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