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