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1 | Bison News | |
2 | ---------- | |
3 | ||
4 | * Changes in version 2.5.1 (????-??-??): | |
5 | ||
6 | ** glr.c: __attribute__ is preserved: | |
7 | ||
8 | __attribute__ is not longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined | |
9 | (i.e., when -std is passed to GCC). | |
10 | ||
11 | ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected. | |
12 | ||
13 | ** lalr1.java: several fixes: | |
14 | ||
15 | The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if | |
16 | the first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups. | |
17 | ||
18 | ** C++11 compatibility: | |
19 | ||
20 | C and C++ parsers use nullptr instead of 0 when __cplusplus is | |
21 | 201103L or higher. | |
22 | ||
23 | ** C++ locations: | |
24 | ||
25 | The position and location constructors (and their initialize | |
26 | methods) accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues | |
27 | in the documentation were fixed. | |
28 | ||
29 | ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms. | |
30 | ||
31 | ** Several improvements have been made to the manual: | |
32 | ||
33 | The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact | |
34 | scheme. Named references are motivated. The description of the | |
35 | automaton description file (*.output) is updated to the current | |
36 | format. Incorrect index entries were fixed. Some other errors were | |
37 | fixed. | |
38 | ||
39 | ** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated. | |
40 | ||
41 | ** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed: | |
42 | ||
43 | This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of | |
44 | tools such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, | |
45 | etc. | |
46 | ||
47 | * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14): | |
48 | ||
49 | ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes: | |
50 | ||
51 | Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with | |
52 | %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain | |
53 | dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU | |
54 | extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported | |
55 | by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc). | |
56 | ||
57 | ** Named references: | |
58 | ||
59 | Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references | |
60 | ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic | |
61 | actions code. | |
62 | ||
63 | Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references. | |
64 | When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used | |
65 | as named references: | |
66 | ||
67 | if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';' | |
68 | { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); } | |
69 | ||
70 | In the more common case, explicit names may be declared: | |
71 | ||
72 | stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';' | |
73 | { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); } | |
74 | ||
75 | Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When | |
76 | accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing | |
77 | ($[sym.1]) must be used. | |
78 | ||
79 | These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback | |
80 | will help to stabilize them. | |
81 | ||
82 | ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1): | |
83 | ||
84 | IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That | |
85 | is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables | |
86 | with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with | |
87 | nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction | |
88 | in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly, | |
89 | because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate | |
90 | conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts | |
91 | for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can | |
92 | significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar. | |
93 | ||
94 | Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in | |
95 | place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the | |
96 | default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar | |
97 | file with these directives: | |
98 | ||
99 | %define lr.type lalr | |
100 | %define lr.type ielr | |
101 | %define lr.type canonical-lr | |
102 | ||
103 | The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be | |
104 | adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both | |
105 | of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison | |
106 | manual. | |
107 | ||
108 | These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to | |
109 | stabilize them. | |
110 | ||
111 | ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling: | |
112 | ||
113 | Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems | |
114 | upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform | |
115 | additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax | |
116 | error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are | |
117 | unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they | |
118 | cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than | |
119 | the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when | |
120 | verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the | |
121 | obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the | |
122 | syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid | |
123 | tokens. | |
124 | ||
125 | The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default | |
126 | reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus, | |
127 | IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if | |
128 | %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for | |
129 | inconsistent states. | |
130 | ||
131 | LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves | |
132 | these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing | |
133 | %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in | |
134 | use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both | |
135 | syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input. | |
136 | While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition | |
137 | power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax | |
138 | error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition | |
139 | power. | |
140 | ||
141 | Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C. | |
142 | You can enable LAC with the following directive: | |
143 | ||
144 | %define parse.lac full | |
145 | ||
146 | See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional | |
147 | details including a few caveats. | |
148 | ||
149 | LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to | |
150 | stabilize it. | |
151 | ||
152 | ** %define improvements: | |
153 | ||
154 | *** Can now be invoked via the command line: | |
155 | ||
156 | Each of these command-line options | |
157 | ||
158 | -D NAME[=VALUE] | |
159 | --define=NAME[=VALUE] | |
160 | ||
161 | -F NAME[=VALUE] | |
162 | --force-define=NAME[=VALUE] | |
163 | ||
164 | is equivalent to this grammar file declaration | |
165 | ||
166 | %define NAME ["VALUE"] | |
167 | ||
168 | except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions | |
169 | for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define | |
170 | quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further | |
171 | details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual. | |
172 | ||
173 | *** Variables renamed: | |
174 | ||
175 | The following %define variables | |
176 | ||
177 | api.push_pull | |
178 | lr.keep_unreachable_states | |
179 | ||
180 | have been renamed to | |
181 | ||
182 | api.push-pull | |
183 | lr.keep-unreachable-states | |
184 | ||
185 | The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely | |
186 | for backward compatibility. | |
187 | ||
188 | *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file: | |
189 | ||
190 | If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed | |
191 | within quotations marks. For example, | |
192 | ||
193 | %define api.push-pull "push" | |
194 | ||
195 | can be rewritten as | |
196 | ||
197 | %define api.push-pull push | |
198 | ||
199 | *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings. | |
200 | ||
201 | *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning. | |
202 | ||
203 | ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings. | |
204 | ||
205 | ** Character literals not of length one: | |
206 | ||
207 | Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length | |
208 | one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in | |
209 | the following grammar to be the same token: | |
210 | ||
211 | exp: exp '++' | |
212 | | exp '+' exp | |
213 | ; | |
214 | ||
215 | Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In | |
216 | some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead. | |
217 | ||
218 | ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions: | |
219 | ||
220 | Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action | |
221 | altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to | |
222 | determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax | |
223 | error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed. | |
224 | ||
225 | ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC: | |
226 | ||
227 | Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC | |
228 | macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged | |
229 | to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first' | |
230 | and `last' members, instead of | |
231 | ||
232 | # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \ | |
233 | do \ | |
234 | if (N) \ | |
235 | { \ | |
236 | (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \ | |
237 | (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \ | |
238 | } \ | |
239 | else \ | |
240 | { \ | |
241 | (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \ | |
242 | } \ | |
243 | while (false) | |
244 | ||
245 | use: | |
246 | ||
247 | # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \ | |
248 | do \ | |
249 | if (N) \ | |
250 | { \ | |
251 | (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \ | |
252 | (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \ | |
253 | } \ | |
254 | else \ | |
255 | { \ | |
256 | (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \ | |
257 | } \ | |
258 | while (false) | |
259 | ||
260 | ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++: | |
261 | ||
262 | The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in | |
263 | the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after | |
264 | the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to | |
265 | override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided. | |
266 | ||
267 | ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it: | |
268 | ||
269 | YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of | |
270 | deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was | |
271 | a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As | |
272 | promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a | |
273 | semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers | |
274 | no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a | |
275 | discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL | |
276 | being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry. | |
277 | ||
278 | ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action: | |
279 | ||
280 | Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for | |
281 | reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when | |
282 | neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line | |
283 | options were specified). This allowed actions such as | |
284 | ||
285 | exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 }; | |
286 | ||
287 | instead of | |
288 | ||
289 | exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; }; | |
290 | ||
291 | As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a | |
292 | warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison | |
293 | cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an | |
294 | action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer), | |
295 | it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain | |
296 | about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of | |
297 | Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely. | |
298 | ||
299 | ** Verbose syntax error message fixes: | |
300 | ||
301 | When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is | |
302 | specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser | |
303 | include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens. | |
304 | The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected | |
305 | in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above: | |
306 | ||
307 | *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no | |
308 | tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token | |
309 | in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or | |
310 | expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error | |
311 | message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead | |
312 | reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this | |
313 | suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a | |
314 | lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are | |
315 | suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been | |
316 | shifted or discarded. | |
317 | ||
318 | *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens | |
319 | that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them | |
320 | were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such | |
321 | tokens are now properly omitted from the list. | |
322 | ||
323 | *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging | |
324 | (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add | |
325 | invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost | |
326 | completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and | |
327 | default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even | |
328 | when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is, | |
329 | if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later | |
330 | parser state than the one at which some syntax error is | |
331 | discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in | |
332 | the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation, | |
333 | described above, eliminates this problem and the need for | |
334 | canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled | |
335 | by default. | |
336 | ||
337 | ** Java skeleton fixes: | |
338 | ||
339 | *** A location handling bug has been fixed. | |
340 | ||
341 | *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now | |
342 | cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected. | |
343 | ||
344 | *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack. | |
345 | ||
346 | ** -W/--warnings fixes: | |
347 | ||
348 | *** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories: | |
349 | ||
350 | For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all | |
351 | warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc: | |
352 | ||
353 | bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y | |
354 | ||
355 | *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings: | |
356 | ||
357 | Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal | |
358 | warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories | |
359 | `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important | |
360 | consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For | |
361 | example: | |
362 | ||
363 | bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported | |
364 | bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported | |
365 | bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported | |
366 | bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error | |
367 | ||
368 | However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is | |
369 | specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an | |
370 | expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning | |
371 | then have no effect on the conflict report. | |
372 | ||
373 | *** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error': | |
374 | ||
375 | For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports | |
376 | errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc: | |
377 | ||
378 | bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y | |
379 | ||
380 | *** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings: | |
381 | ||
382 | Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for | |
383 | which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However, | |
384 | given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to | |
385 | suppress all warnings: | |
386 | ||
387 | bison -Wnone gram.y | |
388 | ||
389 | ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0: | |
390 | ||
391 | Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence | |
392 | directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has | |
393 | produced an assertion failure. For example: | |
394 | ||
395 | %left END 0 | |
396 | ||
397 | This bug has been fixed. | |
398 | ||
399 | * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05): | |
400 | ||
401 | ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about | |
402 | grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts. | |
403 | ||
404 | ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have | |
405 | been fixed. | |
406 | ||
407 | ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed. | |
408 | ||
409 | ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have | |
410 | been fixed. | |
411 | ||
412 | ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that | |
413 | warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to | |
414 | errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be | |
415 | sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues. | |
416 | ||
417 | ** Minor documentation fixes. | |
418 | ||
419 | * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20): | |
420 | ||
421 | ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks | |
422 | in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, | |
423 | RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison | |
424 | errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the | |
425 | affected platforms. | |
426 | ||
427 | ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately. | |
428 | ||
429 | POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does | |
430 | not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by | |
431 | %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this | |
432 | error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a | |
433 | %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward | |
434 | compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for | |
435 | now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error. | |
436 | [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this | |
437 | warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.] | |
438 | ||
439 | ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved. | |
440 | ||
441 | ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS, | |
442 | YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now | |
443 | avoided. | |
444 | ||
445 | ** %code is now a permanent feature. | |
446 | ||
447 | A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form: | |
448 | ||
449 | %{CODE%} | |
450 | ||
451 | To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the | |
452 | %code directive with the following forms for C/C++: | |
453 | ||
454 | %code {CODE} | |
455 | %code requires {CODE} | |
456 | %code provides {CODE} | |
457 | %code top {CODE} | |
458 | ||
459 | These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the | |
460 | %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison | |
461 | manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section | |
462 | "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the | |
463 | advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive. | |
464 | ||
465 | Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code | |
466 | is still considered experimental. | |
467 | ||
468 | ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed. | |
469 | ||
470 | YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of | |
471 | deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was | |
472 | documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer | |
473 | documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases. | |
474 | Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is | |
475 | specified by POSIX. | |
476 | ||
477 | Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to | |
478 | induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is | |
479 | that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax | |
480 | error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other | |
481 | subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from | |
482 | inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is | |
483 | used. For a more detailed discussion, see: | |
484 | ||
485 | http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html | |
486 | ||
487 | The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but | |
488 | deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However, | |
489 | because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new | |
490 | Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation, | |
491 | Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a | |
492 | rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for | |
493 | %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will | |
494 | be removed altogether. | |
495 | ||
496 | There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will | |
497 | be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other | |
498 | Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C | |
499 | preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example). | |
500 | To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the | |
501 | epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In | |
502 | this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress | |
503 | C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own | |
504 | phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to | |
505 | 2.4.2 is not necessary. | |
506 | ||
507 | ** Internationalization. | |
508 | ||
509 | Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances, | |
510 | message translations were not installed although supported by the | |
511 | host system. | |
512 | ||
513 | * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11): | |
514 | ||
515 | ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc | |
516 | declarations have been fixed. | |
517 | ||
518 | ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action. | |
519 | ||
520 | Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user | |
521 | action for reductions. This allowed actions such as | |
522 | ||
523 | exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 }; | |
524 | ||
525 | instead of | |
526 | ||
527 | exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; }; | |
528 | ||
529 | Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores | |
530 | the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when | |
531 | neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options | |
532 | are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old | |
533 | behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this | |
534 | feature. | |
535 | ||
536 | ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual. | |
537 | ||
538 | * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02): | |
539 | ||
540 | ** %language is an experimental feature. | |
541 | ||
542 | We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner | |
543 | alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of | |
544 | modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release, | |
545 | we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve | |
546 | in future releases. | |
547 | ||
548 | ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved. | |
549 | ||
550 | ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been | |
551 | fixed. | |
552 | ||
553 | * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27): | |
554 | ||
555 | ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive | |
556 | are now deprecated: | |
557 | ||
558 | %define NAME "VALUE" | |
559 | ||
560 | ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of: | |
561 | ||
562 | %define api.pure | |
563 | ||
564 | which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about | |
565 | unreasonable usage in the latter case. | |
566 | ||
567 | ** Push Parsing | |
568 | ||
569 | Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That | |
570 | is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can | |
571 | push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will | |
572 | return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push | |
573 | interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it: | |
574 | ||
575 | %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex. | |
576 | %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex. | |
577 | ||
578 | See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details. | |
579 | ||
580 | The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user | |
581 | feedback will help to stabilize it. | |
582 | ||
583 | ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format, | |
584 | not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument | |
585 | and thus cannot be bundled with other short options. | |
586 | ||
587 | ** Java | |
588 | ||
589 | Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is | |
590 | `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of | |
591 | %skeleton to select it. | |
592 | ||
593 | See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details. | |
594 | ||
595 | The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user | |
596 | feedback will help to stabilize it. | |
597 | ||
598 | ** %language | |
599 | ||
600 | This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated | |
601 | parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton | |
602 | that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if | |
603 | the grammar file's name ends in ".y". | |
604 | ||
605 | ** XML Automaton Report | |
606 | ||
607 | Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new | |
608 | `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More | |
609 | user feedback will help to stabilize it. | |
610 | ||
611 | ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using | |
612 | %defines. For example: | |
613 | ||
614 | %defines "parser.h" | |
615 | ||
616 | ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals, | |
617 | Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless", | |
618 | "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar" | |
619 | instead of "unused". | |
620 | ||
621 | ** Unreachable State Removal | |
622 | ||
623 | Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable | |
624 | states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison | |
625 | disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now: | |
626 | ||
627 | 1. Removes unreachable states. | |
628 | ||
629 | 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states. | |
630 | WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr | |
631 | directives in existing grammar files. | |
632 | ||
633 | 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as | |
634 | "useless in parser due to conflicts". | |
635 | ||
636 | This feature can be disabled with the following directive: | |
637 | ||
638 | %define lr.keep_unreachable_states | |
639 | ||
640 | See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual | |
641 | for further discussion. | |
642 | ||
643 | ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report | |
644 | ||
645 | When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets | |
646 | (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's | |
647 | lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is | |
648 | associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end | |
649 | of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set | |
650 | next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This | |
651 | bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source | |
652 | code. | |
653 | ||
654 | ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file | |
655 | name. | |
656 | ||
657 | ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now | |
658 | deprecated: | |
659 | ||
660 | %file-prefix "parser" | |
661 | %name-prefix "c_" | |
662 | %output "parser.c" | |
663 | ||
664 | ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}' | |
665 | ||
666 | Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to | |
667 | the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into | |
668 | a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies | |
669 | the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate | |
670 | it: | |
671 | ||
672 | 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}' | |
673 | 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}' | |
674 | 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}' | |
675 | 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}' | |
676 | ||
677 | See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison | |
678 | manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue | |
679 | Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code | |
680 | over the traditional Yacc prologues. | |
681 | ||
682 | The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to | |
683 | determine whether they should become permanent features. | |
684 | ||
685 | ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values | |
686 | ||
687 | Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not | |
688 | used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns | |
689 | about unused $2 in: | |
690 | ||
691 | exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; }; | |
692 | ||
693 | Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For | |
694 | example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in: | |
695 | ||
696 | exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; }; | |
697 | ||
698 | However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they | |
699 | sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc | |
700 | constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer). | |
701 | ||
702 | To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or | |
703 | `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'. | |
704 | ||
705 | ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>' | |
706 | ||
707 | Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and | |
708 | %printer's: | |
709 | ||
710 | 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default | |
711 | %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally | |
712 | declared semantic type tags. | |
713 | ||
714 | 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default | |
715 | %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic | |
716 | type tags. | |
717 | ||
718 | Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a. | |
719 | `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no | |
720 | longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is | |
721 | not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action. | |
722 | ||
723 | The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user | |
724 | feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent | |
725 | features. | |
726 | ||
727 | See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further | |
728 | details. | |
729 | ||
730 | ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required | |
731 | by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison | |
732 | manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings. | |
733 | ||
734 | ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been | |
735 | completely removed from Bison. | |
736 | ||
737 | * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13: | |
738 | ||
739 | ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type | |
740 | YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag. | |
741 | Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef. | |
742 | This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations, | |
743 | and is required by POSIX. | |
744 | ||
745 | ** Locations columns and lines start at 1. | |
746 | In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs. | |
747 | ||
748 | ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's: | |
749 | ||
750 | For example: | |
751 | ||
752 | %union { char *string; } | |
753 | %token <string> STRING1 | |
754 | %token <string> STRING2 | |
755 | %type <string> string1 | |
756 | %type <string> string2 | |
757 | %union { char character; } | |
758 | %token <character> CHR | |
759 | %type <character> chr | |
760 | %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default | |
761 | %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1 | |
762 | %destructor { } <character> | |
763 | ||
764 | guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a | |
765 | semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to | |
766 | `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it | |
767 | also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second | |
768 | `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once. | |
769 | ||
770 | [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default | |
771 | %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in | |
772 | future versions.] | |
773 | ||
774 | ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y', | |
775 | `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for | |
776 | associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements | |
777 | helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc | |
778 | requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases. | |
779 | ||
780 | ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but | |
781 | potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison. | |
782 | ||
783 | As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the | |
784 | `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all | |
785 | prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate | |
786 | the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've | |
787 | declared after the first %union. | |
788 | ||
789 | Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header | |
790 | file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the | |
791 | latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++, | |
792 | the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate | |
793 | token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was | |
794 | after the token definitions. | |
795 | ||
796 | Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code | |
797 | file, it always inserts it before the token definitions. | |
798 | ||
799 | ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc | |
800 | prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and | |
801 | %after-header. | |
802 | ||
803 | For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the | |
804 | order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to | |
805 | declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most | |
806 | convenient for you: | |
807 | ||
808 | %before-header { | |
809 | /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into | |
810 | * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not* | |
811 | * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put | |
812 | * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common | |
813 | * example is `#include "system.h"'. */ | |
814 | } | |
815 | %start-header { | |
816 | /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file. | |
817 | * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated | |
818 | * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a | |
819 | * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */ | |
820 | } | |
821 | %union { | |
822 | /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the | |
823 | * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position | |
824 | * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */ | |
825 | } | |
826 | %end-header { | |
827 | /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file. | |
828 | * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated | |
829 | * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public | |
830 | * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated | |
831 | * definitions. */ | |
832 | } | |
833 | %after-header { | |
834 | /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into | |
835 | * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not* | |
836 | * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or | |
837 | * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the | |
838 | * Bison-generated definitions. */ | |
839 | } | |
840 | ||
841 | If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison | |
842 | will concatenate the contents in declaration order. | |
843 | ||
844 | [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue | |
845 | alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.] | |
846 | ||
847 | ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'. | |
848 | The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed | |
849 | in a future release. | |
850 | ||
851 | * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05: | |
852 | ||
853 | ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING', | |
854 | for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars. | |
855 | ||
856 | ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should | |
857 | be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets. | |
858 | ||
859 | * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19: | |
860 | ||
861 | ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit | |
862 | using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission | |
863 | was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C. | |
864 | ||
865 | ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs. | |
866 | ||
867 | ** The C++ parsers export their token_type. | |
868 | ||
869 | ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates | |
870 | their contents together. | |
871 | ||
872 | ** New warning: unused values | |
873 | Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported, | |
874 | if the symbols have destructors. For instance: | |
875 | ||
876 | exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; } | |
877 | | exp "+" exp | |
878 | ; | |
879 | ||
880 | will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in | |
881 | the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example | |
882 | most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as: | |
883 | ||
884 | exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp | |
885 | { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); } | |
886 | | exp "+" exp | |
887 | { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); } | |
888 | ; | |
889 | ||
890 | However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks | |
891 | and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the | |
892 | values are used, e.g.: | |
893 | ||
894 | exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); } | |
895 | | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; } | |
896 | ; | |
897 | ||
898 | If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action | |
899 | uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used. | |
900 | ||
901 | exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); }; | |
902 | ||
903 | The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks. | |
904 | If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed. | |
905 | ||
906 | ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR. | |
907 | Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT, | |
908 | and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects | |
909 | corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule. | |
910 | ||
911 | ** %expect, %expect-rr | |
912 | Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors, | |
913 | instead of warnings. | |
914 | ||
915 | ** GLR, YACC parsers. | |
916 | The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the | |
917 | experimental printers) as per the documentation. | |
918 | ||
919 | ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action. | |
920 | ||
921 | ** %require "VERSION" | |
922 | This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented | |
923 | in Bison version VERSION or higher. | |
924 | ||
925 | ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members. | |
926 | The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE | |
927 | was defined as a free form union. They are now class members: | |
928 | tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the | |
929 | semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type. | |
930 | ||
931 | If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive | |
932 | `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global | |
933 | definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both | |
934 | for previous releases of Bison, and this one. | |
935 | ||
936 | If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will | |
937 | fail using `%require "2.2"'. | |
938 | ||
939 | ** DJGPP support added. | |
940 | \f | |
941 | * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16: | |
942 | ||
943 | ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param. | |
944 | ||
945 | ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like | |
946 | "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default | |
947 | language is still English. For details, please see the new | |
948 | Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software | |
949 | distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to | |
950 | Bruno Haible for this new feature. | |
951 | ||
952 | ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to | |
953 | simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted" | |
954 | has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not | |
955 | always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers. | |
956 | ||
957 | ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left | |
958 | behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a | |
959 | successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent. | |
960 | ||
961 | ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer | |
962 | quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for | |
963 | a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might | |
964 | print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error, | |
965 | unexpected "number"'. | |
966 | \f | |
967 | * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25: | |
968 | ||
969 | ** Possibly-incompatible changes | |
970 | ||
971 | - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function | |
972 | (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread | |
973 | problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define | |
974 | YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read | |
975 | the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case. | |
976 | ||
977 | - Error token location. | |
978 | During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated | |
979 | to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes | |
980 | the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error | |
981 | recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part. | |
982 | ||
983 | - Semicolon changes: | |
984 | . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar. | |
985 | . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations. | |
986 | ||
987 | - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or | |
988 | string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has | |
989 | dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if | |
990 | forget a closing quote. | |
991 | ||
992 | - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately. | |
993 | ||
994 | ** New features | |
995 | ||
996 | - GLR grammars now support locations. | |
997 | ||
998 | - New directive: %initial-action. | |
999 | This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including | |
1000 | initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts. | |
1001 | ||
1002 | - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of | |
1003 | reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers. | |
1004 | ||
1005 | - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'. | |
1006 | This is a GNU extension. | |
1007 | ||
1008 | - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'. | |
1009 | [However, this was changed back after 2.3.] | |
1010 | ||
1011 | - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc. | |
1012 | ||
1013 | - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the | |
1014 | yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance. | |
1015 | ||
1016 | ** Bug fixes | |
1017 | ||
1018 | - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors. | |
1019 | This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are | |
1020 | reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there | |
1021 | are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future | |
1022 | versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that | |
1023 | these violations will become errors again. | |
1024 | ||
1025 | - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer | |
1026 | arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts. | |
1027 | ||
1028 | - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires. | |
1029 | \f | |
1030 | * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01: | |
1031 | ||
1032 | ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2 | |
1033 | of the GNU Free Documentation License. | |
1034 | ||
1035 | ** syntax error processing | |
1036 | ||
1037 | - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error | |
1038 | locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation. | |
1039 | ||
1040 | - %destructor | |
1041 | It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols | |
1042 | discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental. | |
1043 | ||
1044 | - %error-verbose | |
1045 | This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE. | |
1046 | ||
1047 | - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged. | |
1048 | It is not guaranteed to work forever. | |
1049 | ||
1050 | ** POSIX conformance | |
1051 | ||
1052 | - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules. | |
1053 | This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves | |
1054 | compatibility with Yacc. | |
1055 | ||
1056 | - `parse error' -> `syntax error' | |
1057 | Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code | |
1058 | and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX | |
1059 | requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to | |
1060 | be consistent. | |
1061 | ||
1062 | - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be | |
1063 | declared before use. C99 requires this. | |
1064 | ||
1065 | - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and | |
1066 | backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires. | |
1067 | ||
1068 | - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is | |
1069 | output as "foo\\bar.y". | |
1070 | ||
1071 | - Yacc command and library now available | |
1072 | The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires. | |
1073 | Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing | |
1074 | implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions. | |
1075 | This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it. | |
1076 | ||
1077 | - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors. | |
1078 | ||
1079 | - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it | |
1080 | using typedef instead of defining it as a macro. | |
1081 | For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined. | |
1082 | ||
1083 | ** Other compatibility issues | |
1084 | ||
1085 | - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the | |
1086 | directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code | |
1087 | `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility. | |
1088 | The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc. | |
1089 | For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'. | |
1090 | This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35. | |
1091 | ||
1092 | - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for | |
1093 | compatibility with Bison 1.35. | |
1094 | ||
1095 | - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g., | |
1096 | `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'. | |
1097 | ||
1098 | - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being | |
1099 | typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be | |
1100 | withdrawn in a future release. | |
1101 | ||
1102 | ** GLR parser notes | |
1103 | ||
1104 | - GLR and inline | |
1105 | Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the | |
1106 | C keyword `inline'. | |
1107 | ||
1108 | - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow' | |
1109 | GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual. | |
1110 | ||
1111 | ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file, | |
1112 | e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since | |
1113 | that command outputs both code and header to foo.h. | |
1114 | ||
1115 | ** #line in output files | |
1116 | - --no-line works properly. | |
1117 | ||
1118 | ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or | |
1119 | later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions | |
1120 | ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try | |
1121 | building Bison with a K&R C compiler. | |
1122 | \f | |
1123 | * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14: | |
1124 | ||
1125 | ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts. | |
1126 | ||
1127 | ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto. | |
1128 | ||
1129 | ** GLR parsers | |
1130 | Fix spurious parse errors. | |
1131 | ||
1132 | ** Pure parsers | |
1133 | Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables. | |
1134 | Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it. | |
1135 | ||
1136 | ** Type Clashes | |
1137 | In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default | |
1138 | action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed: | |
1139 | ||
1140 | untyped: ... typed; | |
1141 | ||
1142 | but the converse remains an error: | |
1143 | ||
1144 | typed: ... untyped; | |
1145 | ||
1146 | ** Values of mid-rule actions | |
1147 | The following code: | |
1148 | ||
1149 | foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ... | |
1150 | ||
1151 | was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule | |
1152 | action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action. | |
1153 | \f | |
1154 | * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04: | |
1155 | ||
1156 | ** GLR parsing | |
1157 | The declaration | |
1158 | %glr-parser | |
1159 | causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling | |
1160 | almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations | |
1161 | %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of | |
1162 | ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger. | |
1163 | ||
1164 | Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts | |
1165 | like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now. | |
1166 | ||
1167 | ** Output Directory | |
1168 | When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not | |
1169 | specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It | |
1170 | now creates `bar.c'. | |
1171 | ||
1172 | ** Undefined token | |
1173 | The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented | |
1174 | the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case. | |
1175 | ||
1176 | ** Unknown token numbers | |
1177 | If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is | |
1178 | no longer the case. | |
1179 | ||
1180 | ** Error token | |
1181 | According to POSIX, the error token must be 256. | |
1182 | Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the | |
1183 | user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error | |
1184 | will be mapped onto another number. | |
1185 | ||
1186 | ** Verbose error messages | |
1187 | They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where | |
1188 | error recovery is possible. | |
1189 | ||
1190 | ** End token | |
1191 | Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'. | |
1192 | ||
1193 | ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX | |
1194 | When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops | |
1195 | the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error | |
1196 | token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that | |
1197 | allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the | |
1198 | error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior, | |
1199 | and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see | |
1200 | Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20) | |
1201 | <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>. | |
1202 | ||
1203 | ** Traces | |
1204 | Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported. | |
1205 | ||
1206 | ** Larger grammars | |
1207 | Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar | |
1208 | size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables). | |
1209 | Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits; | |
1210 | now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts. | |
1211 | ||
1212 | ** Explicit initial rule | |
1213 | Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does | |
1214 | not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and | |
1215 | graphs as rule 0. | |
1216 | ||
1217 | ** Useless rules | |
1218 | Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used, | |
1219 | included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed. | |
1220 | ||
1221 | ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals | |
1222 | They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations. | |
1223 | ||
1224 | ** Rules never reduced | |
1225 | Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now | |
1226 | reported. | |
1227 | ||
1228 | ** Incorrect `Token not used' | |
1229 | On a grammar such as | |
1230 | ||
1231 | %token useless useful | |
1232 | %% | |
1233 | exp: '0' %prec useful; | |
1234 | ||
1235 | where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule, | |
1236 | bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens. | |
1237 | ||
1238 | ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31 | |
1239 | as they caused too many portability hassles. | |
1240 | ||
1241 | ** Default locations | |
1242 | By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was | |
1243 | performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1. | |
1244 | The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of | |
1245 | the computation of @$. | |
1246 | ||
1247 | ** Token end-of-file | |
1248 | The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case, | |
1249 | the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose | |
1250 | error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default. | |
1251 | For instance | |
1252 | %token MYEOF 0 | |
1253 | or | |
1254 | %token MYEOF 0 "end of file" | |
1255 | ||
1256 | ** Semantic parser | |
1257 | This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed. | |
1258 | ||
1259 | ** New translations | |
1260 | Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes. | |
1261 | Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic. | |
1262 | ||
1263 | ** Incorrect token definitions | |
1264 | When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'. | |
1265 | ||
1266 | ** Token definitions as enums | |
1267 | Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided | |
1268 | the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums. | |
1269 | This lets debuggers display names instead of integers. | |
1270 | ||
1271 | ** Reports | |
1272 | In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which | |
1273 | produces additional information: | |
1274 | - itemset | |
1275 | complete the core item sets with their closure | |
1276 | - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back] | |
1277 | explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items | |
1278 | - solved | |
1279 | describe shift/reduce conflicts solving. | |
1280 | Bison used to systematically output this information on top of | |
1281 | the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states. | |
1282 | ||
1283 | ** Type clashes | |
1284 | Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on | |
1285 | the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in: | |
1286 | ||
1287 | %type <foo> bar | |
1288 | %% | |
1289 | bar: '0' {} '0'; | |
1290 | ||
1291 | This is fixed. | |
1292 | ||
1293 | ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison. | |
1294 | \f | |
1295 | * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25: | |
1296 | ||
1297 | ** C Skeleton | |
1298 | Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define | |
1299 | YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data | |
1300 | alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible. | |
1301 | ||
1302 | Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser | |
1303 | generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to | |
1304 | maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this | |
1305 | kludge will be disabled. | |
1306 | ||
1307 | This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was | |
1308 | extended. | |
1309 | \f | |
1310 | * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12: | |
1311 | ||
1312 | ** File name clashes are detected | |
1313 | $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x | |
1314 | fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x' | |
1315 | ||
1316 | ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning | |
1317 | In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other | |
1318 | Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near | |
1319 | future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison | |
1320 | grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To | |
1321 | facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning. | |
1322 | ||
1323 | ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too | |
1324 | many portability hassles. | |
1325 | ||
1326 | ** DJGPP support added. | |
1327 | ||
1328 | ** Fix test suite portability problems. | |
1329 | \f | |
1330 | * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07: | |
1331 | ||
1332 | ** Fix C++ issues | |
1333 | Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking | |
1334 | under some conditions. | |
1335 | ||
1336 | ** Catch invalid @n | |
1337 | As is done with $n. | |
1338 | \f | |
1339 | * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23: | |
1340 | ||
1341 | ** Fix Yacc output file names | |
1342 | ||
1343 | ** Portability fixes | |
1344 | ||
1345 | ** Italian, Dutch translations | |
1346 | \f | |
1347 | * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14: | |
1348 | ||
1349 | ** Many Bug Fixes | |
1350 | ||
1351 | ** GNU Gettext and %expect | |
1352 | GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that | |
1353 | Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be | |
1354 | too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect | |
1355 | does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'. | |
1356 | ||
1357 | ** Use of alloca in parsers | |
1358 | If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use | |
1359 | malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed. | |
1360 | ||
1361 | alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability | |
1362 | problems as on AIX. | |
1363 | ||
1364 | ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core. | |
1365 | ||
1366 | ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0 | |
1367 | (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined. | |
1368 | ||
1369 | ** User Actions | |
1370 | Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the | |
1371 | ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon | |
1372 | is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }. | |
1373 | ||
1374 | ** Better C++ compliance | |
1375 | The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces. | |
1376 | [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.] | |
1377 | ||
1378 | ** Reduced Grammars | |
1379 | Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals. | |
1380 | ||
1381 | ** 64 bit hosts | |
1382 | The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts. | |
1383 | ||
1384 | ** Error messages | |
1385 | Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages. | |
1386 | ||
1387 | ** %expect | |
1388 | When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue | |
1389 | any warning. | |
1390 | ||
1391 | ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers. | |
1392 | ||
1393 | ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces. | |
1394 | ||
1395 | ** Swedish translation | |
1396 | ||
1397 | ** Parse errors | |
1398 | Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking. | |
1399 | Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'('' | |
1400 | Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '(' | |
1401 | ||
1402 | ** Fixed parser memory leaks. | |
1403 | When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the | |
1404 | previous allocations were not freed. | |
1405 | ||
1406 | ** Fixed verbose output file. | |
1407 | Some newlines were missing. | |
1408 | Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing. | |
1409 | ||
1410 | ** Fixed conflict report. | |
1411 | Option -v was needed to get the result. | |
1412 | ||
1413 | ** %expect | |
1414 | Was not used. | |
1415 | Mismatches are errors, not warnings. | |
1416 | ||
1417 | ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input. | |
1418 | ||
1419 | ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H. | |
1420 | ||
1421 | ** Fixed some typos in the documentation. | |
1422 | ||
1423 | ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported. | |
1424 | Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257. | |
1425 | ||
1426 | ** doc/refcard.tex is updated. | |
1427 | ||
1428 | ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix. | |
1429 | New. | |
1430 | ||
1431 | ** --output | |
1432 | New, aliasing `--output-file'. | |
1433 | \f | |
1434 | * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26: | |
1435 | ||
1436 | ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the | |
1437 | output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any | |
1438 | argument. | |
1439 | ||
1440 | ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed | |
1441 | experiment. | |
1442 | ||
1443 | ** Portability fixes. | |
1444 | \f | |
1445 | * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07: | |
1446 | ||
1447 | ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used | |
1448 | with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers | |
1449 | that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option | |
1450 | `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this. | |
1451 | ||
1452 | ** Added `-g' and `--graph'. | |
1453 | ||
1454 | ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL. | |
1455 | ||
1456 | ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension. | |
1457 | ||
1458 | ** Russian translation added. | |
1459 | ||
1460 | ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome. | |
1461 | ||
1462 | ** Added the old Bison reference card. | |
1463 | ||
1464 | ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'. | |
1465 | ||
1466 | ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'. | |
1467 | ||
1468 | ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled. | |
1469 | ||
1470 | ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems | |
1471 | of the #line lines with path names including backslashes. | |
1472 | ||
1473 | ** New directives. | |
1474 | `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose', | |
1475 | `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'. | |
1476 | ||
1477 | ** @$ | |
1478 | Automatic location tracking. | |
1479 | \f | |
1480 | * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06: | |
1481 | ||
1482 | ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers. | |
1483 | ||
1484 | ** Added NLS. | |
1485 | ||
1486 | ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character. | |
1487 | ||
1488 | ** There is now a FAQ. | |
1489 | \f | |
1490 | * Changes in version 1.27: | |
1491 | ||
1492 | ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on | |
1493 | some systems has been fixed. | |
1494 | \f | |
1495 | * Changes in version 1.26: | |
1496 | ||
1497 | ** Bison now uses automake. | |
1498 | ||
1499 | ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>. | |
1500 | ||
1501 | ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258. | |
1502 | ||
1503 | ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable. | |
1504 | ||
1505 | ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed. | |
1506 | ||
1507 | ** Problems when closing files should now be reported. | |
1508 | ||
1509 | ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do | |
1510 | not provide alloca(). | |
1511 | \f | |
1512 | * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16: | |
1513 | ||
1514 | ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading | |
1515 | the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it. | |
1516 | ||
1517 | ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for | |
1518 | example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead | |
1519 | of chosing a name like LESSEQ. | |
1520 | ||
1521 | ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names | |
1522 | and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this | |
1523 | table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other | |
1524 | purposes. | |
1525 | ||
1526 | ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor | |
1527 | directives in the parser file. | |
1528 | ||
1529 | ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not | |
1530 | Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros. | |
1531 | ||
1532 | ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including | |
1533 | the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine. | |
1534 | The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of | |
1535 | a switch statement body. | |
1536 | \f | |
1537 | * Changes in version 1.23: | |
1538 | ||
1539 | The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be | |
1540 | passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should | |
1541 | actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable | |
1542 | by casting it to the proper pointer type. | |
1543 | ||
1544 | Line numbers in output file corrected. | |
1545 | \f | |
1546 | * Changes in version 1.22: | |
1547 | ||
1548 | --help option added. | |
1549 | \f | |
1550 | * Changes in version 1.20: | |
1551 | ||
1552 | Output file does not redefine const for C++. | |
1553 | ||
1554 | Local Variables: | |
1555 | mode: outline | |
1556 | End: | |
1557 | ||
1558 | ----- | |
1559 | ||
1560 | Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. | |
1561 | ||
1562 | This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator. | |
1563 | ||
1564 | This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify | |
1565 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by | |
1566 | the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or | |
1567 | (at your option) any later version. | |
1568 | ||
1569 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, | |
1570 | but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of | |
1571 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the | |
1572 | GNU General Public License for more details. | |
1573 | ||
1574 | You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | |
1575 | along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. |