3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Changes in the format of error messages
7 This used to be the format of many error reports:
9 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
10 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
14 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
15 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
17 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
19 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
20 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
21 before re-throwing the exception.
23 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
26 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
28 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
29 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
30 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
31 then responsible to define her type.
33 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
34 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
37 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
38 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
41 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
42 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
45 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
47 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
48 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
49 numbered and left-justified.
51 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
54 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
55 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
57 Two nodes were added to the documentation: Xml and Graphviz.
59 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
61 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
62 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
67 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
68 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
71 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
73 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
75 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
76 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
78 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
80 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
82 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
86 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
88 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
89 users to the appropriate place to report them.
91 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
93 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
94 generated, are removed.
96 All the generated headers are self-contained.
98 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
100 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
101 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
102 For instance the header generated from
104 %define api.prefix "calc"
105 %defines "lib/parse.h"
107 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
109 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
111 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
114 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
115 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
116 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
120 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
122 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
123 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
126 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
130 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
131 suite have been fixed.
133 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
135 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
136 invalid C++. This is fixed.
138 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
140 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
142 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
144 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
148 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
149 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
150 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
152 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
156 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
160 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
162 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
164 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
166 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
167 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
170 ** Type names in actions
172 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
173 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
175 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
177 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
178 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
180 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
184 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
185 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
189 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
190 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
193 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
195 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
198 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
199 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
201 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
204 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
206 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
207 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
208 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
209 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
212 ** Generated Parser Headers
214 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
216 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
217 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
222 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
224 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
226 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
227 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
229 int bar_parse (void);
233 #define yyparse bar_parse
236 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
237 single compilation unit.
239 *** Exported symbols in C++
241 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
242 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
243 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
247 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
250 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
252 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
253 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
254 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
255 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
256 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
257 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
258 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
260 The following examples compares both:
262 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
263 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
264 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
270 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
271 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
273 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
274 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
275 > # if defined YYDEBUG
277 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
279 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
282 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
286 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
287 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
290 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
291 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
292 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
293 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
298 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
299 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
300 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
303 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
304 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
307 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
309 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
311 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
313 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
317 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
319 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
321 ** glr.c improvements:
323 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
325 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
326 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
328 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
330 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
331 when -std is passed to GCC).
333 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
335 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
336 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
340 *** C++11 compatibility:
342 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
347 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
348 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
350 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
351 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
353 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
355 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
356 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
357 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
359 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
361 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
362 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
364 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
368 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
369 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
370 documentation were fixed.
372 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
374 ** Changes in the manual:
376 *** %printer is documented
378 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
379 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
381 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
382 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
384 *** Several improvements have been made:
386 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
387 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
388 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
389 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
393 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
395 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
396 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
398 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
400 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
402 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
403 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
405 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
407 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
408 halts in the middle of its course.
410 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
412 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
414 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
415 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
416 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
417 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
418 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
422 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
423 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
426 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
427 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
430 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
431 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
433 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
435 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
436 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
438 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
439 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
440 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
442 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
443 will help to stabilize them.
445 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
447 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
448 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
449 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
450 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
451 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
452 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
453 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
454 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
455 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
457 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
458 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
459 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
460 file with these directives:
464 %define lr.type canonical-lr
466 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
467 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
468 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
471 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
474 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
476 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
477 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
478 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
479 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
480 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
481 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
482 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
483 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
484 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
485 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
488 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
489 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
490 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
491 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
494 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
495 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
496 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
497 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
498 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
499 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
500 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
501 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
504 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
505 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
507 %define parse.lac full
509 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
510 details including a few caveats.
512 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
515 ** %define improvements:
517 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
519 Each of these command-line options
522 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
525 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
527 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
529 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
531 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
532 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
533 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
534 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
536 *** Variables renamed:
538 The following %define variables
541 lr.keep_unreachable_states
546 lr.keep-unreachable-states
548 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
549 for backward compatibility.
551 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
553 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
554 within quotations marks. For example,
556 %define api.push-pull "push"
560 %define api.push-pull push
562 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
564 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
566 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
568 ** Character literals not of length one:
570 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
571 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
572 the following grammar to be the same token:
578 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
579 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
581 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
583 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
584 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
585 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
586 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
588 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
590 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
591 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
592 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
593 and "last" members, instead of
595 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
599 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
600 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
604 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
610 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
614 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
615 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
619 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
623 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
625 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
626 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
627 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
628 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
630 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
632 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
633 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
634 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
635 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
636 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
637 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
638 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
639 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
641 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
643 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
644 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
645 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
646 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
648 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
652 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
654 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
655 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
656 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
657 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
658 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
659 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
660 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
662 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
664 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
665 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
666 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
667 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
668 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
670 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
671 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
672 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
673 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
674 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
675 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
676 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
677 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
678 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
679 shifted or discarded.
681 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
682 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
683 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
684 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
686 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
687 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
688 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
689 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
690 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
691 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
692 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
693 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
694 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
695 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
696 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
697 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
700 ** Java skeleton fixes:
702 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
704 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
705 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
707 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
709 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
711 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
713 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
714 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
716 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
718 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
720 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
721 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
722 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
723 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
726 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
727 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
728 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
729 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
731 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
732 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
733 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
734 then have no effect on the conflict report.
736 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
738 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
739 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
741 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
743 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
745 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
746 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
747 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
748 suppress all warnings:
752 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
754 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
755 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
756 produced an assertion failure. For example:
760 This bug has been fixed.
762 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
764 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
765 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
767 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
770 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
772 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
775 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
776 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
777 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
778 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
780 ** Minor documentation fixes.
782 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
784 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
785 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
786 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
787 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
790 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
792 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
793 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
794 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
795 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
796 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
797 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
798 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
799 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
800 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
802 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
804 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
805 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
808 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
810 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
814 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
815 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
818 %code requires {CODE}
819 %code provides {CODE}
822 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
823 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
824 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
825 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
826 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
828 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
829 is still considered experimental.
831 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
833 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
834 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
835 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
836 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
837 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
840 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
841 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
842 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
843 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
844 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
845 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
846 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
848 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
850 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
851 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
852 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
853 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
854 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
855 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
856 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
857 be removed altogether.
859 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
860 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
861 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
862 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
863 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
864 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
865 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
866 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
867 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
868 2.4.2 is not necessary.
870 ** Internationalization.
872 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
873 message translations were not installed although supported by the
876 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
878 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
879 declarations have been fixed.
881 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
883 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
884 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
886 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
890 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
892 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
893 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
894 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
895 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
896 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
899 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
901 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
903 ** %language is an experimental feature.
905 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
906 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
907 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
908 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
911 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
913 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
916 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
918 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
923 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
927 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
928 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
932 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
933 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
934 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
935 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
936 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
938 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
939 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
941 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
943 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
944 feedback will help to stabilize it.
946 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
947 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
948 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
952 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
953 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
954 %skeleton to select it.
956 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
958 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
959 feedback will help to stabilize it.
963 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
964 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
965 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
966 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
968 ** XML Automaton Report
970 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
971 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
972 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
974 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
975 %defines. For example:
979 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
980 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
981 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
984 ** Unreachable State Removal
986 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
987 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
988 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
990 1. Removes unreachable states.
992 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
993 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
994 directives in existing grammar files.
996 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
997 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
999 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1001 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1003 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1004 for further discussion.
1006 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1008 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1009 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1010 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1011 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1012 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1013 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1014 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1017 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1020 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1023 %file-prefix "parser"
1027 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1029 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1030 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1031 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1032 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1035 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1036 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1037 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1038 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1040 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1041 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1042 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1043 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1045 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1046 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1048 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1050 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1051 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1054 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1056 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1057 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1059 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1061 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1062 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1063 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1065 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1066 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1068 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1070 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1073 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1074 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1075 declared semantic type tags.
1077 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1078 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1081 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1082 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1083 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1084 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1086 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1087 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1090 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1093 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1094 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1095 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1097 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1098 completely removed from Bison.
1100 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1102 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1103 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1104 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1105 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1106 and is required by POSIX.
1108 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1109 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1111 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1115 %union { char *string; }
1116 %token <string> STRING1
1117 %token <string> STRING2
1118 %type <string> string1
1119 %type <string> string2
1120 %union { char character; }
1121 %token <character> CHR
1122 %type <character> chr
1123 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1124 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1125 %destructor { } <character>
1127 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1128 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1129 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1130 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1131 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1133 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1134 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1137 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1138 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1139 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1140 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1141 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1143 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1144 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1146 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1147 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1148 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1149 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1150 declared after the first %union.
1152 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1153 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1154 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1155 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1156 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1157 after the token definitions.
1159 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1160 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1162 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1163 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1166 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1167 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1168 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1172 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1173 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1174 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1175 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1176 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1179 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1180 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1181 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1182 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1185 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1186 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1187 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1190 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1191 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1192 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1193 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1197 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1198 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1199 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1200 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1201 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1204 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1205 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1207 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1208 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1210 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1211 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1212 in a future release.
1214 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1216 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1217 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1219 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1220 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1222 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1224 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1225 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1226 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1228 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1230 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1232 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1233 their contents together.
1235 ** New warning: unused values
1236 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1237 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1239 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1243 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1244 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1245 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1247 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1248 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1250 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1253 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1254 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1255 values are used, e.g.:
1257 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1258 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1261 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1262 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1264 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1266 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1267 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1269 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1270 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1271 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1272 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1274 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1275 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1276 instead of warnings.
1278 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1279 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1280 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1282 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1284 ** %require "VERSION"
1285 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1286 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1288 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1289 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1290 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1291 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1292 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1294 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1295 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1296 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1297 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1299 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1300 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1302 ** DJGPP support added.
1304 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1306 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1308 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1309 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1310 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1311 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1312 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1313 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1315 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1316 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1317 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1318 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1320 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1321 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1322 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1324 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1325 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1326 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1327 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1328 unexpected "number"'.
1330 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1332 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1334 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1335 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1336 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1337 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1338 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1340 - Error token location.
1341 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1342 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1343 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1344 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1346 - Semicolon changes:
1347 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1348 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1350 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1351 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1352 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1353 forget a closing quote.
1355 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1359 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1361 - New directive: %initial-action.
1362 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1363 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1365 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1366 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1368 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1369 This is a GNU extension.
1371 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1372 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1374 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1376 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1377 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1381 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1382 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1383 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1384 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1385 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1386 these violations will become errors again.
1388 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1389 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1391 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1393 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1395 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1396 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1398 ** syntax error processing
1400 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1401 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1404 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1405 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1408 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1410 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1411 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1413 ** POSIX conformance
1415 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1416 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1417 compatibility with Yacc.
1419 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1420 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1421 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1422 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1425 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1426 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1428 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1429 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1431 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1432 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1434 - Yacc command and library now available
1435 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1436 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1437 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1438 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1440 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1442 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1443 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1444 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1446 ** Other compatibility issues
1448 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1449 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1450 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1451 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1452 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1453 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1455 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1456 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1458 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1459 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1461 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1462 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1463 withdrawn in a future release.
1468 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1471 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1472 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1474 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1475 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1476 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1479 - a single argument only can be added,
1480 - their types are weak (void *),
1481 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1482 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1484 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1487 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1488 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1489 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1491 results in the following signatures:
1493 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1494 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1496 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1498 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1499 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1501 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1502 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1503 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1505 ** #line in output files
1506 - --no-line works properly.
1508 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1509 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1510 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1511 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1513 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1515 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1517 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1520 Fix spurious parse errors.
1523 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1524 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1527 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1528 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1532 but the converse remains an error:
1536 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1539 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1541 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1542 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1544 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1549 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1550 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1551 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1552 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1554 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1555 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1558 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1559 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1560 now creates "bar.c".
1563 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1564 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1566 ** Unknown token numbers
1567 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1571 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1572 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1573 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1574 will be mapped onto another number.
1576 ** Verbose error messages
1577 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1578 error recovery is possible.
1581 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1583 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1584 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1585 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1586 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1587 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1588 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1589 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1590 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1591 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1594 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1597 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1598 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1599 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1600 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1602 ** Explicit initial rule
1603 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1604 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1608 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1609 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1611 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1612 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1614 ** Rules never reduced
1615 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1618 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1619 On a grammar such as
1621 %token useless useful
1623 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1625 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1626 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1628 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1629 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1631 ** Default locations
1632 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1633 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1634 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1635 the computation of @$.
1637 ** Token end-of-file
1638 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1639 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1640 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1644 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1647 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1650 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1651 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1653 ** Incorrect token definitions
1656 bison used to output
1659 ** Token definitions as enums
1660 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1661 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1662 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1665 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1666 produces additional information:
1668 complete the core item sets with their closure
1669 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1670 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1672 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1673 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1674 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1677 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1678 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1686 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1688 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1691 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1692 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1693 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1695 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1696 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1697 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1698 kludge will be disabled.
1700 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1703 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1705 ** File name clashes are detected
1706 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1707 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1709 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1710 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1711 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1712 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1713 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1714 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1716 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1717 many portability hassles.
1719 ** DJGPP support added.
1721 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1723 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1726 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1727 under some conditions.
1732 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1734 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1736 ** Portability fixes
1738 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1740 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1744 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1745 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1746 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1747 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1748 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1750 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1751 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1752 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1754 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1757 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1759 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1760 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1763 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1764 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1765 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1767 ** Better C++ compliance
1768 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1769 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1772 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1775 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1778 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1781 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1784 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1786 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1788 ** Swedish translation
1791 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1792 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1793 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1795 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1796 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1797 previous allocations were not freed.
1799 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1800 Some newlines were missing.
1801 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1803 ** Fixed conflict report.
1804 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1808 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1810 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1812 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1814 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1816 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1817 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1819 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1821 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1825 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1827 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1829 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1830 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1833 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1836 ** Portability fixes.
1838 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1840 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1841 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1842 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1843 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1845 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1847 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1849 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1851 ** Russian translation added.
1853 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1855 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1857 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1859 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1861 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1863 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1864 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1867 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1868 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1871 Automatic location tracking.
1873 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1875 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1879 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1881 ** There is now a FAQ.
1883 * Changes in version 1.27:
1885 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1886 some systems has been fixed.
1888 * Changes in version 1.26:
1890 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1892 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1894 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1896 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1898 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1900 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1902 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1903 not provide alloca().
1905 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1907 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1908 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1910 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1911 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1912 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1914 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1915 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1916 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1919 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1920 directives in the parser file.
1922 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1923 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1925 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1926 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1927 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1928 a switch statement body.
1930 * Changes in version 1.23:
1932 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1933 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1934 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1935 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1937 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1939 * Changes in version 1.22:
1941 --help option added.
1943 * Changes in version 1.20:
1945 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1949 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1951 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1953 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1954 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1955 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1956 (at your option) any later version.
1958 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1959 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1960 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1961 GNU General Public License for more details.
1963 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1964 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1966 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1967 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1968 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1969 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1970 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1971 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1972 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1973 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1974 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1975 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1976 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1977 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1978 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1979 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1980 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1981 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1982 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1983 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
1984 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's