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