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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Bug fixes
6
7 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
8
9 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
10 users to the appropriate place to report them.
11
12 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
13
14 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
15 generated, are removed.
16
17 ** Changes in the format of error messages
18
19 This used to be the format of many error reports:
20
21 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
22 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
23
24 It is now:
25
26 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
27 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
28
29 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
30
31 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
32 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
33 For instance the header generated from
34
35 %define api.prefix "calc"
36 %defines "lib/parse.h"
37
38 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
39
40 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
41
42 ** Bug fixes
43
44 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
45 suite have been fixed.
46
47 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
48
49 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
50 invalid C++. This is fixed.
51
52 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
53
54 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
55
56 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
57
58 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
59
60 ** Future Changes
61
62 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
63 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
64 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
65
66 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
67
68 write:
69
70 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
71
72 ** Bug fixes
73
74 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
75
76 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
77
78 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
79
80 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
81 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
82 now does.
83
84 ** Type names in actions
85
86 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
87 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
88
89 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
90
91 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
92 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
93
94 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
95
96 ** Future Changes
97
98 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
99 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
100
101 *** K&R C parsers
102
103 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
104 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
105 compilers.
106
107 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
108
109 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
110 YYLTYPE.
111
112 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
113 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
114
115 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
116 %error-verbose.
117
118 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
119
120 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
121 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
122 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
123 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
124 it.
125
126 ** Generated Parser Headers
127
128 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
129
130 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
131 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
132
133 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
134 # define YY_FOO_H
135 ...
136 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
137
138 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
139
140 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
141 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
142
143 int bar_parse (void);
144
145 rather than
146
147 #define yyparse bar_parse
148 int yyparse (void);
149
150 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
151 single compilation unit.
152
153 *** Exported symbols in C++
154
155 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
156 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
157 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
158
159 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
160
161 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
162 longer defined.
163
164 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
165
166 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
167 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
168 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
169 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
170 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
171 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
172 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
173
174 The following examples compares both:
175
176 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
177 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
178 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
179 %% %%
180 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
181
182 bison generates:
183
184 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
185 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
186
187 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
188 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
189 > # if defined YYDEBUG
190 > # if YYDEBUG
191 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
192 > # else
193 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
194 > # endif
195 > # else
196 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
197 > # endif
198 # endif | # endif
199
200 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
201 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
202 # endif # endif
203
204 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
205 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
206 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
207 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
208 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
209 }; };
210 # endif # endif
211
212 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
213 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
214 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
215 { {
216 int ival; int ival;
217 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
218 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
219 #endif #endif
220
221 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
222
223 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
224
225 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
226
227 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
228
229 ** Future changes:
230
231 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
232
233 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
234
235 ** glr.c improvements:
236
237 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
238
239 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
240 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
241
242 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
243
244 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
245 when -std is passed to GCC).
246
247 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
248
249 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
250 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
251
252 ** Changes for C++:
253
254 *** C++11 compatibility:
255
256 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
257 or higher.
258
259 *** Header guards
260
261 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
262 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
263
264 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
265 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
266 ...
267 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
268
269 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
270 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
271 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
272
273 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
274
275 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
276 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
277 ...
278 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
279
280 *** C++ locations:
281
282 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
283 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
284 documentation were fixed.
285
286 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
287
288 ** Changes in the manual:
289
290 *** %printer is documented
291
292 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
293 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
294
295 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
296 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
297
298 *** Several improvements have been made:
299
300 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
301 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
302 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
303 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
304
305 ** Building bison:
306
307 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
308
309 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
310 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
311
312 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
313
314 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
315
316 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
317 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
318
319 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
320
321 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
322 halts in the middle of its course.
323
324 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
325
326 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
327
328 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
329 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
330 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
331 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
332 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
333
334 ** Named references:
335
336 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
337 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
338 actions code.
339
340 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
341 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
342 as named references:
343
344 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
345 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
346
347 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
348
349 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
350 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
351
352 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
353 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
354 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
355
356 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
357 will help to stabilize them.
358
359 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
360
361 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
362 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
363 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
364 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
365 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
366 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
367 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
368 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
369 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
370
371 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
372 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
373 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
374 file with these directives:
375
376 %define lr.type lalr
377 %define lr.type ielr
378 %define lr.type canonical-lr
379
380 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
381 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
382 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
383 manual.
384
385 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
386 stabilize them.
387
388 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
389
390 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
391 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
392 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
393 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
394 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
395 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
396 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
397 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
398 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
399 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
400 tokens.
401
402 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
403 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
404 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
405 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
406 inconsistent states.
407
408 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
409 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
410 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
411 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
412 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
413 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
414 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
415 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
416 power.
417
418 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
419 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
420
421 %define parse.lac full
422
423 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
424 details including a few caveats.
425
426 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
427 stabilize it.
428
429 ** %define improvements:
430
431 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
432
433 Each of these command-line options
434
435 -D NAME[=VALUE]
436 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
437
438 -F NAME[=VALUE]
439 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
440
441 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
442
443 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
444
445 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
446 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
447 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
448 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
449
450 *** Variables renamed:
451
452 The following %define variables
453
454 api.push_pull
455 lr.keep_unreachable_states
456
457 have been renamed to
458
459 api.push-pull
460 lr.keep-unreachable-states
461
462 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
463 for backward compatibility.
464
465 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
466
467 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
468 within quotations marks. For example,
469
470 %define api.push-pull "push"
471
472 can be rewritten as
473
474 %define api.push-pull push
475
476 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
477
478 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
479
480 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
481
482 ** Character literals not of length one:
483
484 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
485 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
486 the following grammar to be the same token:
487
488 exp: exp '++'
489 | exp '+' exp
490 ;
491
492 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
493 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
494
495 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
496
497 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
498 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
499 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
500 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
501
502 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
503
504 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
505 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
506 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
507 and "last" members, instead of
508
509 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
510 do \
511 if (N) \
512 { \
513 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
514 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
515 } \
516 else \
517 { \
518 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
519 } \
520 while (false)
521
522 use:
523
524 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
525 do \
526 if (N) \
527 { \
528 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
529 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
530 } \
531 else \
532 { \
533 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
534 } \
535 while (false)
536
537 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
538
539 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
540 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
541 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
542 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
543
544 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
545
546 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
547 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
548 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
549 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
550 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
551 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
552 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
553 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
554
555 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
556
557 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
558 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
559 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
560 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
561
562 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
563
564 instead of
565
566 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
567
568 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
569 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
570 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
571 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
572 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
573 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
574 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
575
576 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
577
578 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
579 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
580 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
581 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
582 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
583
584 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
585 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
586 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
587 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
588 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
589 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
590 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
591 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
592 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
593 shifted or discarded.
594
595 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
596 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
597 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
598 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
599
600 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
601 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
602 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
603 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
604 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
605 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
606 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
607 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
608 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
609 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
610 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
611 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
612 by default.
613
614 ** Java skeleton fixes:
615
616 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
617
618 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
619 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
620
621 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
622
623 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
624
625 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
626
627 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
628 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
629
630 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
631
632 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
633
634 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
635 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
636 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
637 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
638 example:
639
640 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
641 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
642 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
643 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
644
645 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
646 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
647 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
648 then have no effect on the conflict report.
649
650 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
651
652 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
653 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
654
655 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
656
657 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
658
659 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
660 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
661 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
662 suppress all warnings:
663
664 bison -Wnone gram.y
665
666 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
667
668 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
669 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
670 produced an assertion failure. For example:
671
672 %left END 0
673
674 This bug has been fixed.
675
676 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
677
678 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
679 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
680
681 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
682 been fixed.
683
684 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
685
686 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
687 been fixed.
688
689 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
690 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
691 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
692 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
693
694 ** Minor documentation fixes.
695
696 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
697
698 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
699 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
700 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
701 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
702 affected platforms.
703
704 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
705
706 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
707 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
708 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
709 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
710 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
711 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
712 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
713 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
714 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
715
716 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
717
718 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
719 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
720 avoided.
721
722 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
723
724 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
725
726 %{CODE%}
727
728 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
729 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
730
731 %code {CODE}
732 %code requires {CODE}
733 %code provides {CODE}
734 %code top {CODE}
735
736 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
737 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
738 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
739 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
740 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
741
742 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
743 is still considered experimental.
744
745 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
746
747 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
748 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
749 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
750 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
751 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
752 specified by POSIX.
753
754 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
755 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
756 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
757 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
758 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
759 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
760 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
761
762 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
763
764 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
765 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
766 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
767 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
768 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
769 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
770 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
771 be removed altogether.
772
773 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
774 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
775 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
776 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
777 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
778 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
779 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
780 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
781 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
782 2.4.2 is not necessary.
783
784 ** Internationalization.
785
786 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
787 message translations were not installed although supported by the
788 host system.
789
790 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
791
792 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
793 declarations have been fixed.
794
795 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
796
797 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
798 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
799
800 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
801
802 instead of
803
804 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
805
806 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
807 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
808 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
809 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
810 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
811 feature.
812
813 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
814
815 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
816
817 ** %language is an experimental feature.
818
819 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
820 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
821 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
822 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
823 in future releases.
824
825 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
826
827 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
828 fixed.
829
830 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
831
832 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
833 are now deprecated:
834
835 %define NAME "VALUE"
836
837 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
838
839 %define api.pure
840
841 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
842 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
843
844 ** Push Parsing
845
846 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
847 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
848 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
849 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
850 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
851
852 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
853 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
854
855 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
856
857 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
858 feedback will help to stabilize it.
859
860 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
861 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
862 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
863
864 ** Java
865
866 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
867 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
868 %skeleton to select it.
869
870 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
871
872 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
873 feedback will help to stabilize it.
874
875 ** %language
876
877 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
878 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
879 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
880 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
881
882 ** XML Automaton Report
883
884 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
885 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
886 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
887
888 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
889 %defines. For example:
890
891 %defines "parser.h"
892
893 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
894 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
895 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
896 instead of "unused".
897
898 ** Unreachable State Removal
899
900 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
901 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
902 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
903
904 1. Removes unreachable states.
905
906 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
907 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
908 directives in existing grammar files.
909
910 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
911 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
912
913 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
914
915 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
916
917 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
918 for further discussion.
919
920 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
921
922 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
923 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
924 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
925 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
926 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
927 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
928 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
929 code.
930
931 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
932 name.
933
934 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
935 deprecated:
936
937 %file-prefix "parser"
938 %name-prefix "c_"
939 %output "parser.c"
940
941 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
942
943 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
944 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
945 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
946 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
947 it:
948
949 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
950 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
951 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
952 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
953
954 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
955 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
956 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
957 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
958
959 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
960 determine whether they should become permanent features.
961
962 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
963
964 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
965 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
966 about unused $2 in:
967
968 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
969
970 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
971 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
972
973 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
974
975 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
976 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
977 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
978
979 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
980 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
981
982 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
983
984 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
985 %printer's:
986
987 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
988 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
989 declared semantic type tags.
990
991 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
992 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
993 type tags.
994
995 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
996 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
997 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
998 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
999
1000 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1001 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1002 features.
1003
1004 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1005 details.
1006
1007 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1008 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1009 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1010
1011 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1012 completely removed from Bison.
1013
1014 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1015
1016 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1017 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1018 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1019 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1020 and is required by POSIX.
1021
1022 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1023 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1024
1025 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1026
1027 For example:
1028
1029 %union { char *string; }
1030 %token <string> STRING1
1031 %token <string> STRING2
1032 %type <string> string1
1033 %type <string> string2
1034 %union { char character; }
1035 %token <character> CHR
1036 %type <character> chr
1037 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1038 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1039 %destructor { } <character>
1040
1041 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1042 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1043 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1044 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1045 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1046
1047 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1048 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1049 future versions.]
1050
1051 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1052 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1053 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1054 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1055 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1056
1057 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1058 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1059
1060 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1061 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1062 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1063 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1064 declared after the first %union.
1065
1066 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1067 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1068 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1069 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1070 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1071 after the token definitions.
1072
1073 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1074 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1075
1076 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1077 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1078 %after-header.
1079
1080 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1081 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1082 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1083 convenient for you:
1084
1085 %before-header {
1086 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1087 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1088 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1089 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1090 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1091 }
1092 %start-header {
1093 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1094 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1095 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1096 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1097 }
1098 %union {
1099 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1100 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1101 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1102 }
1103 %end-header {
1104 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1105 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1106 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1107 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1108 * definitions. */
1109 }
1110 %after-header {
1111 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1112 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1113 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1114 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1115 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1116 }
1117
1118 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1119 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1120
1121 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1122 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1123
1124 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1125 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1126 in a future release.
1127
1128 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1129
1130 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1131 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1132
1133 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1134 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1135
1136 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1137
1138 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1139 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1140 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1141
1142 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1143
1144 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1145
1146 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1147 their contents together.
1148
1149 ** New warning: unused values
1150 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1151 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1152
1153 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1154 | exp "+" exp
1155 ;
1156
1157 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1158 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1159 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1160
1161 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1162 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1163 | exp "+" exp
1164 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1165 ;
1166
1167 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1168 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1169 values are used, e.g.:
1170
1171 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1172 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1173 ;
1174
1175 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1176 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1177
1178 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1179
1180 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1181 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1182
1183 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1184 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1185 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1186 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1187
1188 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1189 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1190 instead of warnings.
1191
1192 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1193 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1194 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1195
1196 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1197
1198 ** %require "VERSION"
1199 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1200 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1201
1202 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1203 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1204 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1205 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1206 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1207
1208 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1209 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1210 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1211 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1212
1213 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1214 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1215
1216 ** DJGPP support added.
1217 \f
1218 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1219
1220 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1221
1222 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1223 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1224 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1225 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1226 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1227 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1228
1229 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1230 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1231 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1232 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1233
1234 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1235 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1236 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1237
1238 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1239 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1240 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1241 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1242 unexpected "number"'.
1243 \f
1244 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1245
1246 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1247
1248 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1249 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1250 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1251 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1252 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1253
1254 - Error token location.
1255 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1256 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1257 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1258 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1259
1260 - Semicolon changes:
1261 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1262 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1263
1264 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1265 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1266 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1267 forget a closing quote.
1268
1269 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1270
1271 ** New features
1272
1273 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1274
1275 - New directive: %initial-action.
1276 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1277 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1278
1279 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1280 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1281
1282 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1283 This is a GNU extension.
1284
1285 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1286 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1287
1288 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1289
1290 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1291 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1292
1293 ** Bug fixes
1294
1295 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1296 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1297 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1298 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1299 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1300 these violations will become errors again.
1301
1302 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1303 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1304
1305 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1306 \f
1307 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1308
1309 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1310 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1311
1312 ** syntax error processing
1313
1314 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1315 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1316
1317 - %destructor
1318 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1319 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1320
1321 - %error-verbose
1322 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1323
1324 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1325 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1326
1327 ** POSIX conformance
1328
1329 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1330 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1331 compatibility with Yacc.
1332
1333 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1334 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1335 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1336 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1337 be consistent.
1338
1339 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1340 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1341
1342 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1343 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1344
1345 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1346 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1347
1348 - Yacc command and library now available
1349 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1350 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1351 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1352 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1353
1354 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1355
1356 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1357 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1358 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1359
1360 ** Other compatibility issues
1361
1362 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1363 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1364 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1365 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1366 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1367 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1368
1369 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1370 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1371
1372 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1373 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1374
1375 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1376 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1377 withdrawn in a future release.
1378
1379 ** GLR parser notes
1380
1381 - GLR and inline
1382 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1383 C keyword "inline".
1384
1385 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1386 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1387
1388 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1389 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1390 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1391 shortcomings:
1392
1393 - a single argument only can be added,
1394 - their types are weak (void *),
1395 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1396 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1397
1398 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1399 For instance:
1400
1401 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1402 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1403 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1404
1405 results in the following signatures:
1406
1407 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1408 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1409
1410 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1411
1412 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1413 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1414
1415 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1416 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1417 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1418
1419 ** #line in output files
1420 - --no-line works properly.
1421
1422 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1423 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1424 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1425 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1426 \f
1427 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1428
1429 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1430
1431 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1432
1433 ** GLR parsers
1434 Fix spurious parse errors.
1435
1436 ** Pure parsers
1437 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1438 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1439
1440 ** Type Clashes
1441 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1442 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1443
1444 untyped: ... typed;
1445
1446 but the converse remains an error:
1447
1448 typed: ... untyped;
1449
1450 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1451 The following code:
1452
1453 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1454
1455 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1456 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1457 \f
1458 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1459
1460 ** GLR parsing
1461 The declaration
1462 %glr-parser
1463 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1464 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1465 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1466 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1467
1468 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1469 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1470
1471 ** Output Directory
1472 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1473 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1474 now creates "bar.c".
1475
1476 ** Undefined token
1477 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1478 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1479
1480 ** Unknown token numbers
1481 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1482 no longer the case.
1483
1484 ** Error token
1485 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1486 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1487 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1488 will be mapped onto another number.
1489
1490 ** Verbose error messages
1491 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1492 error recovery is possible.
1493
1494 ** End token
1495 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1496
1497 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1498 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1499 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1500 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1501 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1502 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1503 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1504 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1505 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1506
1507 ** Traces
1508 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1509
1510 ** Larger grammars
1511 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1512 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1513 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1514 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1515
1516 ** Explicit initial rule
1517 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1518 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1519 graphs as rule 0.
1520
1521 ** Useless rules
1522 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1523 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1524
1525 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1526 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1527
1528 ** Rules never reduced
1529 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1530 reported.
1531
1532 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1533 On a grammar such as
1534
1535 %token useless useful
1536 %%
1537 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1538
1539 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1540 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1541
1542 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1543 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1544
1545 ** Default locations
1546 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1547 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1548 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1549 the computation of @$.
1550
1551 ** Token end-of-file
1552 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1553 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1554 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1555 For instance
1556 %token MYEOF 0
1557 or
1558 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1559
1560 ** Semantic parser
1561 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1562
1563 ** New translations
1564 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1565 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1566
1567 ** Incorrect token definitions
1568 When given
1569 %token 'a' "A"
1570 bison used to output
1571 #define 'a' 65
1572
1573 ** Token definitions as enums
1574 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1575 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1576 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1577
1578 ** Reports
1579 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1580 produces additional information:
1581 - itemset
1582 complete the core item sets with their closure
1583 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1584 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1585 - solved
1586 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1587 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1588 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1589
1590 ** Type clashes
1591 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1592 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1593
1594 %type <foo> bar
1595 %%
1596 bar: '0' {} '0';
1597
1598 This is fixed.
1599
1600 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1601 \f
1602 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1603
1604 ** C Skeleton
1605 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1606 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1607 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1608
1609 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1610 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1611 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1612 kludge will be disabled.
1613
1614 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1615 extended.
1616 \f
1617 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1618
1619 ** File name clashes are detected
1620 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1621 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1622
1623 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1624 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1625 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1626 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1627 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1628 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1629
1630 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1631 many portability hassles.
1632
1633 ** DJGPP support added.
1634
1635 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1636 \f
1637 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1638
1639 ** Fix C++ issues
1640 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1641 under some conditions.
1642
1643 ** Catch invalid @n
1644 As is done with $n.
1645 \f
1646 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1647
1648 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1649
1650 ** Portability fixes
1651
1652 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1653 \f
1654 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1655
1656 ** Many Bug Fixes
1657
1658 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1659 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1660 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1661 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1662 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1663
1664 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1665 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1666 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1667
1668 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1669 problems as on AIX.
1670
1671 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1672
1673 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1674 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1675
1676 ** User Actions
1677 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1678 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1679 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1680
1681 ** Better C++ compliance
1682 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1683 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1684
1685 ** Reduced Grammars
1686 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1687
1688 ** 64 bit hosts
1689 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1690
1691 ** Error messages
1692 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1693
1694 ** %expect
1695 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1696 any warning.
1697
1698 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1699
1700 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1701
1702 ** Swedish translation
1703
1704 ** Parse errors
1705 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1706 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1707 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1708
1709 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1710 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1711 previous allocations were not freed.
1712
1713 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1714 Some newlines were missing.
1715 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1716
1717 ** Fixed conflict report.
1718 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1719
1720 ** %expect
1721 Was not used.
1722 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1723
1724 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1725
1726 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1727
1728 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1729
1730 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1731 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1732
1733 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1734
1735 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1736 New.
1737
1738 ** --output
1739 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1740 \f
1741 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1742
1743 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1744 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1745 argument.
1746
1747 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1748 experiment.
1749
1750 ** Portability fixes.
1751 \f
1752 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1753
1754 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1755 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1756 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1757 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1758
1759 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1760
1761 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1762
1763 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1764
1765 ** Russian translation added.
1766
1767 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1768
1769 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1770
1771 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1772
1773 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1774
1775 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1776
1777 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1778 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1779
1780 ** New directives.
1781 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1782 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1783
1784 ** @$
1785 Automatic location tracking.
1786 \f
1787 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1788
1789 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1790
1791 ** Added NLS.
1792
1793 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1794
1795 ** There is now a FAQ.
1796 \f
1797 * Changes in version 1.27:
1798
1799 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1800 some systems has been fixed.
1801 \f
1802 * Changes in version 1.26:
1803
1804 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1805
1806 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1807
1808 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1809
1810 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1811
1812 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1813
1814 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1815
1816 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1817 not provide alloca().
1818 \f
1819 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1820
1821 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1822 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1823
1824 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1825 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1826 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1827
1828 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1829 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1830 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1831 purposes.
1832
1833 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1834 directives in the parser file.
1835
1836 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1837 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1838
1839 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1840 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1841 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1842 a switch statement body.
1843 \f
1844 * Changes in version 1.23:
1845
1846 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1847 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1848 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1849 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1850
1851 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1852 \f
1853 * Changes in version 1.22:
1854
1855 --help option added.
1856 \f
1857 * Changes in version 1.20:
1858
1859 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1860
1861 -----
1862
1863 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1864
1865 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1866
1867 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1868 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1869 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1870 (at your option) any later version.
1871
1872 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1873 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1874 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1875 GNU General Public License for more details.
1876
1877 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1878 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1879
1880 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1881 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1882 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1883 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1884 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1885 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1886 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1887 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1888 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1889 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1890 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1891 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1892 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1893 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1894 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1895 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1896 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1897 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp
1898
1899 Local Variables:
1900 mode: outline
1901 fill-column: 76
1902 End: