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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*** Portability issues in the test suite.
8
9*** Fixes of the -Werror option
10
11 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
12 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
13
14 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
15 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
16 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
e386b50f 17
534497f5 18* Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
facb910c 19
8458a411 20** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 21
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22 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
23 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
24 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
25
8458a411 26** Backward incompatible changes
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27
28*** Obsolete features
29
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30 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
31
32 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
33 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
34
35 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
36 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 37
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38 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
39 in the release 2.5).
40
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41*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
42
43 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
44 Bison extensions.
45
46 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
47 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
48 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
49
50 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
51 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
52 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
53 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
54 warnings for Bison extensions.
55
56 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
57 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
58 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
59 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
60
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61** Bug fixes
62
c21e515e 63*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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64
65 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
66 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
67 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
68 preprocessor expansion:
69
70 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
71
6c7022f7 72 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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73 identifiers for user-provided variables.
74
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75*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
76
77 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
78 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
79
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80*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
81
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82** Diagnostics reported by Bison
83
84 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
85 Santet.
73370a9d 86
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87*** Carets
88
89 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
90 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
91 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
92
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93 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
94 the caret information only. For instance on:
95
96 %%
97 exp: 'a' | 'a';
98
99 Bison 2.7 reports:
100
101 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
102 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
103
104 Now bison reports:
105
106 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
107 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
108 exp: 'a' | 'a';
109 ^^^
110
111 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
112
113 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
114 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
115
1048a1c9 116*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 117
1048a1c9 118 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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119 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
120 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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121
122 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 123 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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124 errors (and only those):
125
126 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
127
128 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
129 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
130
131 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
132
133 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
134
135 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
136 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
137
138 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
139 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
140 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 141
46bdb8ec 142*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 143
46bdb8ec 144 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 145
46bdb8ec 146 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 147
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148 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
149 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 150 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 151
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152 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
153 with failure):
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154
155 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 156 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 157
46bdb8ec 158 it now reports:
1048a1c9 159
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160 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
161
162*** Deprecated constructs
163
164 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
165 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
166 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
167
73370a9d 168*** Useless semantic types
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169
170 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
171 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
172 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
173 types that trigger the warning:
174
175 %token <type1> term
176 %type <type2> nterm
177 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
178 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
179 %%
180 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
181
182 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
183 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
184
31557b9e 185*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 186
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187 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
188 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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189
190 %printer {} symbol1
191 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 192 %type <type> symbol3
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193 %%
194 exp: "a";
195
73370a9d 196*** Useless destructors or printers
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197
198 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
199 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
200 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
201 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
202
203 %token <type1> token1
204 <type2> token2
205 <type3> token3
206 <type4> token4
207 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
208 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
209
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210*** Conflicts
211
212 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
213 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
214
215 %glr-parser
216 %%
217 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
218
219 compare the previous version of bison:
220
221 $ bison foo.y
222 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
223 $ bison -Werror foo.y
224 bison: warnings being treated as errors
225 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
226
227 with the new behavior:
228
229 $ bison foo.y
230 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
231 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
232 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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233 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
234 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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235
236 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
237
238 %expect 0
239 %glr-parser
240 %%
241 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
242
243 Former behavior:
244
245 $ bison bar.y
246 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
247 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
248 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
249
250 New one:
251
252 $ bison bar.y
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253 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
254 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 255
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256** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
257
258 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
259 with '-Wyacc'.
260
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261** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
262
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263 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
264 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
265 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 266
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267 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
268 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
269 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
270 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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271
272 one may now declare
273
e436fa67 274 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 275
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276** Types of values for %define variables
277
278 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
279 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
280 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
281 foo {bar}'.
282
283 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
284
285 %define lr.type lalr
286
287 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
288
289 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
290
291 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
292
2a6b66c5 293** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 294
2a6b66c5 295 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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296 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
297 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
298
e436fa67 299 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 300 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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301 %%
302 start: FILE for ERROR;
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303
304 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
305 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
306 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
307 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
308
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309** Variable api.value.type
310
311 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
312 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
313 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
314
315 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
316
317 %union
318 {
319 int ival;
320 char *sval;
321 }
322 %token <ival> INT "integer"
323 %token <sval> STRING "string"
324 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
325 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
326
327 /* In yylex(). */
328 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
329 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
330
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331 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
332
333 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 334 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 335 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 336
435575cb 337 %define api.value.type union
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338 %token <int> INT "integer"
339 %token <char *> STRING "string"
340 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
341 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
342
343 /* In yylex(). */
344 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
345 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
346
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347 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
348 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 349
435575cb 350 %define api.value.type variant
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351 %token <int> INT "integer"
352 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
353
630a0218 354 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 355 used to be used.
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356
357 %code requires
358 {
359 struct my_value
360 {
361 enum
362 {
363 is_int, is_string
364 } kind;
365 union
366 {
367 int ival;
368 char *sval;
369 } u;
370 };
371 }
435575cb 372 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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373 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
374 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
375 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
376 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
377
378 /* In yylex(). */
379 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
380 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
381
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382** Variable parse.error
383
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384 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
385 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
386 verbose".
31b850d2 387
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388** Renamed %define variables
389
390 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
391 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
392
393 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
394 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
395 namespace -> api.namespace
396 stype -> api.value.type
397
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398** Semantic predicates
399
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400 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
401
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402 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
403 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 404 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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405 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
406 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
407 expressions.
ca2a6d15 408
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409** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
410
411 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
412 reduce/reduce conflicts.
413
5202b6ac 414** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 415
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416 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
417
418 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
419 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
420 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
421 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
422
423 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
424 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
425 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
426
427 %right A B 'c' 'd'
428
429 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
430 input order is now preserved.
431
432 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
433 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
434 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 435
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436** Useless precedence and associativity
437
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438 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
439
1282c124 440 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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441 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
442 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
443 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
444 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
445 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
446 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
447
448*** Precedence warning category
449
450 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
451 useless precedence and associativity directives.
452
453*** Useless associativity
454
455 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
456 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
457 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
458 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
459 For example:
460
461 %left '+'
462 %left '*'
463 %%
464 exp:
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465 "number"
466 | exp '+' "number"
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467 | exp '*' exp
468 ;
469
470 will produce a
471
472 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
473 %left '+'
474 ^^^
475
476*** Useless precedence
477
478 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
479 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
480 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
481 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
482
483 %precedence '='
484 %%
1282c124 485 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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486
487 will produce a
488
489 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
490 %precedence '='
491 ^^^
492
493*** Useless precedence and associativity
494
495 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
496 as follows:
497
498 %nonassoc '='
499 %%
1282c124 500 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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501
502 The warning is:
503
504 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
505 %nonassoc '='
506 ^^^
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507
508** Empty rules
509
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510 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
511
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512 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
513 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
514 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
515 %empty. On the following grammar:
516
517 %%
518 s: a b c;
519 a: ;
520 b: %empty;
521 c: 'a' %empty;
522
523 bison reports:
524
525 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
526 a: {}
527 ^^
528 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
529 c: 'a' %empty {};
530 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 531
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532** Java skeleton improvements
533
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534 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
535 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
536 and "%define init_throws".
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537 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
538
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539 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
540 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
541
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542** C++ skeletons improvements
543
544*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
545
546 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
547 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
548 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
549
550*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
551
552 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
553
554*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
555
556 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
557 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
558 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
559 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
560 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
561 factory invoked by the user actions).
562
563*** %define api.value.type variant
564
565 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
566 from Théophile Ranquet.
567
568 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
569 instance:
570
571 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
572 %token <int> NUMBER;
573 %token SEMICOLON ";"
574 %type <::std::string> item;
575 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
576 %%
577 result:
578 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
579 ;
580
581 list:
6240346a 582 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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583 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
584 ;
585
586 item:
587 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
588 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
589 ;
590
591*** %define api.token.constructor
592
593 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
594 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
595 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
596
597 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
598 {
599 parser::location_type loc = ...;
600 ...
601 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
602 ...
603 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
604 ...
605 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
606 ...
607 }
608
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609*** C++ locations
610
611 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
612 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
613
1f5542fe 614* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
cc8962bd 615
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616** Bug fixes
617
618*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
619
620 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 621
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622*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
623
c13bb348 624* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 625
edf9a06f 626** Bug fixes
7bada535 627
edf9a06f 628 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 629
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630 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
631
d4fe9e88 632** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 633
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634 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
635
d4fe9e88 636*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 637
d4fe9e88 638 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 639
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640 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
641 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 642
d4fe9e88 643 It is now:
1f1bd572 644
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645 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
646 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 647
d4fe9e88 648*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 649
d4fe9e88 650 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 651
d4fe9e88
AD
652 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
653 %type <sval> exp
654 ^^^^^^
655 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
656 %type <ival> exp
657 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 658
d4fe9e88 659 or
cbaea010 660
7bada535 661 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 662 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 663 ^^^^
fb6040f0
TR
664 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
665 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
666 ^^^
667 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
668 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
669 ^^^
670 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
671 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
672 ^^^
7bada535 673
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674 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
675 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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676 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
677 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 678
1f1bd572 679** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 680
1f1bd572 681 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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682 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
683 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
684 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
685 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
686 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
687
688 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
689 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 690
7287be84 691** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
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692
693 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
694 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
695 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
696 then responsible to define her type.
697
698 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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699 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
700 them.
db8ab2be
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701
702 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
703 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
704 compatibility).
705
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706 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
707 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
708 api.position.type.
709
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710** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
711
712 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
713 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
714 before re-throwing the exception.
715
716 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
717 appreciated.
718
9c16d399 719** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 720
8458a411
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721 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
722
fc4fdd62
TR
723 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
724 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
725 numbered and left-justified.
726
727 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
728 diamond shaped nodes.
729
9c16d399
TR
730 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
731 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
732
d4fe9e88 733** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 734
d4fe9e88
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735 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
736 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 737
53e2cd1e
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738** Documentation
739
740 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
741 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 742
d4fe9e88
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743 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
744 were not properly documented.
745
be22823e
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746 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
747
9d3f7eaf 748* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 749
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750 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
751 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
752 reporting them to us.
753
754** Bug fixes
755
756 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
757 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
758 3.2.
759
760 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 761
1282c124 762 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 763
a1d1ab50
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764 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
765 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
766
0ac15849 767* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 768
468455e1 769 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 770
6eb8f74f 771* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 772
6b4cb804
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773** Bug fixes
774
a1a77e1f 775 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
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776
777 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
778 users to the appropriate place to report them.
779
780 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
781
782 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
783 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 784
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TR
785 All the generated headers are self-contained.
786
c9d5bcc9
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787** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
788
789 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
790 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
791 For instance the header generated from
792
793 %define api.prefix "calc"
794 %defines "lib/parse.h"
795
796 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
797
c12c4c50 798** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
321d3e35
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799
800 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
801 warnings such as:
802
803 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
804 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
805 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
806 *++yyvsp = yylval;
807 ^
808
809 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
810
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811 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
812 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
813 addressed.
814
e1eeecd3 815* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 816
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817** Bug fixes
818
819 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
820 suite have been fixed.
821
c9d546b2
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822** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
823
824 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
825 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 826
dcd5344d
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827** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
828
829 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
830
77b214ef 831* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 832
8617d87e
AD
833 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
834
e20e6a50
AD
835** Future Changes
836
837 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
838 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
839 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
840
841 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
842
843 write:
844
845 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
846
8617d87e
AD
847** Bug fixes
848
0e164d43
AD
849*** Type names are now properly escaped.
850
851*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 852
26313726
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853*** Stray @ or $ in actions
854
855 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
856 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
857 now does.
858
cd735a8c 859** Type names in actions
4982f078
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860
861 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 862 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
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863
864 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
865
866 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 867 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 868
1505e8bb 869* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 870
d0a30438 871** Future changes
9553083c 872
55d1006f
AD
873 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
874 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 875
aaf61036 876*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
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877
878 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 879 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
880 compilers.
881
258cddbc 882*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 883
258cddbc
AD
884 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
885 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 886
258cddbc
AD
887 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
888 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
889
890 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
891 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
892
893*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
894
895 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
896 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
897 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
898 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
899 it.
0f11eec2 900
c2425191 901** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 902
258cddbc 903*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
904
905 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 906 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 907
e29f0771
AD
908 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
909 # define YY_FOO_H
910 ...
911 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 912
258cddbc 913*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
914
915 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
916 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
917
e29f0771 918 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
919
920 rather than
921
e29f0771
AD
922 #define yyparse bar_parse
923 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
924
925 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
926 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 927
258cddbc
AD
928*** Exported symbols in C++
929
930 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
931 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
932 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
933
694af10c
AD
934*** YYLSP_NEEDED
935
936 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
937 longer defined.
938
4b3847c3
AD
939** New %define variable: api.prefix
940
941 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
942 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
943 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
944 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
945 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
946 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
947 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
948
949 The following examples compares both:
950
951 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
952 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
953 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
954 %% %%
955 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
956
957 bison generates:
958
959 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
960 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
961
962 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
963 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
964 > # if defined YYDEBUG
965 > # if YYDEBUG
966 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
967 > # else
968 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
969 > # endif
970 > # else
971 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
972 > # endif
973 # endif | # endif
974
975 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
976 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
977 # endif # endif
978
979 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
980 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
981 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
982 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
983 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
984 }; };
985 # endif # endif
986
987 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
988 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
989 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
990 { {
991 int ival; int ival;
992 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
993 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
994 #endif #endif
995
996 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
997
998 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
999
1000 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1001
dfaac272 1002* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 1003
debe2c03 1004** Future changes:
765e1bd4 1005
e4ab1254 1006 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 1007
466b4cf2 1008** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 1009
d834eca0 1010** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 1011
d834eca0 1012*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 1013
e4ab1254
AD
1014 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1015 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 1016
d834eca0 1017*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1018
e4ab1254
AD
1019 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1020 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1021
466b4cf2 1022** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1023
e4ab1254
AD
1024 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1025 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1026
22172d47 1027** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1028
22172d47 1029*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1030
e4ab1254
AD
1031 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1032 or higher.
936c88d1 1033
22172d47
AD
1034*** Header guards
1035
1036 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1037 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1038
e29f0771
AD
1039 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1040 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1041 ...
1042 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1043
1044 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1045 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1046 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1047
1048 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1049
e29f0771
AD
1050 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1051 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1052 ...
1053 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1054
1055*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1056
e4ab1254
AD
1057 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1058 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1059 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1060
466b4cf2
AD
1061** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1062
7e508a2b
AD
1063** Changes in the manual:
1064
1065*** %printer is documented
1066
e4ab1254
AD
1067 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1068 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1069
e4ab1254
AD
1070 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1071 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1072
1073*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1074
e4ab1254
AD
1075 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1076 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1077 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1078 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1079
86b08b49
AD
1080** Building bison:
1081
1082*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1083
e4ab1254
AD
1084 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1085 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1086
8ef26c2a
AD
1087*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1088
1089*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1090
e4ab1254
AD
1091 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1092 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1093
91aadcc7 1094*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1095
e4ab1254
AD
1096 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1097 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1098
28801043 1099* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1100
82f3355e
JD
1101** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1102
1103 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1104 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1105 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1106 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1107 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1108
f1b238df 1109** Named references:
66381412
AR
1110
1111 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1112 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1113 actions code.
1114
1115 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1116 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1117 as named references:
1118
4b568fc0 1119 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1120 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1121
1122 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1123
4b568fc0 1124 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1125 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1126
5b1ff423 1127 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1128 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1129 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1130
5b1ff423 1131 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1132 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1133 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1134
f1b238df 1135** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1136
1137 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1138 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1139 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1140 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1141 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1142 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1143 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1144 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1145 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1146
1147 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1148 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1149 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1150 file with these directives:
1151
cf499cff
JD
1152 %define lr.type lalr
1153 %define lr.type ielr
1154 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1155
7fceb615 1156 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1157 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1158 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1159 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1160
1161 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1162 stabilize them.
1163
8458a411
AD
1164** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1165
1166 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1167
1168 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1169 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1170 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1171 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1172 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1173 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1174 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1175 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1176 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1177 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1178 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1179
1180 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1181 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1182 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1183 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1184 inconsistent states.
1185
7fceb615
JD
1186 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1187 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1188 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1189 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1190 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1191 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1192 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1193 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1194 power.
1195
1196 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1197 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1198
1199 %define parse.lac full
1200
e4ab1254 1201 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1202 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1203
1204 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1205 stabilize it.
1206
d397d9f0 1207** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1208
f1b238df 1209*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1210
de5ab940 1211 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1212
de5ab940
JD
1213 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1214 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1215
1216 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1217 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1218
1219 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1220
de5ab940 1221 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1222
de5ab940
JD
1223 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1224 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1225 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1226 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1227
f1b238df 1228*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1229
1230 The following %define variables
1231
1232 api.push_pull
1233 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1234
1235 have been renamed to
1236
1237 api.push-pull
1238 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1239
1240 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1241 for backward compatibility.
1242
7262f54f 1243*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1244
1245 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1246 within quotations marks. For example,
1247
1248 %define api.push-pull "push"
1249
1250 can be rewritten as
1251
1252 %define api.push-pull push
1253
d397d9f0 1254*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1255
d397d9f0
JD
1256*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1257
1258** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1259
1260** Character literals not of length one:
1261
1262 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1263 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1264 the following grammar to be the same token:
1265
1266 exp: exp '++'
1267 | exp '+' exp
1268 ;
1269
1270 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1271 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1272
1273** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1274
1275 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1276 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1277 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1278 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1279
1280** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1281
1282 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1283 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
AD
1284 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1285 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1286
e29f0771
AD
1287 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1288 do \
1289 if (N) \
1290 { \
1291 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1292 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1293 } \
1294 else \
1295 { \
1296 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1297 } \
1298 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1299
1300 use:
1301
e29f0771
AD
1302 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1303 do \
1304 if (N) \
1305 { \
1306 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1307 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1308 } \
1309 else \
1310 { \
1311 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1312 } \
1313 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1314
1315** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1316
1317 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1318 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1319 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1320 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1321
f1b238df 1322** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1323
1324 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1325 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1326 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1327 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1328 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1329 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1330 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1331 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1332
f1b238df 1333** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1334
1335 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1336 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1337 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1338 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1339
1340 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1341
1342 instead of
1343
1344 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1345
1346 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1347 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1348 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1349 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1350 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1351 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1352 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1353
d2060f06
JD
1354** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1355
e4ab1254 1356 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1357 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1358 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1359 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1360 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1361
1362*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1363 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1364 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1365 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1366 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1367 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1368 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1369 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1370 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1371 shifted or discarded.
1372
1373*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1374 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1375 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1376 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1377
1378*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1379 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1380 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1381 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1382 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1383 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1384 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1385 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1386 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1387 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1388 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1389 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1390 by default.
53f036ce 1391
1a33f4f6
JD
1392** Java skeleton fixes:
1393
1394*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1395
1396*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1397 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1398
02803d55
JD
1399*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1400
86408959
JD
1401** -W/--warnings fixes:
1402
e4ab1254 1403*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1404
1405 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1406 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1407
1408 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1409
786743d5
JD
1410*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1411
1412 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1413 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1414 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1415 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1416 example:
1417
1418 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1419 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1420 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1421 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1422
1423 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1424 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1425 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1426 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1427
e4ab1254 1428*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1429
1430 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1431 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1432
1433 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1434
e4ab1254 1435*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1436
e4ab1254 1437 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1438 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1439 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1440 suppress all warnings:
1441
1442 bison -Wnone gram.y
1443
1f36f544
JD
1444** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1445
1446 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1447 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1448 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1449
1450 %left END 0
1451
1452 This bug has been fixed.
1453
64877e5e 1454* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1455
2bfcac9a
JD
1456** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1457 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1458
8b9e021f
JD
1459** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1460 been fixed.
1461
4ad3921d
JD
1462** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1463
06cb07d5
JD
1464** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1465 been fixed.
1466
9b5049bd
JD
1467** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1468 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1469 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1470 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1471
93d7dde9
JD
1472** Minor documentation fixes.
1473
e19a049c 1474* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1475
f39ab286
JD
1476** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1477 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1478 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1479 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1480 affected platforms.
1481
e4ab1254 1482** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1483
1484 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1485 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1486 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1487 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1488 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1489 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1490 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1491 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1492 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1493
d8911864
EB
1494** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1495
a603c6e0
JD
1496** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1497 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1498 avoided.
c938d650 1499
98a345a2
JD
1500** %code is now a permanent feature.
1501
1502 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1503
1504 %{CODE%}
1505
1506 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1507 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1508
1509 %code {CODE}
1510 %code requires {CODE}
1511 %code provides {CODE}
1512 %code top {CODE}
1513
1514 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1515 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1516 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1517 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1518 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1519
1520 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1521 is still considered experimental.
1522
1625df5b
JD
1523** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1524
1525 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1526 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1527 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1528 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1529 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1530 specified by POSIX.
1531
1532 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1533 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1534 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1535 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1536 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1537 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1538 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1539
1540 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1541
1542 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1543 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1544 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1545 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1546 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1547 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1548 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1549 be removed altogether.
1550
1551 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1552 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1553 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1554 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1555 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1556 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1557 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1558 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1559 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1560 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1561
2755de8f
AD
1562** Internationalization.
1563
1564 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1565 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1566 host system.
1567
74553c98 1568* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1569
0ea583d2
AD
1570** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1571 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1572
0ea583d2
AD
1573** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1574
1575 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1576 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1577
1578 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1579
1580 instead of
1581
1582 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1583
e4ab1254 1584 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1585 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1586 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1587 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1588 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1589 feature.
1590
1591** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1592
402b123d 1593* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1594
402b123d 1595** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1596
1597 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1598 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1599 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1600 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1601 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1602
402b123d 1603** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1604
402b123d 1605** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1606 fixed.
1607
402b123d 1608* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1609
402b123d 1610** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1611 are now deprecated:
1612
1613 %define NAME "VALUE"
1614
e4ab1254 1615** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1616
1617 %define api.pure
1618
1619 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1620 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1621
402b123d 1622** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1623
1624 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1625 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1626 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1627 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1628 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1629
1630 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1631 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1632
e4ab1254 1633 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1634
59da312b
JD
1635 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1636 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1637
402b123d 1638** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1639 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1640 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1641
402b123d 1642** Java
59da312b
JD
1643
1644 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1645 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1646 %skeleton to select it.
1647
e4ab1254 1648 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1649
1650 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1651 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1652 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1653
402b123d 1654** %language
59da312b
JD
1655
1656 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1657 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1658 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1659 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1660
402b123d 1661** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1662
1663 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1664 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1665 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1666 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1667
402b123d 1668** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1669 %defines. For example:
1670
1671 %defines "parser.h"
1672
402b123d 1673** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1674 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1675 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1676 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1677
402b123d 1678** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1679
1680 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1681 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1682 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1683
1684 1. Removes unreachable states.
1685
1686 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1687 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1688 directives in existing grammar files.
1689
1690 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1691 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1692
31984206
JD
1693 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1694
1695 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1696
e4ab1254 1697 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1698 for further discussion.
1699
e4ab1254 1700** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1701
e4ab1254
AD
1702 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1703 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1704 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1705 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1706 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1707 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1708 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1709 code.
1710
e4ab1254 1711** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1712 name.
1bb2bd75 1713
e4ab1254 1714** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1715 deprecated:
1716
1717 %file-prefix "parser"
1718 %name-prefix "c_"
1719 %output "parser.c"
1720
e4ab1254 1721** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1722
1723 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1724 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1725 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1726 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1727 it:
1728
e4ab1254
AD
1729 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1730 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1731 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1732 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1733
e4ab1254
AD
1734 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1735 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1736 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1737 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1738
1739 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1740 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1741
402b123d 1742** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1743
1744 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1745 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1746 about unused $2 in:
1747
1748 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1749
1750 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1751 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1752
1753 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1754
1755 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1756 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1757 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1758
e4ab1254
AD
1759 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1760 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1761
e4ab1254 1762** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1763
1764 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1765 %printer's:
1766
e4ab1254 1767 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1768 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1769 declared semantic type tags.
1770
e4ab1254 1771 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1772 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1773 type tags.
1774
e4ab1254
AD
1775 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1776 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1777 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1778 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1779
85894313
JD
1780 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1781 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1782 features.
1783
e4ab1254 1784 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1785 details.
1786
402b123d 1787** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1788 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1789 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1790
402b123d 1791** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1792 completely removed from Bison.
1793
402b123d 1794* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1795
402b123d 1796** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1797 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1798 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1799 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1800 and is required by POSIX.
1801
402b123d 1802** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1803 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1804
402b123d 1805** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1806
1807 For example:
1808
b2a0b7ca
JD
1809 %union { char *string; }
1810 %token <string> STRING1
1811 %token <string> STRING2
1812 %type <string> string1
1813 %type <string> string2
1814 %union { char character; }
1815 %token <character> CHR
1816 %type <character> chr
1817 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1818 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1819 %destructor { } <character>
1820
1821 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1822 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1823 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1824 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1825 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1826
85894313
JD
1827 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1828 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1829 future versions.]
1830
e4ab1254
AD
1831** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1832 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1833 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1834 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1835 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1836
402b123d 1837** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1838 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1839
1840 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1841 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1842 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1843 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1844 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1845
34f98f46 1846 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1847 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1848 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1849 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1850 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1851 after the token definitions.
1852
1853 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1854 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1855
402b123d 1856** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1857 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1858 %after-header.
1859
1860 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1861 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1862 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1863 convenient for you:
1864
1865 %before-header {
1866 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1867 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1868 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1869 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1870 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1871 }
1872 %start-header {
1873 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1874 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1875 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1876 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1877 }
1878 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1879 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1880 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1881 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1882 }
34f98f46
JD
1883 %end-header {
1884 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1885 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1886 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1887 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1888 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1889 }
34f98f46
JD
1890 %after-header {
1891 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1892 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1893 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1894 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1895 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1896 }
1897
1898 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1899 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1900
85894313
JD
1901 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1902 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1903
e4ab1254 1904** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1905 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1906 in a future release.
742e4900 1907
402b123d 1908* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1909
e4ab1254 1910** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1911 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1912
402b123d 1913** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1914 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1915
402b123d 1916* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1917
402b123d 1918** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1919 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1920 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1921
402b123d 1922** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1923
402b123d 1924** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1925
402b123d 1926** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1927 their contents together.
1928
402b123d 1929** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1930 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1931 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1932
8f3596a6 1933 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1934 | exp "+" exp
1935 ;
affac613 1936
8f3596a6
AD
1937 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1938 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1939 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1940
4e26c69e 1941 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1942 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1943 | exp "+" exp
1944 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1945 ;
affac613 1946
4e26c69e
PE
1947 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1948 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1949 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1950
8f3596a6 1951 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1952 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1953 ;
721be13c 1954
84866159
AD
1955 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1956 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1957
1958 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1959
721be13c
PE
1960 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1961 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1962
402b123d 1963** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1964 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1965 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1966 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1967
402b123d 1968** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1969 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1970 instead of warnings.
1971
402b123d 1972** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1973 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1974 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1975
e4ab1254 1976** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1977
402b123d 1978** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1979 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1980 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1981
402b123d 1982** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1983 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1984 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1985 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1986 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1987
1988 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1989 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1990 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1991 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1992
b50d2359 1993 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1994 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1995
402b123d 1996** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1997\f
402b123d 1998* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1999
402b123d 2000** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 2001
402b123d 2002** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
2003 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2004 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
2005 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2006 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2007 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 2008
402b123d 2009** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
2010 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2011 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2012 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2013
402b123d 2014** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
2015 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2016 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2017
402b123d 2018** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2019 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2020 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2021 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2022 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2023\f
402b123d 2024* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2025
402b123d 2026** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2027
82de6b0d
PE
2028 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2029 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2030 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2031 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2032 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2033
82de6b0d
PE
2034 - Error token location.
2035 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2036 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2037 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2038 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2039
82de6b0d
PE
2040 - Semicolon changes:
2041 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2042 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2043
82de6b0d
PE
2044 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2045 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2046 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2047 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2048
82de6b0d 2049 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2050
402b123d 2051** New features
1452af69 2052
82de6b0d 2053 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2054
82de6b0d
PE
2055 - New directive: %initial-action.
2056 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2057 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2058
82de6b0d
PE
2059 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2060 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2061
e4ab1254 2062 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2063 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2064
e4ab1254 2065 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2066 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2067
82de6b0d 2068 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2069
82de6b0d
PE
2070 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2071 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2072
402b123d 2073** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2074
82de6b0d
PE
2075 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2076 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2077 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2078 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2079 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2080 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2081
82de6b0d
PE
2082 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2083 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2084
82de6b0d 2085 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2086\f
402b123d 2087* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2088
402b123d 2089** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2090 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2091
402b123d 2092** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2093
dc546b0f
PE
2094 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2095 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2096
dc546b0f
PE
2097 - %destructor
2098 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2099 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2100
dc546b0f
PE
2101 - %error-verbose
2102 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2103
dc546b0f
PE
2104 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2105 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2106
402b123d 2107** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2108
dc546b0f
PE
2109 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2110 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2111 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2112
e4ab1254
AD
2113 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2114 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2115 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2116 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2117 be consistent.
74724a70 2118
dc546b0f
PE
2119 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2120 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2121
dc546b0f
PE
2122 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2123 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2124
dc546b0f
PE
2125 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2126 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2127
dc546b0f 2128 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2129 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2130 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2131 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2132 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2133
dc546b0f 2134 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2135
dc546b0f
PE
2136 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2137 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2138 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2139
402b123d 2140** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2141
e4ab1254
AD
2142 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2143 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2144 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2145 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2146 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2147 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2148
e4ab1254 2149 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2150 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2151
dc546b0f 2152 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2153 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2154
e4ab1254 2155 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2156 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2157 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2158
402b123d 2159** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2160
dc546b0f
PE
2161 - GLR and inline
2162 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2163 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2164
e4ab1254
AD
2165 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2166 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2167
18ad57b3
AD
2168** %parse-param and %lex-param
2169 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2170 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2171 shortcomings:
2172
2173 - a single argument only can be added,
2174 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2175 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2176 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2177
2178 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2179 For instance:
2180
2181 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2182 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2183 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2184
2185 results in the following signatures:
2186
2187 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2188 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2189
2190 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2191
2192 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2193 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2194
402b123d 2195** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2196 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2197 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2198
402b123d 2199** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2200 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2201
402b123d 2202** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2203 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2204 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2205 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2206\f
402b123d 2207* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2208
402b123d 2209** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2210
402b123d 2211** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2212
402b123d 2213** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2214 Fix spurious parse errors.
2215
402b123d 2216** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2217 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2218 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2219
402b123d 2220** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2221 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2222 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2223
e9690142 2224 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2225
2226 but the converse remains an error:
2227
e9690142 2228 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2229
402b123d 2230** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2231 The following code:
2232
e9690142 2233 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2234
2235 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2236 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2237\f
402b123d 2238* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2239
402b123d 2240** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2241 The declaration
2242 %glr-parser
2243 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2244 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2245 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2246 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2247
7933f2b5 2248 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2249 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2250
402b123d 2251** Output Directory
8c165d89 2252 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2253 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2254 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2255
402b123d 2256** Undefined token
007a50a4 2257 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2258 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2259
402b123d 2260** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2261 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2262 no longer the case.
2263
402b123d 2264** Error token
e88dbdbf 2265 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2266 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2267 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2268 will be mapped onto another number.
2269
402b123d 2270** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2271 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2272 error recovery is possible.
2273
402b123d 2274** End token
e4ab1254 2275 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2276
402b123d 2277** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2278 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2279 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2280 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2281 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2282 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2283 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2284 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2285 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2286
402b123d 2287** Traces
5504898e
AD
2288 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2289
402b123d 2290** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2291 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2292 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2293 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2294 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2295
402b123d 2296** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2297 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2298 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2299 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2300
402b123d 2301** Useless rules
643a5994 2302 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2303 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2304
402b123d 2305** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2306 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2307
402b123d 2308** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2309 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2310 reported.
2311
e4ab1254 2312** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2313 On a grammar such as
2314
e29f0771
AD
2315 %token useless useful
2316 %%
2317 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2318
2319 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2320 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2321
402b123d 2322** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2323 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2324
402b123d 2325** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2326 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2327 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2328 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2329 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2330
402b123d 2331** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2332 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2333 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2334 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2335 For instance
e29f0771 2336 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2337 or
e29f0771 2338 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2339
402b123d 2340** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2341 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2342
402b123d 2343** New translations
a861a339 2344 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2345 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2346
402b123d 2347** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2348 When given
2349 %token 'a' "A"
2350 bison used to output
2351 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2352
402b123d 2353** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2354 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2355 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2356 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2357
402b123d 2358** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2359 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2360 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2361 - itemset
2362 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2363 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2364 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2365 - solved
2366 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2367 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2368 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2369
402b123d 2370** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2371 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2372 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2373
e29f0771
AD
2374 %type <foo> bar
2375 %%
2376 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2377
2378 This is fixed.
a861a339 2379
402b123d 2380** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2381\f
402b123d 2382* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2383
402b123d 2384** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2385 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2386 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2387 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2388
2389 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2390 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2391 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2392 kludge will be disabled.
2393
2394 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2395 extended.
76551463 2396\f
402b123d 2397* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2398
402b123d 2399** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2400 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2401 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2402
e4ab1254 2403** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2404 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2405 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2406 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2407 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2408 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2409
402b123d 2410** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2411 many portability hassles.
2412
402b123d 2413** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2414
402b123d 2415** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2416\f
402b123d 2417* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2418
402b123d 2419** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2420 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2421 under some conditions.
2422
402b123d 2423** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2424 As is done with $n.
2425\f
402b123d 2426* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2427
402b123d 2428** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2429
402b123d 2430** Portability fixes
76551463 2431
402b123d 2432** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2433\f
402b123d 2434* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2435
402b123d 2436** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2437
402b123d 2438** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2439 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2440 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2441 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2442 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2443
402b123d 2444** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2445 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2446 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2447
2448 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2449 problems as on AIX.
2450
402b123d 2451** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2452
402b123d 2453** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2454 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2455
402b123d 2456** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2457 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2458 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2459 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2460
402b123d 2461** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2462 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2463 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2464
402b123d 2465** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2466 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2467
402b123d 2468** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2469 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2470
402b123d 2471** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2472 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2473
402b123d 2474** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2475 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2476 any warning.
2477
402b123d 2478** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2479
402b123d 2480** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2481
402b123d 2482** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2483
402b123d 2484** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2485 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2486 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2487 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2488
402b123d 2489** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2490 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2491 previous allocations were not freed.
2492
402b123d 2493** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2494 Some newlines were missing.
2495 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2496
402b123d 2497** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2498 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2499
402b123d 2500** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2501 Was not used.
2502 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2503
402b123d 2504** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2505
402b123d 2506** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2507
402b123d 2508** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2509
402b123d 2510** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2511 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2512
402b123d 2513** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2514
402b123d 2515** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2516 New.
2517
402b123d 2518** --output
e4ab1254 2519 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2520\f
402b123d 2521* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2522
e4ab1254
AD
2523** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2524 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2525 argument.
2526
e4ab1254 2527** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2528 experiment.
2529
402b123d 2530** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2531\f
402b123d 2532* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2533
402b123d 2534** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2535 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2536 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2537 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2538
e4ab1254 2539** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2540
402b123d 2541** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2542
402b123d 2543** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2544
402b123d 2545** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2546
402b123d 2547** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2548
402b123d 2549** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2550
e4ab1254 2551** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2552
e4ab1254 2553** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2554
e4ab1254 2555** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2556
402b123d 2557** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2558 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2559
402b123d 2560** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2561 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2562 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2563
402b123d 2564** @$
f987e9d2 2565 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2566\f
402b123d 2567* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2568
402b123d 2569** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2570
402b123d 2571** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2572
402b123d 2573** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2574
402b123d 2575** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2576\f
402b123d 2577* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2578
402b123d 2579** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2580 some systems has been fixed.
2581\f
402b123d 2582* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2583
7e508a2b 2584** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2585
402b123d 2586** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2587
402b123d 2588** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2589
402b123d 2590** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2591
402b123d 2592** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2593
402b123d 2594** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2595
402b123d 2596** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2597 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2598\f
402b123d 2599* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2600
402b123d 2601** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2602the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2603
402b123d 2604** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2605example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2606of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2607
402b123d 2608** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2609and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2610table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2611purposes.
2612
402b123d 2613** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2614directives in the parser file.
2615
402b123d 2616** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2617Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2618
402b123d 2619** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2620the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2621The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2622a switch statement body.
2623\f
402b123d 2624* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2625
4d019228
DM
2626The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2627passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2628actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2629by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2630
6780ca7a 2631Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2632\f
402b123d 2633* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2634
2635--help option added.
6780ca7a 2636\f
402b123d 2637* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2638
2639Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2640
76551463
AD
2641-----
2642
7d6bad19 2643Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2644
74553c98 2645This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2646
f16b0819 2647This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2648it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2649the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2650(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2651
f16b0819 2652This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2653but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2654MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2655GNU General Public License for more details.
2656
2657You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2658along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2659
2660 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2661 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2662 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2663 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2664 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2665 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2666 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2667 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2668 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2669 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2670 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2671 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2672 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2673 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2674 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2675 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2676 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2677 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1282c124
AD
2678 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2679 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2680 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2681 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2682 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2683 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
7e508a2b
AD
2684
2685Local Variables:
2686mode: outline
e4ab1254 2687fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2688End: