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ed7658fe 1GNU Bison NEWS
3af4feb2 2
52718713 3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
74553c98 4
8458a411 5** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
597afd73 6
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7 Bison will stop adding a semicolon at the end of the actions (as announced
8 in the release 2.5):
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9
10 foo.y:2.22: warning: a ';' might be needed at the end of action code
11 exp: "num" { $$ = $1 }
12 ^
13 foo.y:2.22: future versions of Bison will not add the ';'
14
15 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
16 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
17 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
18
8458a411 19** Backward incompatible changes
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20
21*** Obsolete features
22
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23 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
24
25 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
26 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
27
28 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
29 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 30
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31** Bug fixes
32
c21e515e 33*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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34
35 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
36 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
37 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
38 preprocessor expansion:
39
40 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
41
42 This is has been fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
43 identifiers for user-provided variables.
44
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45*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
46
47 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
48 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
49
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50** Diagnostics reported by Bison
51
52 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
53 Santet.
73370a9d 54
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55*** Carets
56
57 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
58 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
59 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
60
1048a1c9 61*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 62
1048a1c9 63 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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64 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
65 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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66
67 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 68 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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69 errors (and only those):
70
71 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
72
73 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
74 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
75
76 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
77
78 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
79
80 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
81 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
82
83 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
84 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
85 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 86
46bdb8ec 87*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 88
46bdb8ec 89 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 90
46bdb8ec 91 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 92
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93 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
94 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 95 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 96
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97 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
98 with failure):
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99
100 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 101 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 102
46bdb8ec 103 it now reports:
1048a1c9 104
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105 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
106
107*** Deprecated constructs
108
109 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
110 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
111 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
112
73370a9d 113*** Useless semantic types
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114
115 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
116 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
117 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
118 types that trigger the warning:
119
120 %token <type1> term
121 %type <type2> nterm
122 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
123 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
124 %%
125 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
126
127 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
128 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
129
31557b9e 130*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 131
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132 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
133 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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134
135 %printer {} symbol1
136 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 137 %type <type> symbol3
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138 %%
139 exp: "a";
140
73370a9d 141*** Useless destructors or printers
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142
143 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
144 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
145 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
146 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
147
148 %token <type1> token1
149 <type2> token2
150 <type3> token3
151 <type4> token4
152 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
153 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
154
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155*** Conflicts
156
157 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
158 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
159
160 %glr-parser
161 %%
162 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
163
164 compare the previous version of bison:
165
166 $ bison foo.y
167 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
168 $ bison -Werror foo.y
169 bison: warnings being treated as errors
170 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
171
172 with the new behavior:
173
174 $ bison foo.y
175 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
176 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
177 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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178 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
179 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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180
181 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
182
183 %expect 0
184 %glr-parser
185 %%
186 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
187
188 Former behavior:
189
190 $ bison bar.y
191 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
192 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
193 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
194
195 New one:
196
197 $ bison bar.y
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198 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
199 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 200
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201** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
202
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203 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
204 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
205 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 206
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207 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
208 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
209 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
210 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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211
212 one may now declare
213
e436fa67 214 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 215
2a6b66c5 216** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 217
2a6b66c5 218 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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219 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
220 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
221
e436fa67 222 %token FILE for ERROR
2a6b66c5 223 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
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224 %%
225 start: FILE for ERROR;
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226
227 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
228 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
229 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
230 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
231
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232** Variable parse.error
233
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234 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
235 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
236 verbose".
31b850d2 237
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238** Renamed %define variables
239
240 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
241 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
242
243 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
244 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
245 namespace -> api.namespace
246 stype -> api.value.type
247
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248** Semantic predicates
249
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250 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
251
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252 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
253 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 254 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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255 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
256 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
257 expressions.
ca2a6d15 258
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259** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
260
261 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
262 reduce/reduce conflicts.
263
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264** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
265
266 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
267 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
268 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
269
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270** Useless precedence and associativity
271
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272 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
273
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274 When developping and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
275 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
276 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
277 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
278 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
279 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
280 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
281
282*** Precedence warning category
283
284 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
285 useless precedence and associativity directives.
286
287*** Useless associativity
288
289 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
290 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
291 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
292 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
293 For example:
294
295 %left '+'
296 %left '*'
297 %%
298 exp:
299 "num"
300 | exp '+' "num"
301 | exp '*' exp
302 ;
303
304 will produce a
305
306 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
307 %left '+'
308 ^^^
309
310*** Useless precedence
311
312 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
313 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
314 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
315 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
316
317 %precedence '='
318 %%
319 exp: "var" '=' "num";
320
321 will produce a
322
323 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
324 %precedence '='
325 ^^^
326
327*** Useless precedence and associativity
328
329 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
330 as follows:
331
332 %nonassoc '='
333 %%
334 exp: "var" '=' "num";
335
336 The warning is:
337
338 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
339 %nonassoc '='
340 ^^^
341
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342** Java skeleton improvements
343
344 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
345
346 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
347 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
348 and "%define init_throws".
349
350** C++ skeletons improvements
351
352*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
353
354 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
355 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
356 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
357
358*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
359
360 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
361
362*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
363
364 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
365 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
366 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
367 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
368 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
369 factory invoked by the user actions).
370
371*** %define api.value.type variant
372
373 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
374 from Théophile Ranquet.
375
376 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
377 instance:
378
379 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
380 %token <int> NUMBER;
381 %token SEMICOLON ";"
382 %type <::std::string> item;
383 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
384 %%
385 result:
386 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
387 ;
388
389 list:
390 /* nothing */ { /* Generates an empty string list */ }
391 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
392 ;
393
394 item:
395 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
396 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
397 ;
398
399*** %define api.token.constructor
400
401 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
402 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
403 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
404
405 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
406 {
407 parser::location_type loc = ...;
408 ...
409 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
410 ...
411 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
412 ...
413 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
414 ...
415 }
416
c13bb348 417* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 418
edf9a06f 419** Bug fixes
7bada535 420
edf9a06f 421 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 422
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423 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
424
d4fe9e88 425** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 426
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427 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
428
d4fe9e88 429*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 430
d4fe9e88 431 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 432
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433 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
434 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 435
d4fe9e88 436 It is now:
1f1bd572 437
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438 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
439 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 440
d4fe9e88 441*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 442
d4fe9e88 443 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 444
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445 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
446 %type <sval> exp
447 ^^^^^^
448 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
449 %type <ival> exp
450 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 451
d4fe9e88 452 or
cbaea010 453
7bada535 454 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 455 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 456 ^^^^
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457 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
458 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
459 ^^^
460 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
461 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
462 ^^^
463 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
464 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
465 ^^^
7bada535 466
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467 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
468 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
469 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
470 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 471
1f1bd572 472** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 473
1f1bd572 474 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
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475 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
476 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
477 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
478 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
479 parsers).
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480
481 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
482 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 483
7287be84 484** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
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485
486 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
487 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
488 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
489 then responsible to define her type.
490
491 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
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492 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
493 them.
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494
495 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
496 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
497 compatibility).
498
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499 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
500 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
501 api.position.type.
502
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503** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
504
505 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
506 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
507 before re-throwing the exception.
508
509 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
510 appreciated.
511
9c16d399 512** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 513
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514 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
515
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516 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
517 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
518 numbered and left-justified.
519
520 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
521 diamond shaped nodes.
522
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523 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
524 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
525
d4fe9e88 526** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 527
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528 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
529 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 530
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531** Documentation
532
533 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
534 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 535
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536 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
537 were not properly documented.
538
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539 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
540
9d3f7eaf 541* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 542
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543 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
544 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
545 reporting them to us.
546
547** Bug fixes
548
549 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
550 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
551 3.2.
552
553 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 554
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555 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
556
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557 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
558 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
559
0ac15849 560* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 561
468455e1 562 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 563
6eb8f74f 564* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 565
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566** Bug fixes
567
a1a77e1f 568 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
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569
570 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
571 users to the appropriate place to report them.
572
573 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
574
575 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
576 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 577
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578 All the generated headers are self-contained.
579
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580** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
581
582 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
583 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
584 For instance the header generated from
585
586 %define api.prefix "calc"
587 %defines "lib/parse.h"
588
589 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
590
c12c4c50 591** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
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592
593 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
594 warnings such as:
595
596 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
597 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
598 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
599 *++yyvsp = yylval;
600 ^
601
602 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
603
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604 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
605 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
606 addressed.
607
e1eeecd3 608* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 609
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610** Bug fixes
611
612 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
613 suite have been fixed.
614
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615** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
616
617 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
618 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 619
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620** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
621
622 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
623
77b214ef 624* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 625
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626 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
627
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628** Future Changes
629
630 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
631 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
632 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
633
634 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
635
636 write:
637
638 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
639
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640** Bug fixes
641
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642*** Type names are now properly escaped.
643
644*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 645
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646*** Stray @ or $ in actions
647
648 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
649 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
650 now does.
651
cd735a8c 652** Type names in actions
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653
654 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 655 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
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656
657 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
658
659 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 660 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 661
1505e8bb 662* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 663
d0a30438 664** Future changes
9553083c 665
55d1006f
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666 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
667 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 668
aaf61036 669*** K&R C parsers
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670
671 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 672 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
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673 compilers.
674
258cddbc 675*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 676
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677 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
678 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 679
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680 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
681 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
682
683 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
684 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
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685
686*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
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687
688 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
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689 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
690 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
691 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
692 it.
0f11eec2 693
c2425191 694** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 695
258cddbc 696*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
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697
698 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 699 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 700
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701 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
702 # define YY_FOO_H
703 ...
704 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 705
258cddbc 706*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
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707
708 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
709 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
710
e29f0771 711 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
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712
713 rather than
714
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715 #define yyparse bar_parse
716 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
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717
718 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
719 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 720
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721*** Exported symbols in C++
722
723 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
724 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
725 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
726
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727*** YYLSP_NEEDED
728
729 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
730 longer defined.
731
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732** New %define variable: api.prefix
733
734 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
735 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
736 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
737 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
738 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
739 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
740 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
741
742 The following examples compares both:
743
744 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
745 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
746 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
747 %% %%
748 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
749
750 bison generates:
751
752 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
753 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
754
755 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
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756 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
757 > # if defined YYDEBUG
758 > # if YYDEBUG
759 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
760 > # else
761 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
762 > # endif
763 > # else
764 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
765 > # endif
766 # endif | # endif
767
768 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
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769 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
770 # endif # endif
771
772 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
773 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
774 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
775 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
776 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
777 }; };
778 # endif # endif
779
780 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
781 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
782 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
783 { {
784 int ival; int ival;
785 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
786 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
787 #endif #endif
788
789 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
790
791 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
792
793 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
794
dfaac272 795* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 796
debe2c03 797** Future changes:
765e1bd4 798
e4ab1254 799 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 800
466b4cf2 801** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 802
d834eca0 803** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 804
d834eca0 805*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 806
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807 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
808 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 809
d834eca0 810*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 811
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812 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
813 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 814
466b4cf2 815** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 816
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817 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
818 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 819
22172d47 820** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 821
22172d47 822*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 823
e4ab1254
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824 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
825 or higher.
936c88d1 826
22172d47
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827*** Header guards
828
829 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
830 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
831
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832 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
833 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
834 ...
835 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
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836
837 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
838 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
839 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
840
841 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
842
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843 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
844 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
845 ...
846 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
847
848*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 849
e4ab1254
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850 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
851 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
852 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 853
466b4cf2
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854** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
855
7e508a2b
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856** Changes in the manual:
857
858*** %printer is documented
859
e4ab1254
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860 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
861 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 862
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863 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
864 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
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865
866*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 867
e4ab1254
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868 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
869 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
870 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
871 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 872
86b08b49
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873** Building bison:
874
875*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 876
e4ab1254
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877 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
878 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 879
8ef26c2a
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880*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
881
882*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 883
e4ab1254
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884 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
885 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 886
91aadcc7 887*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 888
e4ab1254
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889 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
890 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 891
28801043 892* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 893
82f3355e
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894** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
895
896 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
897 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
898 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
899 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
900 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
901
f1b238df 902** Named references:
66381412
AR
903
904 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
905 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
906 actions code.
907
908 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
909 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
910 as named references:
911
4b568fc0 912 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
913 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
914
915 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
916
4b568fc0 917 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
918 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
919
5b1ff423 920 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
921 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
922 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
923
5b1ff423 924 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 925 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 926 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 927
f1b238df 928** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
929
930 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
931 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 932 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
933 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
934 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
935 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
936 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
937 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
938 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
939
940 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
941 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
942 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
943 file with these directives:
944
cf499cff
JD
945 %define lr.type lalr
946 %define lr.type ielr
947 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 948
7fceb615 949 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
950 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
951 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 952 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
953
954 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
955 stabilize them.
956
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AD
957** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
958
959 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
960
961 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
962 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
963 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 964 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
965 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
966 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
967 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 968 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 969 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
970 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
971 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
972
973 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
974 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
975 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
976 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
977 inconsistent states.
978
7fceb615
JD
979 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
980 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
981 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
982 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
983 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
984 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
985 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
986 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
987 power.
988
989 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
990 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
991
992 %define parse.lac full
993
e4ab1254 994 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 995 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
996
997 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
998 stabilize it.
999
d397d9f0 1000** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1001
f1b238df 1002*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1003
de5ab940 1004 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1005
de5ab940
JD
1006 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1007 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1008
1009 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1010 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1011
1012 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1013
de5ab940 1014 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1015
de5ab940
JD
1016 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1017 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1018 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1019 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1020
f1b238df 1021*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1022
1023 The following %define variables
1024
1025 api.push_pull
1026 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1027
1028 have been renamed to
1029
1030 api.push-pull
1031 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1032
1033 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1034 for backward compatibility.
1035
7262f54f 1036*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1037
1038 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1039 within quotations marks. For example,
1040
1041 %define api.push-pull "push"
1042
1043 can be rewritten as
1044
1045 %define api.push-pull push
1046
d397d9f0 1047*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1048
d397d9f0
JD
1049*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1050
1051** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1052
1053** Character literals not of length one:
1054
1055 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1056 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1057 the following grammar to be the same token:
1058
1059 exp: exp '++'
1060 | exp '+' exp
1061 ;
1062
1063 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1064 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1065
1066** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1067
1068 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1069 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1070 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1071 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1072
1073** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1074
1075 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1076 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1077 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1078 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1079
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1080 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1081 do \
1082 if (N) \
1083 { \
1084 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1085 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1086 } \
1087 else \
1088 { \
1089 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1090 } \
1091 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1092
1093 use:
1094
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AD
1095 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1096 do \
1097 if (N) \
1098 { \
1099 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1100 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1101 } \
1102 else \
1103 { \
1104 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1105 } \
1106 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1107
1108** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1109
1110 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1111 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1112 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1113 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1114
f1b238df 1115** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1116
1117 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1118 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1119 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1120 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1121 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1122 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1123 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1124 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1125
f1b238df 1126** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1127
1128 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1129 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1130 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1131 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1132
1133 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1134
1135 instead of
1136
1137 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1138
1139 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1140 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1141 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1142 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1143 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1144 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1145 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1146
d2060f06
JD
1147** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1148
e4ab1254 1149 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1150 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1151 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1152 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1153 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1154
1155*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1156 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1157 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1158 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1159 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1160 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1161 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1162 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1163 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1164 shifted or discarded.
1165
1166*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1167 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1168 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1169 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1170
1171*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1172 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1173 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1174 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1175 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1176 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1177 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1178 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1179 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1180 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1181 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1182 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1183 by default.
53f036ce 1184
1a33f4f6
JD
1185** Java skeleton fixes:
1186
1187*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1188
1189*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1190 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1191
02803d55
JD
1192*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1193
86408959
JD
1194** -W/--warnings fixes:
1195
e4ab1254 1196*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1197
1198 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1199 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1200
1201 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1202
786743d5
JD
1203*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1204
1205 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1206 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1207 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1208 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1209 example:
1210
1211 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1212 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1213 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1214 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1215
1216 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1217 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1218 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1219 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1220
e4ab1254 1221*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1222
1223 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1224 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1225
1226 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1227
e4ab1254 1228*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1229
e4ab1254 1230 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1231 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1232 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1233 suppress all warnings:
1234
1235 bison -Wnone gram.y
1236
1f36f544
JD
1237** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1238
1239 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1240 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1241 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1242
1243 %left END 0
1244
1245 This bug has been fixed.
1246
64877e5e 1247* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1248
2bfcac9a
JD
1249** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1250 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1251
8b9e021f
JD
1252** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1253 been fixed.
1254
4ad3921d
JD
1255** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1256
06cb07d5
JD
1257** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1258 been fixed.
1259
9b5049bd
JD
1260** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1261 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1262 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1263 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1264
93d7dde9
JD
1265** Minor documentation fixes.
1266
e19a049c 1267* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1268
f39ab286
JD
1269** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1270 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1271 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1272 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1273 affected platforms.
1274
e4ab1254 1275** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1276
1277 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1278 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1279 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1280 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1281 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1282 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1283 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1284 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1285 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1286
d8911864
EB
1287** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1288
a603c6e0
JD
1289** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1290 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1291 avoided.
c938d650 1292
98a345a2
JD
1293** %code is now a permanent feature.
1294
1295 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1296
1297 %{CODE%}
1298
1299 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1300 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1301
1302 %code {CODE}
1303 %code requires {CODE}
1304 %code provides {CODE}
1305 %code top {CODE}
1306
1307 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1308 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1309 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1310 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1311 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1312
1313 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1314 is still considered experimental.
1315
1625df5b
JD
1316** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1317
1318 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1319 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1320 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1321 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1322 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1323 specified by POSIX.
1324
1325 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1326 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1327 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1328 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1329 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1330 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1331 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1332
1333 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1334
1335 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1336 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1337 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1338 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1339 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1340 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1341 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1342 be removed altogether.
1343
1344 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1345 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1346 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1347 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1348 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1349 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1350 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1351 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1352 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1353 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1354
2755de8f
AD
1355** Internationalization.
1356
1357 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1358 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1359 host system.
1360
74553c98 1361* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1362
0ea583d2
AD
1363** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1364 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1365
0ea583d2
AD
1366** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1367
1368 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1369 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1370
1371 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1372
1373 instead of
1374
1375 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1376
e4ab1254 1377 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1378 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1379 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1380 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1381 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1382 feature.
1383
1384** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1385
402b123d 1386* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1387
402b123d 1388** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1389
1390 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1391 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1392 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1393 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1394 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1395
402b123d 1396** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1397
402b123d 1398** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1399 fixed.
1400
402b123d 1401* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1402
402b123d 1403** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1404 are now deprecated:
1405
1406 %define NAME "VALUE"
1407
e4ab1254 1408** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1409
1410 %define api.pure
1411
1412 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1413 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1414
402b123d 1415** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1416
1417 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1418 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1419 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1420 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1421 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1422
1423 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1424 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1425
e4ab1254 1426 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1427
59da312b
JD
1428 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1429 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1430
402b123d 1431** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1432 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1433 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1434
402b123d 1435** Java
59da312b
JD
1436
1437 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1438 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1439 %skeleton to select it.
1440
e4ab1254 1441 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1442
1443 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1444 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1445 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1446
402b123d 1447** %language
59da312b
JD
1448
1449 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1450 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1451 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1452 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1453
402b123d 1454** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1455
1456 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1457 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1458 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1459 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1460
402b123d 1461** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1462 %defines. For example:
1463
1464 %defines "parser.h"
1465
402b123d 1466** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1467 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1468 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1469 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1470
402b123d 1471** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1472
1473 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1474 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1475 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1476
1477 1. Removes unreachable states.
1478
1479 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1480 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1481 directives in existing grammar files.
1482
1483 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1484 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1485
31984206
JD
1486 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1487
1488 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1489
e4ab1254 1490 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1491 for further discussion.
1492
e4ab1254 1493** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1494
e4ab1254
AD
1495 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1496 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1497 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1498 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1499 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1500 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1501 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1502 code.
1503
e4ab1254 1504** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1505 name.
1bb2bd75 1506
e4ab1254 1507** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1508 deprecated:
1509
1510 %file-prefix "parser"
1511 %name-prefix "c_"
1512 %output "parser.c"
1513
e4ab1254 1514** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1515
1516 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1517 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1518 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1519 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1520 it:
1521
e4ab1254
AD
1522 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1523 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1524 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1525 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1526
e4ab1254
AD
1527 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1528 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1529 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1530 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1531
1532 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1533 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1534
402b123d 1535** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1536
1537 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1538 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1539 about unused $2 in:
1540
1541 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1542
1543 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1544 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1545
1546 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1547
1548 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1549 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1550 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1551
e4ab1254
AD
1552 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1553 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1554
e4ab1254 1555** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1556
1557 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1558 %printer's:
1559
e4ab1254 1560 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1561 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1562 declared semantic type tags.
1563
e4ab1254 1564 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1565 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1566 type tags.
1567
e4ab1254
AD
1568 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1569 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1570 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1571 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1572
85894313
JD
1573 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1574 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1575 features.
1576
e4ab1254 1577 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1578 details.
1579
402b123d 1580** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1581 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1582 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1583
402b123d 1584** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1585 completely removed from Bison.
1586
402b123d 1587* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1588
402b123d 1589** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1590 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1591 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1592 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1593 and is required by POSIX.
1594
402b123d 1595** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1596 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1597
402b123d 1598** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1599
1600 For example:
1601
b2a0b7ca
JD
1602 %union { char *string; }
1603 %token <string> STRING1
1604 %token <string> STRING2
1605 %type <string> string1
1606 %type <string> string2
1607 %union { char character; }
1608 %token <character> CHR
1609 %type <character> chr
1610 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1611 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1612 %destructor { } <character>
1613
1614 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1615 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1616 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1617 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1618 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1619
85894313
JD
1620 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1621 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1622 future versions.]
1623
e4ab1254
AD
1624** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1625 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1626 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1627 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1628 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1629
402b123d 1630** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1631 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1632
1633 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1634 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1635 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1636 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1637 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1638
34f98f46 1639 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1640 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1641 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1642 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1643 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1644 after the token definitions.
1645
1646 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1647 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1648
402b123d 1649** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1650 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1651 %after-header.
1652
1653 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1654 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1655 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1656 convenient for you:
1657
1658 %before-header {
1659 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1660 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1661 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1662 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1663 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1664 }
1665 %start-header {
1666 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1667 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1668 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1669 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1670 }
1671 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1672 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1673 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1674 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1675 }
34f98f46
JD
1676 %end-header {
1677 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1678 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1679 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1680 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1681 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1682 }
34f98f46
JD
1683 %after-header {
1684 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1685 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1686 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1687 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1688 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1689 }
1690
1691 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1692 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1693
85894313
JD
1694 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1695 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1696
e4ab1254 1697** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1698 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1699 in a future release.
742e4900 1700
402b123d 1701* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1702
e4ab1254 1703** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1704 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1705
402b123d 1706** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1707 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1708
402b123d 1709* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1710
402b123d 1711** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1712 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1713 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1714
402b123d 1715** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1716
402b123d 1717** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1718
402b123d 1719** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1720 their contents together.
1721
402b123d 1722** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1723 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1724 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1725
8f3596a6 1726 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1727 | exp "+" exp
1728 ;
affac613 1729
8f3596a6
AD
1730 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1731 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1732 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1733
4e26c69e 1734 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1735 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1736 | exp "+" exp
1737 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1738 ;
affac613 1739
4e26c69e
PE
1740 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1741 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1742 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1743
8f3596a6 1744 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1745 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1746 ;
721be13c 1747
84866159
AD
1748 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1749 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1750
1751 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1752
721be13c
PE
1753 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1754 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1755
402b123d 1756** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1757 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1758 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1759 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1760
402b123d 1761** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1762 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1763 instead of warnings.
1764
402b123d 1765** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1766 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1767 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1768
e4ab1254 1769** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1770
402b123d 1771** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1772 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1773 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1774
402b123d 1775** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1776 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1777 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1778 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1779 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1780
1781 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1782 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1783 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1784 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1785
b50d2359 1786 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1787 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1788
402b123d 1789** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1790\f
402b123d 1791* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1792
402b123d 1793** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 1794
402b123d 1795** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
1796 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1797 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
1798 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1799 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1800 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 1801
402b123d 1802** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
1803 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1804 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1805 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1806
402b123d 1807** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
1808 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1809 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1810
402b123d 1811** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
1812 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1813 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1814 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1815 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 1816\f
402b123d 1817* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 1818
402b123d 1819** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 1820
82de6b0d
PE
1821 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1822 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1823 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1824 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1825 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 1826
82de6b0d
PE
1827 - Error token location.
1828 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1829 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1830 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1831 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 1832
82de6b0d
PE
1833 - Semicolon changes:
1834 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1835 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 1836
82de6b0d
PE
1837 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1838 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1839 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1840 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 1841
82de6b0d 1842 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 1843
402b123d 1844** New features
1452af69 1845
82de6b0d 1846 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 1847
82de6b0d
PE
1848 - New directive: %initial-action.
1849 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1850 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 1851
82de6b0d
PE
1852 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1853 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 1854
e4ab1254 1855 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 1856 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 1857
e4ab1254 1858 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 1859 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 1860
82de6b0d 1861 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 1862
82de6b0d
PE
1863 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1864 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 1865
402b123d 1866** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 1867
82de6b0d
PE
1868 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1869 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1870 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1871 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1872 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1873 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 1874
82de6b0d
PE
1875 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1876 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 1877
82de6b0d 1878 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 1879\f
402b123d 1880* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 1881
402b123d 1882** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 1883 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 1884
402b123d 1885** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 1886
dc546b0f
PE
1887 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1888 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 1889
dc546b0f
PE
1890 - %destructor
1891 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1892 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 1893
dc546b0f
PE
1894 - %error-verbose
1895 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 1896
dc546b0f
PE
1897 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1898 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 1899
402b123d 1900** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 1901
dc546b0f
PE
1902 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1903 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1904 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 1905
e4ab1254
AD
1906 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1907 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1908 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1909 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 1910 be consistent.
74724a70 1911
dc546b0f
PE
1912 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1913 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 1914
dc546b0f
PE
1915 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1916 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 1917
dc546b0f
PE
1918 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1919 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 1920
dc546b0f 1921 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 1922 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
1923 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1924 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1925 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 1926
dc546b0f 1927 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 1928
dc546b0f
PE
1929 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1930 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1931 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 1932
402b123d 1933** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 1934
e4ab1254
AD
1935 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1936 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1937 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1938 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1939 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 1940 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 1941
e4ab1254 1942 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 1943 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 1944
dc546b0f 1945 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 1946 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 1947
e4ab1254 1948 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
1949 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1950 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 1951
402b123d 1952** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 1953
dc546b0f
PE
1954 - GLR and inline
1955 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 1956 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 1957
e4ab1254
AD
1958 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1959 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 1960
18ad57b3
AD
1961** %parse-param and %lex-param
1962 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1963 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1964 shortcomings:
1965
1966 - a single argument only can be added,
1967 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 1968 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
1969 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1970
1971 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1972 For instance:
1973
1974 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1975 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1976 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1977
1978 results in the following signatures:
1979
1980 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1981 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1982
1983 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1984
1985 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1986 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1987
402b123d 1988** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 1989 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 1990 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 1991
402b123d 1992** #line in output files
dc546b0f 1993 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 1994
402b123d 1995** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
1996 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1997 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1998 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 1999\f
402b123d 2000* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2001
402b123d 2002** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2003
402b123d 2004** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2005
402b123d 2006** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2007 Fix spurious parse errors.
2008
402b123d 2009** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2010 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2011 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2012
402b123d 2013** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2014 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2015 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2016
e9690142 2017 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2018
2019 but the converse remains an error:
2020
e9690142 2021 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2022
402b123d 2023** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2024 The following code:
2025
e9690142 2026 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2027
2028 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2029 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2030\f
402b123d 2031* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2032
402b123d 2033** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2034 The declaration
2035 %glr-parser
2036 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2037 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2038 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2039 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2040
7933f2b5 2041 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2042 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2043
402b123d 2044** Output Directory
8c165d89 2045 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2046 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2047 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2048
402b123d 2049** Undefined token
007a50a4 2050 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2051 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2052
402b123d 2053** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2054 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2055 no longer the case.
2056
402b123d 2057** Error token
e88dbdbf 2058 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2059 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2060 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2061 will be mapped onto another number.
2062
402b123d 2063** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2064 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2065 error recovery is possible.
2066
402b123d 2067** End token
e4ab1254 2068 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2069
402b123d 2070** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2071 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2072 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2073 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2074 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2075 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2076 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2077 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2078 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2079
402b123d 2080** Traces
5504898e
AD
2081 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2082
402b123d 2083** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2084 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2085 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2086 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2087 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2088
402b123d 2089** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2090 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2091 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2092 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2093
402b123d 2094** Useless rules
643a5994 2095 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2096 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2097
402b123d 2098** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2099 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2100
402b123d 2101** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2102 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2103 reported.
2104
e4ab1254 2105** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2106 On a grammar such as
2107
e29f0771
AD
2108 %token useless useful
2109 %%
2110 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2111
2112 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2113 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2114
402b123d 2115** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2116 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2117
402b123d 2118** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2119 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2120 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2121 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2122 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2123
402b123d 2124** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2125 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2126 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2127 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2128 For instance
e29f0771 2129 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2130 or
e29f0771 2131 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2132
402b123d 2133** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2134 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2135
402b123d 2136** New translations
a861a339 2137 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2138 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2139
402b123d 2140** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2141 When given
2142 %token 'a' "A"
2143 bison used to output
2144 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2145
402b123d 2146** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2147 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2148 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2149 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2150
402b123d 2151** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2152 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2153 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2154 - itemset
2155 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2156 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2157 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2158 - solved
2159 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2160 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2161 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2162
402b123d 2163** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2164 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2165 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2166
e29f0771
AD
2167 %type <foo> bar
2168 %%
2169 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2170
2171 This is fixed.
a861a339 2172
402b123d 2173** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2174\f
402b123d 2175* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2176
402b123d 2177** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2178 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2179 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2180 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2181
2182 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2183 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2184 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2185 kludge will be disabled.
2186
2187 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2188 extended.
76551463 2189\f
402b123d 2190* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2191
402b123d 2192** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2193 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2194 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2195
e4ab1254 2196** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2197 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2198 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2199 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2200 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2201 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2202
402b123d 2203** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2204 many portability hassles.
2205
402b123d 2206** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2207
402b123d 2208** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2209\f
402b123d 2210* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2211
402b123d 2212** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2213 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2214 under some conditions.
2215
402b123d 2216** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2217 As is done with $n.
2218\f
402b123d 2219* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2220
402b123d 2221** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2222
402b123d 2223** Portability fixes
76551463 2224
402b123d 2225** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2226\f
402b123d 2227* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2228
402b123d 2229** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2230
402b123d 2231** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2232 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2233 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2234 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2235 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2236
402b123d 2237** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2238 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2239 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2240
2241 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2242 problems as on AIX.
2243
402b123d 2244** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2245
402b123d 2246** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2247 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2248
402b123d 2249** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2250 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2251 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2252 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2253
402b123d 2254** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2255 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2256 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2257
402b123d 2258** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2259 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2260
402b123d 2261** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2262 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2263
402b123d 2264** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2265 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2266
402b123d 2267** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2268 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2269 any warning.
2270
402b123d 2271** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2272
402b123d 2273** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2274
402b123d 2275** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2276
402b123d 2277** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2278 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2279 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2280 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2281
402b123d 2282** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2283 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2284 previous allocations were not freed.
2285
402b123d 2286** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2287 Some newlines were missing.
2288 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2289
402b123d 2290** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2291 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2292
402b123d 2293** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2294 Was not used.
2295 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2296
402b123d 2297** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2298
402b123d 2299** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2300
402b123d 2301** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2302
402b123d 2303** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2304 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2305
402b123d 2306** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2307
402b123d 2308** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2309 New.
2310
402b123d 2311** --output
e4ab1254 2312 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2313\f
402b123d 2314* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2315
e4ab1254
AD
2316** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2317 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2318 argument.
2319
e4ab1254 2320** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2321 experiment.
2322
402b123d 2323** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2324\f
402b123d 2325* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2326
402b123d 2327** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2328 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2329 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2330 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2331
e4ab1254 2332** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2333
402b123d 2334** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2335
402b123d 2336** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2337
402b123d 2338** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2339
402b123d 2340** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2341
402b123d 2342** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2343
e4ab1254 2344** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2345
e4ab1254 2346** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2347
e4ab1254 2348** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2349
402b123d 2350** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2351 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2352
402b123d 2353** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2354 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2355 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2356
402b123d 2357** @$
f987e9d2 2358 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2359\f
402b123d 2360* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2361
402b123d 2362** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2363
402b123d 2364** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2365
402b123d 2366** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2367
402b123d 2368** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2369\f
402b123d 2370* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2371
402b123d 2372** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2373 some systems has been fixed.
2374\f
402b123d 2375* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2376
7e508a2b 2377** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2378
402b123d 2379** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2380
402b123d 2381** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2382
402b123d 2383** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2384
402b123d 2385** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2386
402b123d 2387** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2388
402b123d 2389** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2390 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2391\f
402b123d 2392* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2393
402b123d 2394** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2395the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2396
402b123d 2397** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2398example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2399of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2400
402b123d 2401** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2402and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2403table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2404purposes.
2405
402b123d 2406** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2407directives in the parser file.
2408
402b123d 2409** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2410Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2411
402b123d 2412** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2413the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2414The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2415a switch statement body.
2416\f
402b123d 2417* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2418
4d019228
DM
2419The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2420passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2421actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2422by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2423
6780ca7a 2424Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2425\f
402b123d 2426* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2427
2428--help option added.
6780ca7a 2429\f
402b123d 2430* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2431
2432Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2433
76551463
AD
2434-----
2435
7d6bad19 2436Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2437
74553c98 2438This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2439
f16b0819 2440This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2441it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2442the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2443(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2444
f16b0819 2445This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2446but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2447MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2448GNU General Public License for more details.
2449
2450You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2451along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2452
2453 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2454 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2455 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2456 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2457 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2458 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2459 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2460 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2461 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2462 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2463 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2464 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2465 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2466 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2467 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2468 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2469 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2470 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
d949eefd 2471 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
7e508a2b
AD
2472
2473Local Variables:
2474mode: outline
e4ab1254 2475fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2476End: