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1Bison News
2----------
3
4* Changes in version ?.? (????-??-??):
5
6** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
7
8 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
9 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives
10 support one or more arguments. Instead of
11
12 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
13 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
14 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
15 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
16
17 one may now declare
18
19 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
20
21** Java skeleton improvements
22
23 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
24 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
25 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
26
27** Variable api.tokens.prefix
28
29 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
30 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
31 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
32
33 %token FILE for ERROR
34 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
35 %%
36 start: FILE for ERROR;
37
38 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
39 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
40 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
41 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
42
43** Variable api.namespace
44
45 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
46 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
47
48** Variable parse.error
49
50 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
51 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
52 %define parse.error "verbose".
53
54** Semantic predicates
55
56 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
57 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
58 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
59 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
60 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
61 runtime expressions.
62
63* Changes in version 2.5 (????-??-??):
64
65** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
66
67 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
68 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
69 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
70 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
71 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
72
73** Named references:
74
75 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
76 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
77 actions code.
78
79 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
80 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
81 as named references:
82
83 if_stmt : 'if' cond_expr 'then' then_stmt ';'
84 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
85
86 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
87
88 stmt[res] : 'if' expr[cond] 'then' stmt[then] 'else' stmt[else] ';'
89 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
90
91 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
92 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
93 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
94
95 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
96 will help to stabilize them.
97
98** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
99
100 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
101 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
102 with the full language recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
103 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
104 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
105 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
106 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
107 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
108 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
109
110 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
111 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
112 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
113 file with these directives:
114
115 %define lr.type lalr
116 %define lr.type ielr
117 %define lr.type canonical-lr
118
119 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
120 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
121 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
122 manual.
123
124 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
125 stabilize them.
126
127** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
128
129 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
130 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
131 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
132 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
133 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
134 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
135 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
136 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
137 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
138 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
139 tokens.
140
141 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
142 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
143 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
144 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
145 inconsistent states.
146
147 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
148 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
149 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
150 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
151 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
152 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
153 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
154 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
155 power.
156
157 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
158 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
159
160 %define parse.lac full
161
162 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
163 details including a few caveats.
164
165 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
166 stabilize it.
167
168** %define improvements:
169
170*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
171
172 Each of these command-line options
173
174 -D NAME[=VALUE]
175 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
176
177 -F NAME[=VALUE]
178 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
179
180 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
181
182 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
183
184 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
185 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
186 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
187 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
188
189*** Variables renamed:
190
191 The following %define variables
192
193 api.push_pull
194 lr.keep_unreachable_states
195
196 have been renamed to
197
198 api.push-pull
199 lr.keep-unreachable-states
200
201 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
202 for backward compatibility.
203
204*** Values no longer need to be quoted in grammar file:
205
206 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
207 within quotations marks. For example,
208
209 %define api.push-pull "push"
210
211 can be rewritten as
212
213 %define api.push-pull push
214
215*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
216
217*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
218
219** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
220
221** Character literals not of length one:
222
223 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
224 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
225 the following grammar to be the same token:
226
227 exp: exp '++'
228 | exp '+' exp
229 ;
230
231 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
232 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
233
234** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
235
236 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
237 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
238 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
239 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
240
241** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
242
243 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
244 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
245 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
246 and "last" members, instead of
247
248 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
249 do \
250 if (N) \
251 { \
252 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
253 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
254 } \
255 else \
256 { \
257 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
258 } \
259 while (false)
260
261 use:
262
263 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
264 do \
265 if (N) \
266 { \
267 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
268 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
269 } \
270 else \
271 { \
272 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
273 } \
274 while (false)
275
276** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
277
278 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
279 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
280 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
281 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
282
283** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
284
285 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
286 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
287 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
288 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
289 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
290 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
291 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
292 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
293
294** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
295
296 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
297 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
298 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
299 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
300
301 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
302
303 instead of
304
305 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
306
307 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
308 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
309 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
310 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
311 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
312 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
313 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
314
315** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
316
317 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
318 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
319 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
320 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
321 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
322
323*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
324 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
325 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
326 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
327 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
328 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
329 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
330 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
331 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
332 shifted or discarded.
333
334*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
335 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
336 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
337 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
338
339*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
340 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
341 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
342 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
343 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
344 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
345 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
346 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
347 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
348 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
349 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
350 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
351 by default.
352
353** Java skeleton fixes:
354
355*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
356
357*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
358 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
359
360*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
361
362** -W/--warnings fixes:
363
364*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
365
366 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
367 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
368
369 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
370
371* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
372
373** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
374 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
375
376** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
377 been fixed.
378
379** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
380
381** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
382 been fixed.
383
384** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
385 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
386 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
387 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
388
389** Minor documentation fixes.
390
391* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
392
393** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
394 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
395 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
396 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
397 affected platforms.
398
399** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
400
401 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
402 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
403 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
404 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
405 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
406 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
407 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
408 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
409 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
410
411** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
412
413** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
414 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
415 avoided.
416
417** %code is now a permanent feature.
418
419 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
420
421 %{CODE%}
422
423 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
424 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
425
426 %code {CODE}
427 %code requires {CODE}
428 %code provides {CODE}
429 %code top {CODE}
430
431 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
432 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
433 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
434 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
435 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
436
437 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
438 is still considered experimental.
439
440** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
441
442 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
443 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
444 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
445 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
446 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
447 specified by POSIX.
448
449 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
450 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
451 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
452 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
453 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
454 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
455 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
456
457 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
458
459 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
460 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
461 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
462 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
463 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
464 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
465 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
466 be removed altogether.
467
468 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
469 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
470 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
471 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
472 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
473 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
474 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
475 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
476 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
477 2.4.2 is not necessary.
478
479** Internationalization.
480
481 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
482 message translations were not installed although supported by the
483 host system.
484
485* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
486
487** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
488 declarations have been fixed.
489
490** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
491
492 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
493 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
494
495 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
496
497 instead of
498
499 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
500
501 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
502 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
503 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
504 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
505 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
506 feature.
507
508** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
509
510* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
511
512** %language is an experimental feature.
513
514 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
515 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
516 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
517 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
518 in future releases.
519
520** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
521
522** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
523 fixed.
524
525* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
526
527** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
528 are now deprecated:
529
530 %define NAME "VALUE"
531
532** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
533
534 %define api.pure
535
536 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
537 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
538
539** Push Parsing
540
541 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
542 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
543 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
544 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
545 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
546
547 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
548 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
549
550 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
551
552 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
553 feedback will help to stabilize it.
554
555** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
556 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
557 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
558
559** Java
560
561 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
562 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
563 %skeleton to select it.
564
565 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
566
567 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
568 feedback will help to stabilize it.
569
570** %language
571
572 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
573 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
574 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
575 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
576
577** XML Automaton Report
578
579 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
580 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
581 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
582
583** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
584 %defines. For example:
585
586 %defines "parser.h"
587
588** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
589 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
590 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
591 instead of "unused".
592
593** Unreachable State Removal
594
595 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
596 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
597 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
598
599 1. Removes unreachable states.
600
601 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
602 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
603 directives in existing grammar files.
604
605 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
606 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
607
608 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
609
610 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
611
612 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
613 for further discussion.
614
615** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
616
617 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
618 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
619 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
620 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
621 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
622 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
623 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
624 code.
625
626** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
627 name.
628
629** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
630 deprecated:
631
632 %file-prefix "parser"
633 %name-prefix "c_"
634 %output "parser.c"
635
636** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
637
638 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
639 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
640 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
641 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
642 it:
643
644 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
645 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
646 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
647 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
648
649 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
650 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
651 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
652 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
653
654 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
655 determine whether they should become permanent features.
656
657** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
658
659 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
660 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
661 about unused $2 in:
662
663 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
664
665 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
666 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
667
668 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
669
670 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
671 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
672 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
673
674 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
675 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
676
677** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
678
679 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
680 %printer's:
681
682 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
683 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
684 declared semantic type tags.
685
686 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
687 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
688 type tags.
689
690 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
691 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
692 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
693 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
694
695 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
696 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
697 features.
698
699 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
700 details.
701
702** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
703 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
704 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
705
706** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
707 completely removed from Bison.
708
709* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
710
711** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
712 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
713 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
714 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
715 and is required by POSIX.
716
717** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
718 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
719
720** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
721
722 For example:
723
724 %union { char *string; }
725 %token <string> STRING1
726 %token <string> STRING2
727 %type <string> string1
728 %type <string> string2
729 %union { char character; }
730 %token <character> CHR
731 %type <character> chr
732 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
733 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
734 %destructor { } <character>
735
736 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
737 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
738 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
739 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
740 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
741
742 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
743 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
744 future versions.]
745
746** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
747 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
748 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
749 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
750 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
751
752** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
753 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
754
755 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
756 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
757 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
758 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
759 declared after the first %union.
760
761 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
762 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
763 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
764 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
765 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
766 after the token definitions.
767
768 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
769 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
770
771** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
772 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
773 %after-header.
774
775 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
776 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
777 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
778 convenient for you:
779
780 %before-header {
781 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
782 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
783 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
784 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
785 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
786 }
787 %start-header {
788 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
789 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
790 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
791 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
792 }
793 %union {
794 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
795 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
796 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
797 }
798 %end-header {
799 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
800 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
801 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
802 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
803 * definitions. */
804 }
805 %after-header {
806 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
807 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
808 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
809 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
810 * Bison-generated definitions. */
811 }
812
813 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
814 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
815
816 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
817 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
818
819** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
820 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
821 in a future release.
822
823* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
824
825** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
826 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
827
828** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
829 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
830
831* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
832
833** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
834 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
835 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
836
837** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
838
839** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
840
841** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
842 their contents together.
843
844** New warning: unused values
845 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
846 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
847
848 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
849 | exp "+" exp
850 ;
851
852 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
853 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
854 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
855
856 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
857 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
858 | exp "+" exp
859 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
860 ;
861
862 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
863 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
864 values are used, e.g.:
865
866 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
867 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
868 ;
869
870 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
871 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
872
873 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
874
875 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
876 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
877
878** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
879 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
880 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
881 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
882
883** %expect, %expect-rr
884 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
885 instead of warnings.
886
887** GLR, YACC parsers.
888 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
889 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
890
891** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
892
893** %require "VERSION"
894 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
895 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
896
897** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
898 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
899 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
900 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
901 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
902
903 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
904 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
905 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
906 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
907
908 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
909 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
910
911** DJGPP support added.
912\f
913* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
914
915** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
916
917** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
918 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
919 language is still English. For details, please see the new
920 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
921 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
922 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
923
924** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
925 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
926 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
927 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
928
929** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
930 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
931 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
932
933** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
934 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
935 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
936 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
937 unexpected "number"'.
938\f
939* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
940
941** Possibly-incompatible changes
942
943 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
944 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
945 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
946 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
947 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
948
949 - Error token location.
950 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
951 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
952 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
953 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
954
955 - Semicolon changes:
956 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
957 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
958
959 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
960 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
961 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
962 forget a closing quote.
963
964 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
965
966** New features
967
968 - GLR grammars now support locations.
969
970 - New directive: %initial-action.
971 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
972 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
973
974 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
975 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
976
977 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
978 This is a GNU extension.
979
980 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
981 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
982
983 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
984
985 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
986 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
987
988** Bug fixes
989
990 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
991 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
992 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
993 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
994 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
995 these violations will become errors again.
996
997 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
998 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
999
1000 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1001\f
1002* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1003
1004** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1005 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1006
1007** syntax error processing
1008
1009 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1010 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1011
1012 - %destructor
1013 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1014 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1015
1016 - %error-verbose
1017 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1018
1019 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1020 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1021
1022** POSIX conformance
1023
1024 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1025 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1026 compatibility with Yacc.
1027
1028 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1029 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1030 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1031 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1032 be consistent.
1033
1034 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1035 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1036
1037 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1038 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1039
1040 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1041 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1042
1043 - Yacc command and library now available
1044 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1045 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1046 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1047 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1048
1049 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1050
1051 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1052 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1053 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1054
1055** Other compatibility issues
1056
1057 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1058 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1059 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1060 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1061 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1062 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1063
1064 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1065 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1066
1067 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1068 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
1069
1070 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1071 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1072 withdrawn in a future release.
1073
1074** GLR parser notes
1075
1076 - GLR and inline
1077 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1078 C keyword `inline'.
1079
1080 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1081 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
1082
1083** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1084 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1085 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1086
1087** #line in output files
1088 - --no-line works properly.
1089
1090** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1091 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1092 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1093 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1094\f
1095* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1096
1097** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1098
1099** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1100
1101** GLR parsers
1102 Fix spurious parse errors.
1103
1104** Pure parsers
1105 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1106 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1107
1108** Type Clashes
1109 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1110 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1111
1112 untyped: ... typed;
1113
1114 but the converse remains an error:
1115
1116 typed: ... untyped;
1117
1118** Values of mid-rule actions
1119 The following code:
1120
1121 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1122
1123 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1124 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1125\f
1126* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1127
1128** GLR parsing
1129 The declaration
1130 %glr-parser
1131 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1132 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1133 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1134 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1135
1136 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1137 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1138
1139** Output Directory
1140 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1141 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
1142 now creates `bar.c'.
1143
1144** Undefined token
1145 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1146 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1147
1148** Unknown token numbers
1149 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1150 no longer the case.
1151
1152** Error token
1153 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1154 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1155 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1156 will be mapped onto another number.
1157
1158** Verbose error messages
1159 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1160 error recovery is possible.
1161
1162** End token
1163 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1164
1165** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1166 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1167 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1168 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1169 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1170 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1171 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1172 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1173 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1174
1175** Traces
1176 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1177
1178** Larger grammars
1179 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1180 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1181 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1182 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1183
1184** Explicit initial rule
1185 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1186 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1187 graphs as rule 0.
1188
1189** Useless rules
1190 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1191 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1192
1193** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1194 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1195
1196** Rules never reduced
1197 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1198 reported.
1199
1200** Incorrect `Token not used'
1201 On a grammar such as
1202
1203 %token useless useful
1204 %%
1205 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1206
1207 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1208 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1209
1210** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1211 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1212
1213** Default locations
1214 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1215 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1216 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1217 the computation of @$.
1218
1219** Token end-of-file
1220 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1221 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1222 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1223 For instance
1224 %token MYEOF 0
1225 or
1226 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1227
1228** Semantic parser
1229 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1230
1231** New translations
1232 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1233 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1234
1235** Incorrect token definitions
1236 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1237
1238** Token definitions as enums
1239 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1240 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1241 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1242
1243** Reports
1244 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1245 produces additional information:
1246 - itemset
1247 complete the core item sets with their closure
1248 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1249 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1250 - solved
1251 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1252 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1253 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1254
1255** Type clashes
1256 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1257 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1258
1259 %type <foo> bar
1260 %%
1261 bar: '0' {} '0';
1262
1263 This is fixed.
1264
1265** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1266\f
1267* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1268
1269** C Skeleton
1270 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1271 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1272 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1273
1274 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1275 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1276 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1277 kludge will be disabled.
1278
1279 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1280 extended.
1281\f
1282* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1283
1284** File name clashes are detected
1285 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1286 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1287
1288** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1289 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1290 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1291 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1292 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1293 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1294
1295** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1296 many portability hassles.
1297
1298** DJGPP support added.
1299
1300** Fix test suite portability problems.
1301\f
1302* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1303
1304** Fix C++ issues
1305 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1306 under some conditions.
1307
1308** Catch invalid @n
1309 As is done with $n.
1310\f
1311* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1312
1313** Fix Yacc output file names
1314
1315** Portability fixes
1316
1317** Italian, Dutch translations
1318\f
1319* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1320
1321** Many Bug Fixes
1322
1323** GNU Gettext and %expect
1324 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1325 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1326 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1327 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1328
1329** Use of alloca in parsers
1330 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1331 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1332
1333 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1334 problems as on AIX.
1335
1336** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1337
1338** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1339 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1340
1341** User Actions
1342 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1343 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1344 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1345
1346** Better C++ compliance
1347 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1348 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1349
1350** Reduced Grammars
1351 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1352
1353** 64 bit hosts
1354 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1355
1356** Error messages
1357 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1358
1359** %expect
1360 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1361 any warning.
1362
1363** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1364
1365** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1366
1367** Swedish translation
1368
1369** Parse errors
1370 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1371 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1372 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1373
1374** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1375 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1376 previous allocations were not freed.
1377
1378** Fixed verbose output file.
1379 Some newlines were missing.
1380 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1381
1382** Fixed conflict report.
1383 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1384
1385** %expect
1386 Was not used.
1387 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1388
1389** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1390
1391** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1392
1393** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1394
1395** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1396 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1397
1398** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1399
1400** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1401 New.
1402
1403** --output
1404 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1405\f
1406* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1407
1408** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1409 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1410 argument.
1411
1412** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1413 experiment.
1414
1415** Portability fixes.
1416\f
1417* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1418
1419** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1420 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1421 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1422 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1423
1424** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1425
1426** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1427
1428** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1429
1430** Russian translation added.
1431
1432** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1433
1434** Added the old Bison reference card.
1435
1436** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1437
1438** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1439
1440** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1441
1442** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1443 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1444
1445** New directives.
1446 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1447 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1448
1449** @$
1450 Automatic location tracking.
1451\f
1452* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1453
1454** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1455
1456** Added NLS.
1457
1458** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1459
1460** There is now a FAQ.
1461\f
1462* Changes in version 1.27:
1463
1464** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1465 some systems has been fixed.
1466\f
1467* Changes in version 1.26:
1468
1469** Bison now uses automake.
1470
1471** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1472
1473** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1474
1475** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1476
1477** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1478
1479** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1480
1481** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1482 not provide alloca().
1483\f
1484* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1485
1486** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1487the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1488
1489** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1490example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1491of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1492
1493** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1494and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1495table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1496purposes.
1497
1498** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1499directives in the parser file.
1500
1501** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1502Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1503
1504** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1505the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1506The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1507a switch statement body.
1508\f
1509* Changes in version 1.23:
1510
1511The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1512passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1513actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1514by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1515
1516Line numbers in output file corrected.
1517\f
1518* Changes in version 1.22:
1519
1520--help option added.
1521\f
1522* Changes in version 1.20:
1523
1524Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1525
1526Local Variables:
1527mode: outline
1528End:
1529
1530-----
1531
1532Copyright (C) 1995-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1533
1534This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1535
1536This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1537it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1538the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1539(at your option) any later version.
1540
1541This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1542but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1543MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1544GNU General Public License for more details.
1545
1546You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1547along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.