551463
AD
2737-----
2738
3209eb1c 2739Copyright (C) 1995-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2740
74553c98 2741This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2742
f16b0819 2743This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2744it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2745the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2746(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2747
f16b0819 2748This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2749but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2750MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2751GNU General Public License for more details.
2752
2753You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2754along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2755
2756 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2757 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2758 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2759 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2760 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2761 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2762 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2763 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2764 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2765 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2766 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2767 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2768 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2769 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2770 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
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2771 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2772 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2773 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
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2774 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2775 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2776 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2777 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2778 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2779 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
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2780
2781Local Variables:
2782mode: outline
e4ab1254 2783fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2784End: