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