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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 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
8 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
9 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
10
8458a411 11** Backward incompatible changes
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12
13*** Obsolete features
14
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15 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
16
17 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
18 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
19
20 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
21 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
47db7ed1 22
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23 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
24 in the release 2.5).
25
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26*** Use of YACC='bison -y'
27
28 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
29 Bison extensions.
30
31 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
32 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
33 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
34
35 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
36 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
37 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
38 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
39 warnings for Bison extensions.
40
41 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
42 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
43 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
44 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
45
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46** Bug fixes
47
c21e515e 48*** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
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49
50 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
51 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
52 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
53 preprocessor expansion:
54
55 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
56
6c7022f7 57 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
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58 identifiers for user-provided variables.
59
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60*** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
61
62 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
63 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
64
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65*** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
66
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67** Diagnostics reported by Bison
68
69 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
70 Santet.
73370a9d 71
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72*** Carets
73
74 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
75 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
76 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
77
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78 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
79 the caret information only. For instance on:
80
81 %%
82 exp: 'a' | 'a';
83
84 Bison 2.7 reports:
85
86 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
87 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
88
89 Now bison reports:
90
91 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
92 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
93 exp: 'a' | 'a';
94 ^^^
95
96 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
97
98 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
99 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
100
1048a1c9 101*** Enhancements of the -Werror option
518e8830 102
1048a1c9 103 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
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104 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
105 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
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106
107 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
d949eefd 108 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
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109 errors (and only those):
110
111 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
112
113 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
114 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
115
116 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
117
118 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
119
120 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
121 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
122
123 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
124 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
125 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
518e8830 126
46bdb8ec 127*** The display of warnings is now richer
73370a9d 128
46bdb8ec 129 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
73370a9d 130
46bdb8ec 131 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
73370a9d 132
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133 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
134 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
d949eefd 135 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
1048a1c9 136
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137 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
138 with failure):
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139
140 bison: warnings being treated as errors
46bdb8ec 141 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
1048a1c9 142
46bdb8ec 143 it now reports:
1048a1c9 144
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145 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
146
147*** Deprecated constructs
148
149 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
150 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
151 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
152
73370a9d 153*** Useless semantic types
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154
155 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
156 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
157 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
158 types that trigger the warning:
159
160 %token <type1> term
161 %type <type2> nterm
162 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
163 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
164 %%
165 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
166
167 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
168 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
169
31557b9e 170*** Undefined but unused symbols
b921d92f 171
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172 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
173 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
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174
175 %printer {} symbol1
176 %destructor {} symbol2
31557b9e 177 %type <type> symbol3
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178 %%
179 exp: "a";
180
73370a9d 181*** Useless destructors or printers
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182
183 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
184 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
185 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
186 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
187
188 %token <type1> token1
189 <type2> token2
190 <type3> token3
191 <type4> token4
192 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
193 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
194
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195*** Conflicts
196
197 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
198 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
199
200 %glr-parser
201 %%
202 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
203
204 compare the previous version of bison:
205
206 $ bison foo.y
207 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
208 $ bison -Werror foo.y
209 bison: warnings being treated as errors
210 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
211
212 with the new behavior:
213
214 $ bison foo.y
215 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
216 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
217 $ bison -Werror foo.y
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218 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
219 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
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220
221 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
222
223 %expect 0
224 %glr-parser
225 %%
226 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
227
228 Former behavior:
229
230 $ bison bar.y
231 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
232 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
233 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
234
235 New one:
236
237 $ bison bar.y
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238 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
239 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
d87ea54c 240
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241** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
242
243 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
244 with '-Wyacc'.
245
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246** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
247
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248 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
249 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
250 or more arguments. Instead of
2055a44e 251
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252 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
253 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
254 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
255 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
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256
257 one may now declare
258
e436fa67 259 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
2055a44e 260
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261** Types of values for %define variables
262
263 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
264 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
265 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
266 foo {bar}'.
267
268 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
269
270 %define lr.type lalr
271
272 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
273
274 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
275
276 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
277
2a6b66c5 278** Variable api.token.prefix
99c08fb6 279
2a6b66c5 280 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
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281 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
282 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
283
e436fa67 284 %token FILE for ERROR
630a0218 285 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
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286 %%
287 start: FILE for ERROR;
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288
289 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
290 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
291 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
292 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
293
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294** Variable api.value.type
295
296 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
297 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
298 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
299
300 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
301
302 %union
303 {
304 int ival;
305 char *sval;
306 }
307 %token <ival> INT "integer"
308 %token <sval> STRING "string"
309 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
310 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
311
312 /* In yylex(). */
313 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
314 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
315
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316 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
317
318 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
435575cb 319 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
1fa19a76 320 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
6574576c 321
435575cb 322 %define api.value.type union
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323 %token <int> INT "integer"
324 %token <char *> STRING "string"
325 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
326 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
327
328 /* In yylex(). */
329 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
330 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
331
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332 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
333 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
6574576c 334
435575cb 335 %define api.value.type variant
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336 %token <int> INT "integer"
337 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
338
630a0218 339 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
435575cb 340 used to be used.
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341
342 %code requires
343 {
344 struct my_value
345 {
346 enum
347 {
348 is_int, is_string
349 } kind;
350 union
351 {
352 int ival;
353 char *sval;
354 } u;
355 };
356 }
435575cb 357 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
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358 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
359 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
360 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
361 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
362
363 /* In yylex(). */
364 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
365 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
366
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367** Variable parse.error
368
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369 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
370 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
371 verbose".
31b850d2 372
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373** Renamed %define variables
374
375 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
376 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
377
378 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
379 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
380 namespace -> api.namespace
381 stype -> api.value.type
382
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383** Semantic predicates
384
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385 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
386
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387 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
388 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
ca2a6d15 389 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
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390 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
391 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
392 expressions.
ca2a6d15 393
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394** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
395
396 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
397 reduce/reduce conflicts.
398
5202b6ac 399** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
93561c21 400
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401 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
402
403 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
404 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
405 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
406 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
407
408 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
409 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
410 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
411
412 %right A B 'c' 'd'
413
414 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
415 input order is now preserved.
416
417 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
418 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
419 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
93561c21 420
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421** Useless precedence and associativity
422
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423 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
424
1282c124 425 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
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426 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
427 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
428 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
429 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
430 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
431 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
432
433*** Precedence warning category
434
435 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
436 useless precedence and associativity directives.
437
438*** Useless associativity
439
440 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
441 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
442 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
443 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
444 For example:
445
446 %left '+'
447 %left '*'
448 %%
449 exp:
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450 "number"
451 | exp '+' "number"
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452 | exp '*' exp
453 ;
454
455 will produce a
456
457 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
458 %left '+'
459 ^^^
460
461*** Useless precedence
462
463 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
464 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
465 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
466 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
467
468 %precedence '='
469 %%
1282c124 470 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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471
472 will produce a
473
474 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
475 %precedence '='
476 ^^^
477
478*** Useless precedence and associativity
479
480 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
481 as follows:
482
483 %nonassoc '='
484 %%
1282c124 485 exp: "var" '=' "number";
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486
487 The warning is:
488
489 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
490 %nonassoc '='
491 ^^^
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492
493** Empty rules
494
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495 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
496
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497 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
498 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
499 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
500 %empty. On the following grammar:
501
502 %%
503 s: a b c;
504 a: ;
505 b: %empty;
506 c: 'a' %empty;
507
508 bison reports:
509
510 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
511 a: {}
512 ^^
513 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
514 c: 'a' %empty {};
515 ^^^^^^
cc2235ac 516
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517** Java skeleton improvements
518
519 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
520
521 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
522 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
523 and "%define init_throws".
524
525** C++ skeletons improvements
526
527*** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
528
529 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
530 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
531 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
532
533*** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
534
535 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
536
537*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
538
539 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
540 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
541 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
542 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
543 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
544 factory invoked by the user actions).
545
546*** %define api.value.type variant
547
548 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
549 from Théophile Ranquet.
550
551 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
552 instance:
553
554 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
555 %token <int> NUMBER;
556 %token SEMICOLON ";"
557 %type <::std::string> item;
558 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
559 %%
560 result:
561 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
562 ;
563
564 list:
6240346a 565 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
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566 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
567 ;
568
569 item:
570 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
571 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
572 ;
573
574*** %define api.token.constructor
575
576 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
577 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
578 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
579
580 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
581 {
582 parser::location_type loc = ...;
583 ...
584 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
585 ...
586 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
587 ...
588 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
589 ...
590 }
591
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592*** C++ locations
593
594 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
595 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
596
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597* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
598
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599** Bug fixes
600
601*** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
602
603 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
0a7b8559 604
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605*** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
606
c13bb348 607* Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
effd30c0 608
edf9a06f 609** Bug fixes
7bada535 610
edf9a06f 611 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
7bada535 612
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613 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
614
d4fe9e88 615** Diagnostics are improved
7bada535 616
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617 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
618
d4fe9e88 619*** Changes in the format of error messages
7bada535 620
d4fe9e88 621 This used to be the format of many error reports:
1f1bd572 622
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623 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
624 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
1f1bd572 625
d4fe9e88 626 It is now:
1f1bd572 627
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628 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
629 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
cbaea010 630
d4fe9e88 631*** New format for error reports: carets
cbaea010 632
d4fe9e88 633 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
cbaea010 634
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635 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
636 %type <sval> exp
637 ^^^^^^
638 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
639 %type <ival> exp
640 ^^^^^^
cbaea010 641
d4fe9e88 642 or
cbaea010 643
7bada535 644 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
fb6040f0 645 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
7bada535 646 ^^^^
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647 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
648 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
649 ^^^
650 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
651 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
652 ^^^
653 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
654 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
655 ^^^
7bada535 656
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657 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
658 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
d4fe9e88
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659 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
660 -fno-caret).
d3e4409a 661
1f1bd572 662** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
d3e4409a 663
1f1bd572 664 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
d4fe9e88
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665 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
666 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
667 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
668 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
669 parsers).
1f1bd572
TR
670
671 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
672 "%define api.pure full".
d3e4409a 673
7287be84 674** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
db8ab2be
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675
676 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
677 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
678 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
679 then responsible to define her type.
680
681 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
7287be84
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682 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
683 them.
db8ab2be
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684
685 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
686 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
687 compatibility).
688
7287be84
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689 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
690 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
691 api.position.type.
692
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693** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
694
695 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
696 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
697 before re-throwing the exception.
698
699 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
700 appreciated.
701
9c16d399 702** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
fc4fdd62 703
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704 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
705
fc4fdd62
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706 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
707 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
708 numbered and left-justified.
709
710 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
711 diamond shaped nodes.
712
9c16d399
TR
713 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
714 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
715
d4fe9e88 716** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
fb4c8a7c 717
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718 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
719 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
fb4c8a7c 720
53e2cd1e
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721** Documentation
722
723 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
724 have been fixed and extended.
9d2423f5 725
d4fe9e88
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726 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
727 were not properly documented.
728
be22823e
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729 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
730
9d3f7eaf 731* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
6f1360bd 732
a68b1f23
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733 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
734 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
735 reporting them to us.
736
737** Bug fixes
738
739 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
740 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
741 3.2.
742
743 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
6f1360bd 744
1282c124 745 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
95066e92 746
a1d1ab50
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747 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
748 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
749
0ac15849 750* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
a4eb820f 751
468455e1 752 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
a4eb820f 753
6eb8f74f 754* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
933ec544 755
6b4cb804
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756** Bug fixes
757
a1a77e1f 758 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
6b4cb804
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759
760 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
761 users to the appropriate place to report them.
762
763 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
764
765 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
766 generated, are removed.
9c26b8fc 767
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768 All the generated headers are self-contained.
769
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770** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
771
772 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
773 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
774 For instance the header generated from
775
776 %define api.prefix "calc"
777 %defines "lib/parse.h"
778
779 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
780
c12c4c50 781** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
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782
783 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
784 warnings such as:
785
786 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
787 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
788 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
789 *++yyvsp = yylval;
790 ^
791
792 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
793
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794 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
795 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
796 addressed.
797
e1eeecd3 798* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
9c26b8fc 799
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800** Bug fixes
801
802 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
803 suite have been fixed.
804
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805** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
806
807 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
808 invalid C++. This is fixed.
9c26b8fc 809
dcd5344d
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810** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
811
812 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
813
77b214ef 814* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
a4107f24 815
8617d87e
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816 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
817
e20e6a50
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818** Future Changes
819
820 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
821 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
822 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
823
824 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
825
826 write:
827
828 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
829
8617d87e
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830** Bug fixes
831
0e164d43
AD
832*** Type names are now properly escaped.
833
834*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
a4107f24 835
26313726
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836*** Stray @ or $ in actions
837
838 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
839 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
840 now does.
841
cd735a8c 842** Type names in actions
4982f078
AD
843
844 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
cd735a8c 845 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
4982f078
AD
846
847 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
848
849 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
cd735a8c 850 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
60aa04a2 851
1505e8bb 852* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
0f11eec2 853
d0a30438 854** Future changes
9553083c 855
55d1006f
AD
856 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
857 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
0f11eec2 858
aaf61036 859*** K&R C parsers
55d1006f
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860
861 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
242cc08e 862 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
55d1006f
AD
863 compilers.
864
258cddbc 865*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
0f11eec2 866
258cddbc
AD
867 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
868 YYLTYPE.
0f11eec2 869
258cddbc
AD
870 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
871 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
872
873 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
874 %error-verbose.
55d1006f
AD
875
876*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
0f11eec2
AD
877
878 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
55d1006f
AD
879 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
880 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
881 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
882 it.
0f11eec2 883
c2425191 884** Generated Parser Headers
56ca3d8f 885
258cddbc 886*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
c3e9f08f
AD
887
888 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242cc08e 889 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
c3e9f08f 890
e29f0771
AD
891 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
892 # define YY_FOO_H
893 ...
894 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
c3e9f08f 895
258cddbc 896*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
56ca3d8f
AD
897
898 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
899 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
900
e29f0771 901 int bar_parse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
902
903 rather than
904
e29f0771
AD
905 #define yyparse bar_parse
906 int yyparse (void);
56ca3d8f
AD
907
908 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
909 single compilation unit.
c3e9f08f 910
258cddbc
AD
911*** Exported symbols in C++
912
913 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
914 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
915 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
916
694af10c
AD
917*** YYLSP_NEEDED
918
919 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
920 longer defined.
921
4b3847c3
AD
922** New %define variable: api.prefix
923
924 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
925 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
926 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
927 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
928 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
929 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
930 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
931
932 The following examples compares both:
933
934 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
935 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
936 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
937 %% %%
938 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
939
940 bison generates:
941
942 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
943 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
944
945 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
5f108727
AD
946 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
947 > # if defined YYDEBUG
948 > # if YYDEBUG
949 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
950 > # else
951 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
952 > # endif
953 > # else
954 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
955 > # endif
956 # endif | # endif
957
958 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
4b3847c3
AD
959 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
960 # endif # endif
961
962 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
963 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
964 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
965 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
966 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
967 }; };
968 # endif # endif
969
970 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
971 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
972 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
973 { {
974 int ival; int ival;
975 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
976 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
977 #endif #endif
978
979 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
980
981 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
982
983 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
984
dfaac272 985* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
df6e3db0 986
debe2c03 987** Future changes:
765e1bd4 988
e4ab1254 989 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
041308d0 990
466b4cf2 991** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
ef51bfa7 992
d834eca0 993** glr.c improvements:
041308d0 994
d834eca0 995*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
041308d0 996
e4ab1254
AD
997 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
998 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
378e917c 999
d834eca0 1000*** __attribute__ is preserved:
d115aad9 1001
e4ab1254
AD
1002 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1003 when -std is passed to GCC).
041308d0 1004
466b4cf2 1005** lalr1.java: several fixes:
041308d0 1006
e4ab1254
AD
1007 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1008 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
041308d0 1009
22172d47 1010** Changes for C++:
ef51bfa7 1011
22172d47 1012*** C++11 compatibility:
ef51bfa7 1013
e4ab1254
AD
1014 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1015 or higher.
936c88d1 1016
22172d47
AD
1017*** Header guards
1018
1019 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1020 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1021
e29f0771
AD
1022 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1023 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1024 ...
1025 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1026
1027 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1028 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1029 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1030
1031 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1032
e29f0771
AD
1033 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1034 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1035 ...
1036 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
22172d47
AD
1037
1038*** C++ locations:
936c88d1 1039
e4ab1254
AD
1040 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1041 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1042 documentation were fixed.
936c88d1 1043
466b4cf2
AD
1044** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1045
7e508a2b
AD
1046** Changes in the manual:
1047
1048*** %printer is documented
1049
e4ab1254
AD
1050 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1051 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
7e508a2b 1052
e4ab1254
AD
1053 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1054 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
7e508a2b
AD
1055
1056*** Several improvements have been made:
466b4cf2 1057
e4ab1254
AD
1058 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1059 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1060 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1061 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
466b4cf2 1062
86b08b49
AD
1063** Building bison:
1064
1065*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
466b4cf2 1066
e4ab1254
AD
1067 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1068 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
466b4cf2 1069
8ef26c2a
AD
1070*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1071
1072*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466b4cf2 1073
e4ab1254
AD
1074 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1075 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
466b4cf2 1076
91aadcc7 1077*** The install-pdf target works properly:
8ef26c2a 1078
e4ab1254
AD
1079 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1080 halts in the middle of its course.
8ef26c2a 1081
28801043 1082* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
50cca368 1083
82f3355e
JD
1084** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1085
1086 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1087 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1088 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1089 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1090 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1091
f1b238df 1092** Named references:
66381412
AR
1093
1094 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1095 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1096 actions code.
1097
1098 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1099 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1100 as named references:
1101
4b568fc0 1102 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
66381412
AR
1103 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1104
1105 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1106
4b568fc0 1107 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
66381412
AR
1108 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1109
5b1ff423 1110 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
66381412
AR
1111 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1112 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1113
5b1ff423 1114 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
66381412 1115 will help to stabilize them.
2bd435c3 1116 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
66381412 1117
f1b238df 1118** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
eb45ef3b
JD
1119
1120 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1121 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
7262f54f 1122 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
f1b238df
JD
1123 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1124 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
eb45ef3b
JD
1125 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1126 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1127 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1128 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1129
1130 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1131 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1132 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1133 file with these directives:
1134
cf499cff
JD
1135 %define lr.type lalr
1136 %define lr.type ielr
1137 %define lr.type canonical-lr
eb45ef3b 1138
7fceb615 1139 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
e4ab1254
AD
1140 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1141 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
7fceb615 1142 manual.
eb45ef3b
JD
1143
1144 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1145 stabilize them.
1146
8458a411
AD
1147** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1148
1149 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
fcf834f9
JD
1150
1151 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1152 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1153 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
7fceb615 1154 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
fcf834f9
JD
1155 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1156 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1157 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
7fceb615 1158 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
e4ab1254 1159 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
7fceb615
JD
1160 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1161 tokens.
fcf834f9
JD
1162
1163 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1164 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1165 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1166 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1167 inconsistent states.
1168
7fceb615
JD
1169 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1170 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1171 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1172 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1173 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
fcf834f9
JD
1174 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1175 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1176 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1177 power.
1178
1179 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1180 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1181
1182 %define parse.lac full
1183
e4ab1254 1184 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
7fceb615 1185 details including a few caveats.
fcf834f9
JD
1186
1187 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1188 stabilize it.
1189
d397d9f0 1190** %define improvements:
cf499cff 1191
f1b238df 1192*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
50cca368 1193
de5ab940 1194 Each of these command-line options
50cca368 1195
de5ab940
JD
1196 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1197 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1198
1199 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1200 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
50cca368
JD
1201
1202 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1203
de5ab940 1204 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
50cca368 1205
de5ab940
JD
1206 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1207 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1208 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
e4ab1254 1209 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
50cca368 1210
f1b238df 1211*** Variables renamed:
67212941
JD
1212
1213 The following %define variables
1214
1215 api.push_pull
1216 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1217
1218 have been renamed to
1219
1220 api.push-pull
1221 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1222
1223 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1224 for backward compatibility.
1225
7262f54f 1226*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
cf499cff
JD
1227
1228 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1229 within quotations marks. For example,
1230
1231 %define api.push-pull "push"
1232
1233 can be rewritten as
1234
1235 %define api.push-pull push
1236
d397d9f0 1237*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
cdf3f113 1238
d397d9f0
JD
1239*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1240
1241** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1242
1243** Character literals not of length one:
1244
1245 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1246 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1247 the following grammar to be the same token:
1248
1249 exp: exp '++'
1250 | exp '+' exp
1251 ;
1252
1253 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1254 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1255
1256** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1257
1258 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1259 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1260 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1261 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1262
1263** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1264
1265 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1266 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
e4ab1254
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1267 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1268 and "last" members, instead of
d397d9f0 1269
e29f0771
AD
1270 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1271 do \
1272 if (N) \
1273 { \
1274 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1275 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1276 } \
1277 else \
1278 { \
1279 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1280 } \
1281 while (false)
d397d9f0
JD
1282
1283 use:
1284
e29f0771
AD
1285 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1286 do \
1287 if (N) \
1288 { \
1289 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1290 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1291 } \
1292 else \
1293 { \
1294 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1295 } \
1296 while (false)
d397d9f0
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1297
1298** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1299
1300 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1301 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1302 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1303 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
cdf3f113 1304
f1b238df 1305** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
4395a9ff
JD
1306
1307 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1308 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1309 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1310 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1311 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1312 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1313 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1314 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1315
f1b238df 1316** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
197b82ba
JD
1317
1318 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1319 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1320 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1321 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1322
1323 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1324
1325 instead of
1326
1327 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1328
1329 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1330 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1331 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1332 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1333 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1334 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1335 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1336
d2060f06
JD
1337** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1338
e4ab1254 1339 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
7fceb615
JD
1340 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1341 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1342 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1343 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
d2060f06
JD
1344
1345*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1346 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1347 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1348 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1349 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
e4ab1254 1350 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
d2060f06
JD
1351 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1352 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1353 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1354 shifted or discarded.
1355
1356*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1357 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1358 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1359 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1360
1361*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
fcf834f9
JD
1362 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1363 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1364 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1365 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1366 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1367 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1368 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1369 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1370 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1371 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1372 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1373 by default.
53f036ce 1374
1a33f4f6
JD
1375** Java skeleton fixes:
1376
1377*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1378
1379*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1380 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
6771a463 1381
02803d55
JD
1382*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1383
86408959
JD
1384** -W/--warnings fixes:
1385
e4ab1254 1386*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
86408959
JD
1387
1388 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1389 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1390
1391 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1392
786743d5
JD
1393*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1394
1395 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1396 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
e4ab1254 1397 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
786743d5
JD
1398 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1399 example:
1400
1401 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1402 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1403 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1404 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1405
1406 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1407 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1408 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1409 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1410
e4ab1254 1411*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
bf0e44e8
JD
1412
1413 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1414 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1415
1416 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1417
e4ab1254 1418*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
c39014ae 1419
e4ab1254 1420 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
c39014ae
JD
1421 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1422 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1423 suppress all warnings:
1424
1425 bison -Wnone gram.y
1426
1f36f544
JD
1427** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1428
1429 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1430 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1431 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1432
1433 %left END 0
1434
1435 This bug has been fixed.
1436
64877e5e 1437* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
8b9e021f 1438
2bfcac9a
JD
1439** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1440 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1441
8b9e021f
JD
1442** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1443 been fixed.
1444
4ad3921d
JD
1445** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1446
06cb07d5
JD
1447** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1448 been fixed.
1449
9b5049bd
JD
1450** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1451 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1452 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1453 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1454
93d7dde9
JD
1455** Minor documentation fixes.
1456
e19a049c 1457* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
74553c98 1458
f39ab286
JD
1459** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1460 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
e19a049c
JD
1461 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1462 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
f39ab286
JD
1463 affected platforms.
1464
e4ab1254 1465** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
8bb3a2e7
JD
1466
1467 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1468 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1469 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1470 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1471 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1472 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1473 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
9b5049bd
JD
1474 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1475 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
8bb3a2e7 1476
d8911864
EB
1477** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1478
a603c6e0
JD
1479** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1480 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1481 avoided.
c938d650 1482
98a345a2
JD
1483** %code is now a permanent feature.
1484
1485 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1486
1487 %{CODE%}
1488
1489 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1490 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1491
1492 %code {CODE}
1493 %code requires {CODE}
1494 %code provides {CODE}
1495 %code top {CODE}
1496
1497 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1498 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1499 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1500 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1501 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1502
1503 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1504 is still considered experimental.
1505
1625df5b
JD
1506** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1507
1508 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1509 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1510 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1511 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1512 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1513 specified by POSIX.
1514
1515 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1516 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1517 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1518 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1519 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
e4ab1254 1520 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1625df5b
JD
1521 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1522
1523 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1524
1525 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1526 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1527 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1528 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1529 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1530 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
e4ab1254 1531 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1625df5b
JD
1532 be removed altogether.
1533
1534 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1535 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1536 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1537 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1538 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
e4ab1254 1539 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1625df5b
JD
1540 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1541 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1542 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1543 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1544
2755de8f
AD
1545** Internationalization.
1546
1547 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1548 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1549 host system.
1550
74553c98 1551* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
c9ba9e59 1552
0ea583d2
AD
1553** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1554 declarations have been fixed.
1979121c 1555
0ea583d2
AD
1556** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1557
1558 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1559 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1560
1561 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1562
1563 instead of
1564
1565 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1566
e4ab1254 1567 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
0ea583d2
AD
1568 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1569 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1570 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1571 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1572 feature.
1573
1574** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
c9ba9e59 1575
402b123d 1576* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
7bd1665a 1577
402b123d 1578** %language is an experimental feature.
ed4d67dc
JD
1579
1580 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1581 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1582 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1583 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1584 in future releases.
7bd1665a 1585
402b123d 1586** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
241fda7a 1587
402b123d 1588** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
241fda7a
JD
1589 fixed.
1590
402b123d 1591* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
35fe0834 1592
402b123d 1593** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
d9df47b6
JD
1594 are now deprecated:
1595
1596 %define NAME "VALUE"
1597
e4ab1254 1598** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
d9df47b6
JD
1599
1600 %define api.pure
1601
1602 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1603 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1604
402b123d 1605** Push Parsing
c373bf8b
JD
1606
1607 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
e4ab1254
AD
1608 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1609 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
c373bf8b
JD
1610 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1611 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1612
1613 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1614 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1615
e4ab1254 1616 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
c373bf8b 1617
59da312b
JD
1618 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1619 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1620
402b123d 1621** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
8e55b3aa
JD
1622 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1623 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
c373bf8b 1624
402b123d 1625** Java
59da312b
JD
1626
1627 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
e4ab1254 1628 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
59da312b
JD
1629 %skeleton to select it.
1630
e4ab1254 1631 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
59da312b
JD
1632
1633 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1634 feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1635 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
59da312b 1636
402b123d 1637** %language
59da312b
JD
1638
1639 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
d43f77e7
PB
1640 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1641 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1642 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
59da312b 1643
402b123d 1644** XML Automaton Report
59da312b
JD
1645
1646 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
e4ab1254 1647 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
59da312b 1648 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
2bd435c3 1649 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
c373bf8b 1650
402b123d 1651** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
c373bf8b
JD
1652 %defines. For example:
1653
1654 %defines "parser.h"
1655
402b123d 1656** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
d80fb37a
JD
1657 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1658 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1659 instead of "unused".
cff03fb2 1660
402b123d 1661** Unreachable State Removal
c373bf8b
JD
1662
1663 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
31984206
JD
1664 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1665 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
75ad86ee
JD
1666
1667 1. Removes unreachable states.
1668
1669 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1670 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1671 directives in existing grammar files.
1672
1673 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
cff03fb2 1674 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
75ad86ee 1675
31984206
JD
1676 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1677
1678 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1679
e4ab1254 1680 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
31984206
JD
1681 for further discussion.
1682
e4ab1254 1683** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
b1cc23c4 1684
e4ab1254
AD
1685 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1686 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
88c78747
JD
1687 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1688 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1689 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1690 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
e4ab1254 1691 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
88c78747
JD
1692 code.
1693
e4ab1254 1694** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
59da312b 1695 name.
1bb2bd75 1696
e4ab1254 1697** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
02975b9a
JD
1698 deprecated:
1699
1700 %file-prefix "parser"
1701 %name-prefix "c_"
1702 %output "parser.c"
1703
e4ab1254 1704** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
c373bf8b
JD
1705
1706 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
8e0a5e9e
JD
1707 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1708 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1709 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1710 it:
1711
e4ab1254
AD
1712 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1713 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1714 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1715 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
8e0a5e9e 1716
e4ab1254
AD
1717 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1718 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1719 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
8e0a5e9e
JD
1720 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1721
1722 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1723 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1724
402b123d 1725** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
17bd8a73
JD
1726
1727 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1728 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1729 about unused $2 in:
1730
1731 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1732
1733 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1734 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1735
1736 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1737
1738 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1739 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1740 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1741
e4ab1254
AD
1742 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1743 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
17bd8a73 1744
e4ab1254 1745** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
c373bf8b
JD
1746
1747 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
12e35840
JD
1748 %printer's:
1749
e4ab1254 1750 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1751 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1752 declared semantic type tags.
1753
e4ab1254 1754 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
12e35840
JD
1755 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1756 type tags.
1757
e4ab1254
AD
1758 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1759 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
12e35840
JD
1760 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1761 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1762
85894313
JD
1763 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1764 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1765 features.
1766
e4ab1254 1767 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
12e35840
JD
1768 details.
1769
402b123d 1770** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
e4ab1254 1771 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
ab7f29f8
JD
1772 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1773
402b123d 1774** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
b1cc23c4
JD
1775 completely removed from Bison.
1776
402b123d 1777* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
742e4900 1778
402b123d 1779** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
ddc8ede1
PE
1780 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1781 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1782 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1783 and is required by POSIX.
1784
402b123d 1785** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
cd48d21d
AD
1786 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1787
402b123d 1788** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
ec5479ce
JD
1789
1790 For example:
1791
b2a0b7ca
JD
1792 %union { char *string; }
1793 %token <string> STRING1
1794 %token <string> STRING2
1795 %type <string> string1
1796 %type <string> string2
1797 %union { char character; }
1798 %token <character> CHR
1799 %type <character> chr
1800 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1801 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1802 %destructor { } <character>
1803
1804 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
e4ab1254
AD
1805 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1806 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1807 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1808 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
ec5479ce 1809
85894313
JD
1810 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1811 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1812 future versions.]
1813
e4ab1254
AD
1814** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1815 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
b931235e
JD
1816 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1817 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1818 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1819
402b123d 1820** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
34f98f46 1821 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
9bc0dd67
JD
1822
1823 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
e4ab1254 1824 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
34f98f46
JD
1825 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1826 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
ddc8ede1 1827 declared after the first %union.
9bc0dd67 1828
34f98f46 1829 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
9bc0dd67
JD
1830 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1831 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1832 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1833 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1834 after the token definitions.
1835
1836 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1837 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1838
402b123d 1839** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
34f98f46
JD
1840 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1841 %after-header.
1842
1843 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1844 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1845 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1846 convenient for you:
1847
1848 %before-header {
1849 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1850 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1851 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1852 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
e4ab1254 1853 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
34f98f46
JD
1854 }
1855 %start-header {
1856 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1857 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1858 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1859 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
9bc0dd67
JD
1860 }
1861 %union {
34f98f46
JD
1862 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1863 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1864 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
9bc0dd67 1865 }
34f98f46
JD
1866 %end-header {
1867 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1868 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1869 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1870 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1871 * definitions. */
9bc0dd67 1872 }
34f98f46
JD
1873 %after-header {
1874 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1875 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1876 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1877 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1878 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1879 }
1880
1881 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1882 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
9bc0dd67 1883
85894313
JD
1884 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1885 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1886
e4ab1254 1887** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
9e6e7ed2
PE
1888 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1889 in a future release.
742e4900 1890
402b123d 1891* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
4ad3ed84 1892
e4ab1254 1893** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
4ad3ed84
PE
1894 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1895
402b123d 1896** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
4ad3ed84
PE
1897 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1898
402b123d 1899* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
193d7c70 1900
402b123d 1901** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
193d7c70
PE
1902 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1903 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
5f4236a0 1904
402b123d 1905** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
aa08666d 1906
402b123d 1907** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
5f4236a0 1908
402b123d 1909** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
d6ca7905
PE
1910 their contents together.
1911
402b123d 1912** New warning: unused values
4d7bc38c
PE
1913 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1914 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
affac613 1915
8f3596a6 1916 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
e9690142
JD
1917 | exp "+" exp
1918 ;
affac613 1919
8f3596a6
AD
1920 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1921 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
4e26c69e 1922 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
affac613 1923
4e26c69e 1924 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
e9690142
JD
1925 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1926 | exp "+" exp
1927 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1928 ;
affac613 1929
4e26c69e
PE
1930 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1931 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1932 values are used, e.g.:
721be13c 1933
8f3596a6 1934 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
e9690142
JD
1935 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1936 ;
721be13c 1937
84866159
AD
1938 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1939 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1940
1941 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1942
721be13c
PE
1943 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1944 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
affac613 1945
402b123d 1946** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
9d9b8b70
PE
1947 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1948 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1949 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
a85284cf 1950
402b123d 1951** %expect, %expect-rr
035aa4a0
PE
1952 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1953 instead of warnings.
1954
402b123d 1955** GLR, YACC parsers.
4e26c69e
PE
1956 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1957 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
4b367315 1958
e4ab1254 1959** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
ad6a9b97 1960
402b123d 1961** %require "VERSION"
4e26c69e
PE
1962 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1963 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
b50d2359 1964
402b123d 1965** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
e14d0ab6
AD
1966 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1967 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
e4ab1254
AD
1968 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1969 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
fb9712a9
AD
1970
1971 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
e4ab1254 1972 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
b50d2359
AD
1973 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1974 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
fb9712a9 1975
b50d2359 1976 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
e4ab1254 1977 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
fb9712a9 1978
402b123d 1979** DJGPP support added.
193d7c70 1980\f
402b123d 1981* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1ce59070 1982
402b123d 1983** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
e14d0ab6 1984
402b123d 1985** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
baf785db
PE
1986 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1987 language is still English. For details, please see the new
0410a6e0
PE
1988 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1989 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1990 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1ce59070 1991
402b123d 1992** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1a059451
PE
1993 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1994 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1995 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1996
402b123d 1997** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
258b75ca
PE
1998 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1999 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2000
402b123d 2001** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
72f000b0
PE
2002 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2003 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2004 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2005 unexpected "number"'.
193d7c70 2006\f
402b123d 2007* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
efeed023 2008
402b123d 2009** Possibly-incompatible changes
d7e14fc0 2010
82de6b0d
PE
2011 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2012 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2013 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2014 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2015 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
8dd162d3 2016
82de6b0d
PE
2017 - Error token location.
2018 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2019 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2020 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2021 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
18d192f0 2022
82de6b0d
PE
2023 - Semicolon changes:
2024 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2025 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
e342c3be 2026
82de6b0d
PE
2027 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2028 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2029 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2030 forget a closing quote.
8dd162d3 2031
82de6b0d 2032 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
f74b6f91 2033
402b123d 2034** New features
1452af69 2035
82de6b0d 2036 - GLR grammars now support locations.
4febdd96 2037
82de6b0d
PE
2038 - New directive: %initial-action.
2039 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2040 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1452af69 2041
82de6b0d
PE
2042 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2043 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1452af69 2044
e4ab1254 2045 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
82de6b0d 2046 This is a GNU extension.
4febdd96 2047
e4ab1254 2048 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
9e6e7ed2 2049 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1452af69 2050
82de6b0d 2051 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1452af69 2052
82de6b0d
PE
2053 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2054 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
6040d338 2055
402b123d 2056** Bug fixes
d5a3fe37 2057
82de6b0d
PE
2058 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2059 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2060 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2061 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2062 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2063 these violations will become errors again.
3473d0f8 2064
82de6b0d
PE
2065 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2066 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
d600ee67 2067
82de6b0d 2068 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
d600ee67 2069\f
402b123d 2070* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
963fcc17 2071
402b123d 2072** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
dc546b0f 2073 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
75eb3bc4 2074
402b123d 2075** syntax error processing
75eb3bc4 2076
dc546b0f
PE
2077 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2078 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
75eb3bc4 2079
dc546b0f
PE
2080 - %destructor
2081 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2082 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
20daca06 2083
dc546b0f
PE
2084 - %error-verbose
2085 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
74724a70 2086
dc546b0f
PE
2087 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2088 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
d1de5372 2089
402b123d 2090** POSIX conformance
d1de5372 2091
dc546b0f
PE
2092 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2093 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2094 compatibility with Yacc.
74724a70 2095
e4ab1254
AD
2096 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2097 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2098 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2099 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
dc546b0f 2100 be consistent.
74724a70 2101
dc546b0f
PE
2102 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2103 declared before use. C99 requires this.
d1de5372 2104
dc546b0f
PE
2105 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2106 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
d1de5372 2107
dc546b0f
PE
2108 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2109 output as "foo\\bar.y".
6780ca7a 2110
dc546b0f 2111 - Yacc command and library now available
e4ab1254 2112 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
dc546b0f
PE
2113 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2114 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2115 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
6e649e65 2116
dc546b0f 2117 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
6e649e65 2118
dc546b0f
PE
2119 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2120 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2121 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
9501dc6e 2122
402b123d 2123** Other compatibility issues
886a425c 2124
e4ab1254
AD
2125 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2126 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2127 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2128 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2129 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
dc546b0f 2130 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
72f889cc 2131
e4ab1254 2132 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
dc546b0f 2133 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
886a425c 2134
dc546b0f 2135 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
e4ab1254 2136 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
437c2d80 2137
e4ab1254 2138 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
dc546b0f
PE
2139 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2140 withdrawn in a future release.
2a8d363a 2141
402b123d 2142** GLR parser notes
2a8d363a 2143
dc546b0f
PE
2144 - GLR and inline
2145 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
e4ab1254 2146 C keyword "inline".
959e5f51 2147
e4ab1254
AD
2148 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2149 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
900c5db5 2150
18ad57b3
AD
2151** %parse-param and %lex-param
2152 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2153 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2154 shortcomings:
2155
2156 - a single argument only can be added,
2157 - their types are weak (void *),
242cc08e 2158 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
18ad57b3
AD
2159 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2160
2161 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2162 For instance:
2163
2164 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2165 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2166 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2167
2168 results in the following signatures:
2169
2170 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2171 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2172
2173 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2174
2175 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2176 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2177
402b123d 2178** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
e4ab1254 2179 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
dc546b0f 2180 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
6e40b4eb 2181
402b123d 2182** #line in output files
dc546b0f 2183 - --no-line works properly.
6e40b4eb 2184
402b123d 2185** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
6e40b4eb
AD
2186 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2187 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2188 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
d600ee67 2189\f
402b123d 2190* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
7933f2b5 2191
402b123d 2192** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
7933f2b5 2193
402b123d 2194** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
7933f2b5 2195
402b123d 2196** GLR parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2197 Fix spurious parse errors.
2198
402b123d 2199** Pure parsers
f50adbbd
AD
2200 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2201 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2202
402b123d 2203** Type Clashes
d90c934c
AD
2204 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2205 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2206
e9690142 2207 untyped: ... typed;
d90c934c
AD
2208
2209 but the converse remains an error:
2210
e9690142 2211 typed: ... untyped;
d90c934c 2212
402b123d 2213** Values of mid-rule actions
d90c934c
AD
2214 The following code:
2215
e9690142 2216 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
d90c934c
AD
2217
2218 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2219 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
d600ee67 2220\f
402b123d 2221* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
adc8c848 2222
402b123d 2223** GLR parsing
676385e2
PH
2224 The declaration
2225 %glr-parser
2226 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2227 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
e8832397 2228 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
676385e2
PH
2229 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2230
7933f2b5 2231 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
420f93c8
PE
2232 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2233
402b123d 2234** Output Directory
8c165d89 2235 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
e4ab1254
AD
2236 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2237 now creates "bar.c".
8c165d89 2238
402b123d 2239** Undefined token
007a50a4 2240 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
e88dbdbf 2241 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
007a50a4 2242
402b123d 2243** Unknown token numbers
e88dbdbf 2244 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
007a50a4
AD
2245 no longer the case.
2246
402b123d 2247** Error token
e88dbdbf 2248 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
23c5a174
AD
2249 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2250 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2251 will be mapped onto another number.
2252
402b123d 2253** Verbose error messages
e4ab1254 2254 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
217598da
AD
2255 error recovery is possible.
2256
402b123d 2257** End token
e4ab1254 2258 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
217598da 2259
402b123d 2260** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
68cd8af3
PE
2261 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2262 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2263 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2264 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2265 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2266 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
337116ba
PE
2267 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2268 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
68cd8af3 2269
402b123d 2270** Traces
5504898e
AD
2271 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2272
402b123d 2273** Larger grammars
a861a339
PE
2274 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2275 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2276 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2277 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
355e7c1c 2278
402b123d 2279** Explicit initial rule
643a5994
AD
2280 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2281 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2282 graphs as rule 0.
23c5a174 2283
402b123d 2284** Useless rules
643a5994 2285 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
77714df2 2286 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
23c5a174 2287
402b123d 2288** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
6b98e4b5
AD
2289 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2290
402b123d 2291** Rules never reduced
e8832397
AD
2292 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2293 reported.
2294
e4ab1254 2295** Incorrect "Token not used"
11652ab3
AD
2296 On a grammar such as
2297
e29f0771
AD
2298 %token useless useful
2299 %%
2300 exp: '0' %prec useful;
11652ab3
AD
2301
2302 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
e4ab1254 2303 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
11652ab3 2304
402b123d 2305** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
77714df2 2306 as they caused too many portability hassles.
0179dd65 2307
402b123d 2308** Default locations
b2d52318
AD
2309 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2310 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2311 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2312 the computation of @$.
adc8c848 2313
402b123d 2314** Token end-of-file
b7c49edf
AD
2315 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2316 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
e4ab1254 2317 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
b7c49edf 2318 For instance
e29f0771 2319 %token MYEOF 0
b7c49edf 2320 or
e29f0771 2321 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
fdbcd8e2 2322
402b123d 2323** Semantic parser
fdbcd8e2
AD
2324 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2325
402b123d 2326** New translations
a861a339 2327 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
84614e13
AD
2328 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2329
402b123d 2330** Incorrect token definitions
e4ab1254
AD
2331 When given
2332 %token 'a' "A"
2333 bison used to output
2334 #define 'a' 65
b87f8b21 2335
402b123d 2336** Token definitions as enums
77714df2
AD
2337 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2338 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
e88dbdbf 2339 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
77714df2 2340
402b123d 2341** Reports
ec3bc396
AD
2342 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2343 produces additional information:
b408954b
AD
2344 - itemset
2345 complete the core item sets with their closure
e4ab1254 2346 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
9e6e7ed2 2347 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
b408954b
AD
2348 - solved
2349 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2350 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2351 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
ec3bc396 2352
402b123d 2353** Type clashes
9af3fbce
AD
2354 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2355 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2356
e29f0771
AD
2357 %type <foo> bar
2358 %%
2359 bar: '0' {} '0';
9af3fbce
AD
2360
2361 This is fixed.
a861a339 2362
402b123d 2363** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
f987e9d2 2364\f
402b123d 2365* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
76551463 2366
402b123d 2367** C Skeleton
76551463
AD
2368 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2369 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2370 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2371
2372 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2373 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2374 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2375 kludge will be disabled.
2376
2377 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2378 extended.
76551463 2379\f
402b123d 2380* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
76551463 2381
402b123d 2382** File name clashes are detected
76551463 2383 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
e4ab1254 2384 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
76551463 2385
e4ab1254 2386** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
76551463
AD
2387 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2388 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2389 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2390 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2391 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2392
402b123d 2393** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
76551463
AD
2394 many portability hassles.
2395
402b123d 2396** DJGPP support added.
76551463 2397
402b123d 2398** Fix test suite portability problems.
76551463 2399\f
402b123d 2400* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
76551463 2401
402b123d 2402** Fix C++ issues
76551463
AD
2403 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2404 under some conditions.
2405
402b123d 2406** Catch invalid @n
76551463
AD
2407 As is done with $n.
2408\f
402b123d 2409* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
76551463 2410
402b123d 2411** Fix Yacc output file names
76551463 2412
402b123d 2413** Portability fixes
76551463 2414
402b123d 2415** Italian, Dutch translations
76551463 2416\f
402b123d 2417* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
52d1aeee 2418
402b123d 2419** Many Bug Fixes
52d1aeee 2420
402b123d 2421** GNU Gettext and %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2422 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2423 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2424 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
e4ab1254 2425 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
52d1aeee 2426
402b123d 2427** Use of alloca in parsers
52d1aeee
MA
2428 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2429 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2430
2431 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2432 problems as on AIX.
2433
402b123d 2434** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
b47dbebe 2435
402b123d 2436** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
52d1aeee
MA
2437 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2438
402b123d 2439** User Actions
52d1aeee
MA
2440 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2441 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2442 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2443
402b123d 2444** Better C++ compliance
52d1aeee 2445 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
76551463 2446 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
52d1aeee 2447
402b123d 2448** Reduced Grammars
52d1aeee
MA
2449 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2450
402b123d 2451** 64 bit hosts
52d1aeee
MA
2452 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2453
402b123d 2454** Error messages
52d1aeee
MA
2455 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2456
402b123d 2457** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2458 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2459 any warning.
2460
402b123d 2461** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
52d1aeee 2462
402b123d 2463** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
52d1aeee 2464
402b123d 2465** Swedish translation
52d1aeee 2466
402b123d 2467** Parse errors
52d1aeee
MA
2468 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2469 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2470 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2471
402b123d 2472** Fixed parser memory leaks.
52d1aeee
MA
2473 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2474 previous allocations were not freed.
2475
402b123d 2476** Fixed verbose output file.
52d1aeee
MA
2477 Some newlines were missing.
2478 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2479
402b123d 2480** Fixed conflict report.
52d1aeee
MA
2481 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2482
402b123d 2483** %expect
52d1aeee
MA
2484 Was not used.
2485 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2486
402b123d 2487** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
52d1aeee 2488
402b123d 2489** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
52d1aeee 2490
402b123d 2491** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
52d1aeee 2492
402b123d 2493** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
52d1aeee
MA
2494 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2495
402b123d 2496** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
52d1aeee 2497
402b123d 2498** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
52d1aeee
MA
2499 New.
2500
402b123d 2501** --output
e4ab1254 2502 New, aliasing "--output-file".
52d1aeee 2503\f
402b123d 2504* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
342b8b6e 2505
e4ab1254
AD
2506** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2507 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
342b8b6e
AD
2508 argument.
2509
e4ab1254 2510** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
342b8b6e
AD
2511 experiment.
2512
402b123d 2513** Portability fixes.
f987e9d2 2514\f
402b123d 2515* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
342b8b6e 2516
402b123d 2517** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
342b8b6e
AD
2518 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2519 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
e4ab1254 2520 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
342b8b6e 2521
e4ab1254 2522** Added "-g" and "--graph".
f87a2205 2523
402b123d 2524** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
f2b5126e 2525
402b123d 2526** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
234a3be3 2527
402b123d 2528** Russian translation added.
f87a2205 2529
402b123d 2530** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
f87a2205 2531
402b123d 2532** Added the old Bison reference card.
c33638bb 2533
e4ab1254 2534** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
6deb4447 2535
e4ab1254 2536** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
cd5bd6ac 2537
e4ab1254 2538** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
62ab6972 2539
402b123d 2540** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
cd5bd6ac
AD
2541 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2542
402b123d 2543** New directives.
e4ab1254
AD
2544 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2545 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
f987e9d2 2546
402b123d 2547** @$
f987e9d2 2548 Automatic location tracking.
f87a2205 2549\f
402b123d 2550* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
d2e00347 2551
402b123d 2552** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
d2e00347 2553
402b123d 2554** Added NLS.
d2e00347 2555
402b123d 2556** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
d2e00347 2557
402b123d 2558** There is now a FAQ.
d2e00347 2559\f
402b123d 2560* Changes in version 1.27:
5c31c3c2 2561
402b123d 2562** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
5c31c3c2
JT
2563 some systems has been fixed.
2564\f
402b123d 2565* Changes in version 1.26:
4be07551 2566
7e508a2b 2567** Bison now uses Automake.
4be07551 2568
402b123d 2569** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
4be07551 2570
402b123d 2571** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
4be07551 2572
402b123d 2573** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
4be07551 2574
402b123d 2575** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
f51dbca1 2576
402b123d 2577** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
f51dbca1 2578
402b123d 2579** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
f51dbca1 2580 not provide alloca().
4be07551 2581\f
402b123d 2582* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
df8878c5 2583
402b123d 2584** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
df8878c5 2585the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
8c44d3ec 2586
402b123d 2587** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
df8878c5 2588example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
7e508a2b 2589of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
df8878c5 2590
402b123d 2591** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
df8878c5
RS
2592and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2593table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2594purposes.
2595
402b123d 2596** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
df8878c5
RS
2597directives in the parser file.
2598
402b123d 2599** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
df8878c5
RS
2600Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2601
402b123d 2602** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
df8878c5
RS
2603the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2604The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2605a switch statement body.
2606\f
402b123d 2607* Changes in version 1.23:
6780ca7a 2608
4d019228
DM
2609The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2610passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2611actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2612by casting it to the proper pointer type.
6780ca7a 2613
6780ca7a 2614Line numbers in output file corrected.
6780ca7a 2615\f
402b123d 2616* Changes in version 1.22:
6780ca7a
DM
2617
2618--help option added.
6780ca7a 2619\f
402b123d 2620* Changes in version 1.20:
6780ca7a
DM
2621
2622Output file does not redefine const for C++.
9f4503d6 2623
76551463
AD
2624-----
2625
7d6bad19 2626Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
76551463 2627
74553c98 2628This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
76551463 2629
f16b0819 2630This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
76551463 2631it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
f16b0819
PE
2632the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2633(at your option) any later version.
76551463 2634
f16b0819 2635This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
76551463
AD
2636but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2637MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2638GNU General Public License for more details.
2639
2640You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
f16b0819 2641along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
7e508a2b
AD
2642
2643 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2644 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2645 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2646 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2647 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2648 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2649 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2650 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2651 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2652 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2653 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2654 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2655 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
242cc08e 2656 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
7e508a2b 2657 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
242cc08e
AD
2658 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2659 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
dcb366b1 2660 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1282c124
AD
2661 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2662 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2663 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2664 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2665 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
6574576c 2666 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype
7e508a2b
AD
2667
2668Local Variables:
2669mode: outline
e4ab1254 2670fill-column: 76
7e508a2b 2671End: