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1GNU Bison NEWS
2
3* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5** Incompatible changes
6
7*** Obsolete features
8
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed, as announced since Bison 2.4.2.
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed, as announced in Bison 1.875.
12
13** Warnings
14
15*** Warning categories are now displayed
16
17 For instance:
18
19 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
20
21*** Useless semantic types
22
23 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
24 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
25 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
26 types that trigger the warning:
27
28 %token <type1> term
29 %type <type2> nterm
30 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
31 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
32 %%
33 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
34
35 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
36 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
37
38*** Undeclared symbols
39
40 Bison used to raise an error for %printer and %destructor directives for
41 undefined symbols.
42
43 %printer {} symbol1
44 %destructor {} symbol2
45 %%
46 exp: "a";
47
48 This is now only a warning.
49
50*** Useless destructors or printers
51
52 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
53 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
54 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
55 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
56
57 %token <type1> token1
58 <type2> token2
59 <type3> token3
60 <type4> token4
61 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
62 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
63
64** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
65
66 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
67 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
68 or more arguments. Instead of
69
70 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
71 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
72 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
73 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
74
75 one may now declare
76
77 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
78
79** Java skeleton improvements
80
81 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
82 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
83 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
84
85** C++ skeletons improvements
86
87*** parser header (%defines) is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc)
88
89 In which case, if needed, the support classes are defined in the generated
90 parser, instead of additional files such as position.hh and location.hh.
91
92*** locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
93
94 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
95
96*** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
97
98 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
99 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
100 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
101 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
102 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
103 factory invoked by the user actions).
104
105** Variable api.tokens.prefix
106
107 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
108 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
109 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
110
111 %token FILE for ERROR
112 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
113 %%
114 start: FILE for ERROR;
115
116 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
117 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
118 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
119 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
120
121** Variable api.namespace
122
123 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
124 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
125
126** Variable parse.error
127
128 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
129 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
130 %define parse.error "verbose".
131
132** Semantic predicates
133
134 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
135 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
136 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
137 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
138 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
139 run-time expressions.
140
141* Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
142
143 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
144
145** Future Changes
146
147 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
148 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
149 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
150
151 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
152
153 write:
154
155 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
156
157** Bug fixes
158
159*** Type names are now properly escaped.
160
161*** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
162
163*** Stray @ or $ in actions
164
165 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
166 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
167 now does.
168
169** Type names in actions
170
171 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
172 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
173
174 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
175
176 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
177 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
178
179* Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
180
181** Future changes:
182
183 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
184 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
185
186*** K&R C parsers
187
188 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
189 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
190 compilers.
191
192*** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
193
194 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
195 YYLTYPE.
196
197 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
198 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
199
200 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
201 %error-verbose.
202
203*** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
204
205 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
206 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
207 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
208 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
209 it.
210
211** Generated Parser Headers
212
213*** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
214
215 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
216 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
217
218 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
219 # define YY_FOO_H
220 ...
221 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
222
223*** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
224
225 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
226 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
227
228 int bar_parse (void);
229
230 rather than
231
232 #define yyparse bar_parse
233 int yyparse (void);
234
235 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
236 single compilation unit.
237
238*** Exported symbols in C++
239
240 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
241 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
242 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
243
244*** YYLSP_NEEDED
245
246 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
247 longer defined.
248
249** New %define variable: api.prefix
250
251 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
252 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
253 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
254 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
255 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
256 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
257 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
258
259 The following examples compares both:
260
261 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
262 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
263 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
264 %% %%
265 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
266
267 bison generates:
268
269 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
270 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
271
272 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
273 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
274 > # if defined YYDEBUG
275 > # if YYDEBUG
276 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
277 > # else
278 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
279 > # endif
280 > # else
281 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
282 > # endif
283 # endif | # endif
284
285 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
286 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
287 # endif # endif
288
289 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
290 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
291 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
292 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
293 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
294 }; };
295 # endif # endif
296
297 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
298 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
299 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
300 { {
301 int ival; int ival;
302 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
303 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
304 #endif #endif
305
306 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
307
308 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
309
310 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
311
312* Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
313
314** Future changes:
315
316 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
317
318** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
319
320** glr.c improvements:
321
322*** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
323
324 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
325 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
326
327*** __attribute__ is preserved:
328
329 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
330 when -std is passed to GCC).
331
332** lalr1.java: several fixes:
333
334 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
335 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
336
337** Changes for C++:
338
339*** C++11 compatibility:
340
341 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
342 or higher.
343
344*** Header guards
345
346 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
347 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
348
349 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
350 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
351 ...
352 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
353
354 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
355 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
356 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
357
358 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
359
360 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
361 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
362 ...
363 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
364
365*** C++ locations:
366
367 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
368 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
369 documentation were fixed.
370
371** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
372
373** Changes in the manual:
374
375*** %printer is documented
376
377 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
378 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
379
380 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
381 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
382
383*** Several improvements have been made:
384
385 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
386 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
387 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
388 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
389
390** Building bison:
391
392*** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
393
394 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
395 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
396
397*** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
398
399*** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
400
401 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
402 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
403
404*** The install-pdf target works properly:
405
406 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
407 halts in the middle of its course.
408
409* Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
410
411** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
412
413 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
414 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
415 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
416 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
417 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
418
419** Named references:
420
421 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
422 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
423 actions code.
424
425 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
426 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
427 as named references:
428
429 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
430 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
431
432 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
433
434 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
435 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
436
437 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
438 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
439 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
440
441 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
442 will help to stabilize them.
443
444** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
445
446 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
447 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
448 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
449 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
450 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
451 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
452 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
453 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
454 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
455
456 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
457 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
458 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
459 file with these directives:
460
461 %define lr.type lalr
462 %define lr.type ielr
463 %define lr.type canonical-lr
464
465 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
466 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
467 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
468 manual.
469
470 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
471 stabilize them.
472
473** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
474
475 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
476 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
477 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
478 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
479 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
480 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
481 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
482 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
483 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
484 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
485 tokens.
486
487 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
488 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
489 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
490 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
491 inconsistent states.
492
493 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
494 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
495 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
496 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
497 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
498 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
499 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
500 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
501 power.
502
503 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
504 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
505
506 %define parse.lac full
507
508 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
509 details including a few caveats.
510
511 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
512 stabilize it.
513
514** %define improvements:
515
516*** Can now be invoked via the command line:
517
518 Each of these command-line options
519
520 -D NAME[=VALUE]
521 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
522
523 -F NAME[=VALUE]
524 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
525
526 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
527
528 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
529
530 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
531 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
532 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
533 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
534
535*** Variables renamed:
536
537 The following %define variables
538
539 api.push_pull
540 lr.keep_unreachable_states
541
542 have been renamed to
543
544 api.push-pull
545 lr.keep-unreachable-states
546
547 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
548 for backward compatibility.
549
550*** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
551
552 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
553 within quotations marks. For example,
554
555 %define api.push-pull "push"
556
557 can be rewritten as
558
559 %define api.push-pull push
560
561*** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
562
563*** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
564
565** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
566
567** Character literals not of length one:
568
569 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
570 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
571 the following grammar to be the same token:
572
573 exp: exp '++'
574 | exp '+' exp
575 ;
576
577 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
578 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
579
580** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
581
582 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
583 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
584 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
585 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
586
587** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
588
589 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
590 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
591 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
592 and "last" members, instead of
593
594 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
595 do \
596 if (N) \
597 { \
598 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
599 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
600 } \
601 else \
602 { \
603 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
604 } \
605 while (false)
606
607 use:
608
609 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
610 do \
611 if (N) \
612 { \
613 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
614 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
615 } \
616 else \
617 { \
618 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
619 } \
620 while (false)
621
622** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
623
624 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
625 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
626 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
627 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
628
629** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
630
631 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
632 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
633 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
634 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
635 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
636 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
637 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
638 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
639
640** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
641
642 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
643 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
644 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
645 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
646
647 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
648
649 instead of
650
651 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
652
653 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
654 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
655 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
656 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
657 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
658 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
659 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
660
661** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
662
663 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
664 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
665 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
666 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
667 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
668
669*** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
670 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
671 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
672 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
673 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
674 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
675 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
676 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
677 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
678 shifted or discarded.
679
680*** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
681 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
682 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
683 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
684
685*** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
686 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
687 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
688 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
689 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
690 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
691 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
692 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
693 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
694 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
695 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
696 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
697 by default.
698
699** Java skeleton fixes:
700
701*** A location handling bug has been fixed.
702
703*** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
704 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
705
706*** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
707
708** -W/--warnings fixes:
709
710*** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
711
712 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
713 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
714
715 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
716
717*** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
718
719 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
720 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
721 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
722 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
723 example:
724
725 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
726 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
727 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
728 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
729
730 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
731 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
732 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
733 then have no effect on the conflict report.
734
735*** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
736
737 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
738 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
739
740 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
741
742*** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
743
744 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
745 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
746 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
747 suppress all warnings:
748
749 bison -Wnone gram.y
750
751** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
752
753 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
754 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
755 produced an assertion failure. For example:
756
757 %left END 0
758
759 This bug has been fixed.
760
761* Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
762
763** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
764 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
765
766** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
767 been fixed.
768
769** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
770
771** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
772 been fixed.
773
774** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
775 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
776 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
777 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
778
779** Minor documentation fixes.
780
781* Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
782
783** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
784 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
785 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
786 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
787 affected platforms.
788
789** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
790
791 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
792 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
793 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
794 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
795 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
796 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
797 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
798 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
799 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
800
801** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
802
803** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
804 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
805 avoided.
806
807** %code is now a permanent feature.
808
809 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
810
811 %{CODE%}
812
813 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
814 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
815
816 %code {CODE}
817 %code requires {CODE}
818 %code provides {CODE}
819 %code top {CODE}
820
821 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
822 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
823 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
824 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
825 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
826
827 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
828 is still considered experimental.
829
830** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
831
832 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
833 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
834 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
835 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
836 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
837 specified by POSIX.
838
839 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
840 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
841 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
842 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
843 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
844 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
845 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
846
847 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
848
849 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
850 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
851 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
852 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
853 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
854 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
855 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
856 be removed altogether.
857
858 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
859 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
860 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
861 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
862 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
863 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
864 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
865 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
866 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
867 2.4.2 is not necessary.
868
869** Internationalization.
870
871 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
872 message translations were not installed although supported by the
873 host system.
874
875* Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
876
877** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
878 declarations have been fixed.
879
880** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
881
882 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
883 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
884
885 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
886
887 instead of
888
889 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
890
891 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
892 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
893 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
894 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
895 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
896 feature.
897
898** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
899
900* Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
901
902** %language is an experimental feature.
903
904 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
905 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
906 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
907 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
908 in future releases.
909
910** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
911
912** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
913 fixed.
914
915* Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
916
917** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
918 are now deprecated:
919
920 %define NAME "VALUE"
921
922** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
923
924 %define api.pure
925
926 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
927 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
928
929** Push Parsing
930
931 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
932 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
933 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
934 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
935 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
936
937 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
938 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
939
940 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
941
942 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
943 feedback will help to stabilize it.
944
945** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
946 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
947 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
948
949** Java
950
951 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
952 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
953 %skeleton to select it.
954
955 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
956
957 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
958 feedback will help to stabilize it.
959
960** %language
961
962 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
963 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
964 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
965 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
966
967** XML Automaton Report
968
969 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
970 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
971 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
972
973** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
974 %defines. For example:
975
976 %defines "parser.h"
977
978** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
979 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
980 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
981 instead of "unused".
982
983** Unreachable State Removal
984
985 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
986 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
987 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
988
989 1. Removes unreachable states.
990
991 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
992 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
993 directives in existing grammar files.
994
995 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
996 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
997
998 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
999
1000 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1001
1002 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1003 for further discussion.
1004
1005** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1006
1007 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1008 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1009 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1010 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1011 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1012 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1013 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1014 code.
1015
1016** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1017 name.
1018
1019** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1020 deprecated:
1021
1022 %file-prefix "parser"
1023 %name-prefix "c_"
1024 %output "parser.c"
1025
1026** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1027
1028 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1029 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1030 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1031 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1032 it:
1033
1034 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1035 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1036 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1037 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1038
1039 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1040 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1041 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1042 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1043
1044 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1045 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1046
1047** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1048
1049 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1050 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1051 about unused $2 in:
1052
1053 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1054
1055 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1056 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1057
1058 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1059
1060 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1061 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1062 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1063
1064 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1065 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1066
1067** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1068
1069 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1070 %printer's:
1071
1072 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1073 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1074 declared semantic type tags.
1075
1076 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1077 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1078 type tags.
1079
1080 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1081 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1082 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1083 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1084
1085 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1086 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1087 features.
1088
1089 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1090 details.
1091
1092** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1093 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1094 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1095
1096** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1097 completely removed from Bison.
1098
1099* Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1100
1101** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1102 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1103 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1104 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1105 and is required by POSIX.
1106
1107** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1108 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1109
1110** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1111
1112 For example:
1113
1114 %union { char *string; }
1115 %token <string> STRING1
1116 %token <string> STRING2
1117 %type <string> string1
1118 %type <string> string2
1119 %union { char character; }
1120 %token <character> CHR
1121 %type <character> chr
1122 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1123 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1124 %destructor { } <character>
1125
1126 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1127 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1128 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1129 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1130 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1131
1132 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1133 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1134 future versions.]
1135
1136** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1137 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1138 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1139 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1140 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1141
1142** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1143 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1144
1145 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1146 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1147 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1148 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1149 declared after the first %union.
1150
1151 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1152 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1153 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1154 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1155 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1156 after the token definitions.
1157
1158 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1159 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1160
1161** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1162 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1163 %after-header.
1164
1165 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1166 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1167 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1168 convenient for you:
1169
1170 %before-header {
1171 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1172 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1173 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1174 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1175 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1176 }
1177 %start-header {
1178 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1179 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1180 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1181 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1182 }
1183 %union {
1184 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1185 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1186 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1187 }
1188 %end-header {
1189 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1190 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1191 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1192 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1193 * definitions. */
1194 }
1195 %after-header {
1196 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1197 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1198 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1199 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1200 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1201 }
1202
1203 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1204 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1205
1206 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1207 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1208
1209** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1210 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1211 in a future release.
1212
1213* Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1214
1215** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1216 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1217
1218** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1219 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1220
1221* Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1222
1223** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1224 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1225 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1226
1227** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1228
1229** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1230
1231** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1232 their contents together.
1233
1234** New warning: unused values
1235 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1236 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1237
1238 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1239 | exp "+" exp
1240 ;
1241
1242 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1243 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1244 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1245
1246 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1247 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1248 | exp "+" exp
1249 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1250 ;
1251
1252 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1253 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1254 values are used, e.g.:
1255
1256 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1257 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1258 ;
1259
1260 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1261 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1262
1263 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1264
1265 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1266 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1267
1268** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1269 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1270 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1271 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1272
1273** %expect, %expect-rr
1274 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1275 instead of warnings.
1276
1277** GLR, YACC parsers.
1278 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1279 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1280
1281** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1282
1283** %require "VERSION"
1284 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1285 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1286
1287** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1288 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1289 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1290 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1291 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1292
1293 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1294 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1295 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1296 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1297
1298 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1299 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1300
1301** DJGPP support added.
1302\f
1303* Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1304
1305** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1306
1307** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1308 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1309 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1310 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1311 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1312 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1313
1314** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1315 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1316 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1317 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1318
1319** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1320 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1321 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1322
1323** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1324 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1325 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1326 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1327 unexpected "number"'.
1328\f
1329* Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1330
1331** Possibly-incompatible changes
1332
1333 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1334 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1335 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1336 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1337 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1338
1339 - Error token location.
1340 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1341 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1342 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1343 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1344
1345 - Semicolon changes:
1346 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1347 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1348
1349 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1350 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1351 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1352 forget a closing quote.
1353
1354 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1355
1356** New features
1357
1358 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1359
1360 - New directive: %initial-action.
1361 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1362 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1363
1364 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1365 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1366
1367 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1368 This is a GNU extension.
1369
1370 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1371 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1372
1373 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1374
1375 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1376 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1377
1378** Bug fixes
1379
1380 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1381 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1382 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1383 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1384 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1385 these violations will become errors again.
1386
1387 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1388 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1389
1390 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1391\f
1392* Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1393
1394** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1395 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1396
1397** syntax error processing
1398
1399 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1400 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1401
1402 - %destructor
1403 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1404 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1405
1406 - %error-verbose
1407 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1408
1409 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1410 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1411
1412** POSIX conformance
1413
1414 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1415 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1416 compatibility with Yacc.
1417
1418 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1419 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1420 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1421 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1422 be consistent.
1423
1424 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1425 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1426
1427 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1428 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1429
1430 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1431 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1432
1433 - Yacc command and library now available
1434 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1435 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1436 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1437 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1438
1439 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1440
1441 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1442 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1443 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1444
1445** Other compatibility issues
1446
1447 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1448 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1449 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1450 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1451 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1452 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1453
1454 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1455 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1456
1457 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1458 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1459
1460 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1461 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1462 withdrawn in a future release.
1463
1464** GLR parser notes
1465
1466 - GLR and inline
1467 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1468 C keyword "inline".
1469
1470 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1471 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1472
1473** %parse-param and %lex-param
1474 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1475 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1476 shortcomings:
1477
1478 - a single argument only can be added,
1479 - their types are weak (void *),
1480 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1481 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1482
1483 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1484 For instance:
1485
1486 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1487 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1488 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1489
1490 results in the following signatures:
1491
1492 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1493 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1494
1495 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1496
1497 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1498 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1499
1500** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1501 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1502 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1503
1504** #line in output files
1505 - --no-line works properly.
1506
1507** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1508 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1509 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1510 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1511\f
1512* Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1513
1514** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1515
1516** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1517
1518** GLR parsers
1519 Fix spurious parse errors.
1520
1521** Pure parsers
1522 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1523 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1524
1525** Type Clashes
1526 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1527 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1528
1529 untyped: ... typed;
1530
1531 but the converse remains an error:
1532
1533 typed: ... untyped;
1534
1535** Values of mid-rule actions
1536 The following code:
1537
1538 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1539
1540 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1541 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1542\f
1543* Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1544
1545** GLR parsing
1546 The declaration
1547 %glr-parser
1548 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1549 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1550 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1551 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1552
1553 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1554 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1555
1556** Output Directory
1557 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1558 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1559 now creates "bar.c".
1560
1561** Undefined token
1562 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1563 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1564
1565** Unknown token numbers
1566 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1567 no longer the case.
1568
1569** Error token
1570 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1571 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1572 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1573 will be mapped onto another number.
1574
1575** Verbose error messages
1576 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1577 error recovery is possible.
1578
1579** End token
1580 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1581
1582** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1583 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1584 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1585 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1586 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1587 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1588 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1589 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1590 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1591
1592** Traces
1593 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1594
1595** Larger grammars
1596 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1597 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1598 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1599 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1600
1601** Explicit initial rule
1602 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1603 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1604 graphs as rule 0.
1605
1606** Useless rules
1607 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1608 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1609
1610** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1611 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1612
1613** Rules never reduced
1614 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1615 reported.
1616
1617** Incorrect "Token not used"
1618 On a grammar such as
1619
1620 %token useless useful
1621 %%
1622 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1623
1624 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1625 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1626
1627** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1628 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1629
1630** Default locations
1631 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1632 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1633 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1634 the computation of @$.
1635
1636** Token end-of-file
1637 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1638 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1639 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1640 For instance
1641 %token MYEOF 0
1642 or
1643 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1644
1645** Semantic parser
1646 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1647
1648** New translations
1649 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1650 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1651
1652** Incorrect token definitions
1653 When given
1654 %token 'a' "A"
1655 bison used to output
1656 #define 'a' 65
1657
1658** Token definitions as enums
1659 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1660 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1661 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1662
1663** Reports
1664 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1665 produces additional information:
1666 - itemset
1667 complete the core item sets with their closure
1668 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1669 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1670 - solved
1671 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1672 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1673 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1674
1675** Type clashes
1676 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1677 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1678
1679 %type <foo> bar
1680 %%
1681 bar: '0' {} '0';
1682
1683 This is fixed.
1684
1685** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1686\f
1687* Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1688
1689** C Skeleton
1690 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1691 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1692 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1693
1694 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1695 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1696 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1697 kludge will be disabled.
1698
1699 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1700 extended.
1701\f
1702* Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1703
1704** File name clashes are detected
1705 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1706 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1707
1708** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1709 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1710 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1711 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1712 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1713 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1714
1715** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1716 many portability hassles.
1717
1718** DJGPP support added.
1719
1720** Fix test suite portability problems.
1721\f
1722* Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1723
1724** Fix C++ issues
1725 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1726 under some conditions.
1727
1728** Catch invalid @n
1729 As is done with $n.
1730\f
1731* Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1732
1733** Fix Yacc output file names
1734
1735** Portability fixes
1736
1737** Italian, Dutch translations
1738\f
1739* Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1740
1741** Many Bug Fixes
1742
1743** GNU Gettext and %expect
1744 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1745 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1746 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1747 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1748
1749** Use of alloca in parsers
1750 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1751 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1752
1753 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1754 problems as on AIX.
1755
1756** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1757
1758** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1759 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1760
1761** User Actions
1762 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1763 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1764 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1765
1766** Better C++ compliance
1767 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1768 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1769
1770** Reduced Grammars
1771 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1772
1773** 64 bit hosts
1774 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1775
1776** Error messages
1777 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1778
1779** %expect
1780 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1781 any warning.
1782
1783** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1784
1785** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1786
1787** Swedish translation
1788
1789** Parse errors
1790 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1791 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1792 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1793
1794** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1795 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1796 previous allocations were not freed.
1797
1798** Fixed verbose output file.
1799 Some newlines were missing.
1800 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1801
1802** Fixed conflict report.
1803 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1804
1805** %expect
1806 Was not used.
1807 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1808
1809** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1810
1811** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1812
1813** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1814
1815** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1816 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1817
1818** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1819
1820** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1821 New.
1822
1823** --output
1824 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1825\f
1826* Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1827
1828** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1829 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1830 argument.
1831
1832** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1833 experiment.
1834
1835** Portability fixes.
1836\f
1837* Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1838
1839** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1840 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1841 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1842 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1843
1844** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1845
1846** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1847
1848** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1849
1850** Russian translation added.
1851
1852** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1853
1854** Added the old Bison reference card.
1855
1856** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1857
1858** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1859
1860** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1861
1862** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1863 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1864
1865** New directives.
1866 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1867 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1868
1869** @$
1870 Automatic location tracking.
1871\f
1872* Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1873
1874** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1875
1876** Added NLS.
1877
1878** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1879
1880** There is now a FAQ.
1881\f
1882* Changes in version 1.27:
1883
1884** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1885 some systems has been fixed.
1886\f
1887* Changes in version 1.26:
1888
1889** Bison now uses Automake.
1890
1891** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1892
1893** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1894
1895** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1896
1897** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1898
1899** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1900
1901** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1902 not provide alloca().
1903\f
1904* Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1905
1906** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1907the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1908
1909** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1910example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1911of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1912
1913** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1914and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1915table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1916purposes.
1917
1918** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1919directives in the parser file.
1920
1921** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1922Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1923
1924** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1925the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1926The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1927a switch statement body.
1928\f
1929* Changes in version 1.23:
1930
1931The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1932passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1933actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1934by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1935
1936Line numbers in output file corrected.
1937\f
1938* Changes in version 1.22:
1939
1940--help option added.
1941\f
1942* Changes in version 1.20:
1943
1944Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1945
1946-----
1947
1948Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1949
1950This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1951
1952This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1953it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1954the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1955(at your option) any later version.
1956
1957This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1958but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1959MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1960GNU General Public License for more details.
1961
1962You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1963along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1964
1965 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1966 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1967 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1968 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1969 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1970 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1971 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1972 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1973 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1974 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1975 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1976 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1977 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1978 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1979 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1980 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1981 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1982 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
1983 LocalWords: TOK
1984
1985Local Variables:
1986mode: outline
1987fill-column: 76
1988End: