3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 *** Portability issues in the test suite.
9 *** Fixes of the -Werror option
11 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
12 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
14 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
15 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
16 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
20 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
23 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
25 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
27 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
28 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
29 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
31 ** Backward incompatible changes
35 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
37 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
38 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
40 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
41 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
43 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
46 *** Use of YACC='bison -y'
48 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
51 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
52 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
53 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
55 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
56 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
57 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
58 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
59 warnings for Bison extensions.
61 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
62 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
63 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
64 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
68 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
70 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
71 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
72 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
73 preprocessor expansion:
75 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
77 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
78 identifiers for user-provided variables.
80 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
82 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
83 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
85 *** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
87 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
89 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
94 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
95 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
96 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
98 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
99 the caret information only. For instance on:
106 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
107 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
111 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
112 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
116 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
118 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
119 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
121 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
123 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
124 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
125 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
127 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
128 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
129 errors (and only those):
131 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
133 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
134 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
136 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
138 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
140 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
141 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
143 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
144 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
145 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
147 *** The display of warnings is now richer
149 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
151 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
153 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
154 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
155 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
157 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
160 bison: warnings being treated as errors
161 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
165 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
167 *** Deprecated constructs
169 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
170 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
171 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
173 *** Useless semantic types
175 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
176 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
177 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
178 types that trigger the warning:
182 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
183 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
185 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
187 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
188 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
190 *** Undefined but unused symbols
192 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
193 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
196 %destructor {} symbol2
201 *** Useless destructors or printers
203 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
204 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
205 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
206 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
208 %token <type1> token1
212 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
213 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
217 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
218 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
222 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
224 compare the previous version of bison:
227 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
228 $ bison -Werror foo.y
229 bison: warnings being treated as errors
230 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
232 with the new behavior:
235 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
236 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
237 $ bison -Werror foo.y
238 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
239 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
241 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
246 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
251 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
252 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
253 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
258 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
259 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
261 ** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
263 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
266 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
268 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
269 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
270 or more arguments. Instead of
272 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
273 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
274 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
275 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
279 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
281 ** Types of values for %define variables
283 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
284 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
285 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
288 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
292 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
294 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
296 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
298 ** Variable api.token.prefix
300 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
301 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
302 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
304 %token FILE for ERROR
305 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
307 start: FILE for ERROR;
309 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
310 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
311 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
312 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
314 ** Variable api.value.type
316 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
317 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
318 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
320 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
327 %token <ival> INT "integer"
328 %token <sval> STRING "string"
329 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
330 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
333 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
334 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
336 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
338 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
339 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
340 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
342 %define api.value.type union
343 %token <int> INT "integer"
344 %token <char *> STRING "string"
345 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
346 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
349 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
350 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
352 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
353 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
355 %define api.value.type variant
356 %token <int> INT "integer"
357 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
359 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
377 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
378 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
379 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
380 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
381 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
384 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
385 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
387 ** Variable parse.error
389 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
390 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
393 ** Renamed %define variables
395 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
396 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
398 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
399 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
400 namespace -> api.namespace
401 stype -> api.value.type
403 ** Semantic predicates
405 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
407 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
408 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
409 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
410 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
411 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
414 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
416 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
417 reduce/reduce conflicts.
419 ** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
421 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
423 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
424 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
425 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
426 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
428 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
429 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
430 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
434 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
435 input order is now preserved.
437 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
438 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
439 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
441 ** Useless precedence and associativity
443 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
445 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
446 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
447 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
448 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
449 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
450 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
451 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
453 *** Precedence warning category
455 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
456 useless precedence and associativity directives.
458 *** Useless associativity
460 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
461 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
462 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
463 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
477 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
481 *** Useless precedence
483 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
484 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
485 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
486 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
490 exp: "var" '=' "number";
494 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
498 *** Useless precedence and associativity
500 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
505 exp: "var" '=' "number";
509 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
515 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
517 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
518 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
519 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
520 %empty. On the following grammar:
530 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
533 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
537 ** Java skeleton improvements
539 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
540 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
541 and "%define init_throws".
542 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
544 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
545 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
547 ** C++ skeletons improvements
549 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
551 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
552 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
553 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
555 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
557 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
559 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
561 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
562 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
563 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
564 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
565 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
566 factory invoked by the user actions).
568 *** %define api.value.type variant
570 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
571 from Théophile Ranquet.
573 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
576 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
579 %type <::std::string> item;
580 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
583 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
587 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
588 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
592 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
593 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
596 *** %define api.token.constructor
598 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
599 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
600 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
602 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
604 parser::location_type loc = ...;
606 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
608 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
610 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
616 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
617 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
619 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
623 *** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
625 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
627 *** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
629 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
633 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
635 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
637 ** Diagnostics are improved
639 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
641 *** Changes in the format of error messages
643 This used to be the format of many error reports:
645 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
646 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
650 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
651 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
653 *** New format for error reports: carets
655 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
657 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
660 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
666 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
667 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
669 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
670 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
672 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
673 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
675 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
676 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
679 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
680 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
681 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
684 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
686 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
687 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
688 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
689 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
690 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
693 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
694 "%define api.pure full".
696 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
698 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
699 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
700 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
701 then responsible to define her type.
703 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
704 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
707 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
708 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
711 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
712 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
715 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
717 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
718 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
719 before re-throwing the exception.
721 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
724 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
726 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
728 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
729 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
730 numbered and left-justified.
732 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
733 diamond shaped nodes.
735 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
736 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
738 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
740 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
741 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
745 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
746 have been fixed and extended.
748 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
749 were not properly documented.
751 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
753 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
755 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
756 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
757 reporting them to us.
761 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
762 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
765 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
767 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
769 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
770 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
772 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
774 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
776 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
780 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
782 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
783 users to the appropriate place to report them.
785 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
787 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
788 generated, are removed.
790 All the generated headers are self-contained.
792 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
794 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
795 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
796 For instance the header generated from
798 %define api.prefix "calc"
799 %defines "lib/parse.h"
801 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
803 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
805 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
808 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
809 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
810 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
814 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
816 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
817 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
820 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
824 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
825 suite have been fixed.
827 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
829 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
830 invalid C++. This is fixed.
832 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
834 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
836 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
838 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
842 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
843 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
844 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
846 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
850 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
854 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
856 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
858 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
860 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
861 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
864 ** Type names in actions
866 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
867 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
869 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
871 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
872 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
874 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
878 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
879 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
883 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
884 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
887 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
889 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
892 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
893 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
895 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
898 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
900 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
901 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
902 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
903 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
906 ** Generated Parser Headers
908 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
910 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
911 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
916 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
918 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
920 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
921 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
923 int bar_parse (void);
927 #define yyparse bar_parse
930 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
931 single compilation unit.
933 *** Exported symbols in C++
935 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
936 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
937 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
941 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
944 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
946 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
947 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
948 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
949 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
950 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
951 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
952 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
954 The following examples compares both:
956 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
957 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
958 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
964 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
965 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
967 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
968 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
969 > # if defined YYDEBUG
971 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
973 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
976 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
980 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
981 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
984 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
985 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
986 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
987 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
992 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
993 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
994 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
997 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
998 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1001 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1003 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1005 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1007 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
1011 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
1013 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
1015 ** glr.c improvements:
1017 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
1019 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1020 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
1022 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
1024 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1025 when -std is passed to GCC).
1027 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
1029 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1030 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
1034 *** C++11 compatibility:
1036 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1041 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1042 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1044 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1045 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1047 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
1049 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1050 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1051 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1053 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1055 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1056 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1058 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1062 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1063 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1064 documentation were fixed.
1066 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1068 ** Changes in the manual:
1070 *** %printer is documented
1072 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1073 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
1075 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1076 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
1078 *** Several improvements have been made:
1080 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1081 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1082 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1083 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
1087 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
1089 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1090 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
1092 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1094 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
1096 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1097 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
1099 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
1101 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1102 halts in the middle of its course.
1104 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
1106 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1108 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1109 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1110 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1111 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1112 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1114 ** Named references:
1116 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1117 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1120 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1121 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1122 as named references:
1124 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
1125 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1127 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1129 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
1130 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1132 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
1133 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1134 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1136 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
1137 will help to stabilize them.
1138 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
1140 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
1142 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1143 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
1144 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
1145 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1146 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
1147 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1148 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1149 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1150 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1152 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1153 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1154 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1155 file with these directives:
1157 %define lr.type lalr
1158 %define lr.type ielr
1159 %define lr.type canonical-lr
1161 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
1162 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1163 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
1166 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1169 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1171 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1173 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1174 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1175 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1176 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1177 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1178 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1179 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1180 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1181 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1182 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1185 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1186 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1187 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1188 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1189 inconsistent states.
1191 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1192 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1193 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1194 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1195 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1196 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1197 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1198 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1201 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1202 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1204 %define parse.lac full
1206 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1207 details including a few caveats.
1209 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1212 ** %define improvements:
1214 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1216 Each of these command-line options
1219 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1222 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1224 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1226 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1228 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1229 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1230 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1231 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1233 *** Variables renamed:
1235 The following %define variables
1238 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1240 have been renamed to
1243 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1245 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1246 for backward compatibility.
1248 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1250 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1251 within quotations marks. For example,
1253 %define api.push-pull "push"
1257 %define api.push-pull push
1259 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1261 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1263 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1265 ** Character literals not of length one:
1267 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1268 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1269 the following grammar to be the same token:
1275 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1276 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1278 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1280 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1281 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1282 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1283 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1285 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1287 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1288 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1289 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1290 and "last" members, instead of
1292 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1296 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1297 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1301 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1307 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1311 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1312 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1316 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1320 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1322 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1323 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1324 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1325 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1327 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1329 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1330 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1331 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1332 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1333 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1334 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1335 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1336 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1338 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1340 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1341 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1342 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1343 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1345 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1349 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1351 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1352 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1353 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1354 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1355 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1356 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1357 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1359 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1361 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1362 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1363 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1364 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1365 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1367 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1368 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1369 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1370 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1371 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1372 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1373 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1374 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1375 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1376 shifted or discarded.
1378 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1379 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1380 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1381 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1383 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1384 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1385 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1386 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1387 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1388 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1389 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1390 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1391 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1392 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1393 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1394 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1397 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1399 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1401 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1402 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1404 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1406 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1408 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1410 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1411 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1413 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1415 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1417 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1418 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1419 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1420 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1423 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1424 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1425 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1426 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1428 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1429 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1430 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1431 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1433 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1435 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1436 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1438 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1440 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1442 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1443 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1444 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1445 suppress all warnings:
1449 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1451 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1452 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1453 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1457 This bug has been fixed.
1459 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1461 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1462 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1464 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1467 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1469 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1472 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1473 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1474 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1475 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1477 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1479 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1481 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1482 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1483 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1484 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1487 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1489 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1490 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1491 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1492 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1493 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1494 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1495 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1496 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1497 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1499 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1501 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1502 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1505 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1507 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1511 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1512 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1515 %code requires {CODE}
1516 %code provides {CODE}
1519 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1520 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1521 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1522 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1523 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1525 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1526 is still considered experimental.
1528 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1530 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1531 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1532 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1533 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1534 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1537 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1538 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1539 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1540 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1541 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1542 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1543 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1545 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1547 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1548 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1549 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1550 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1551 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1552 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1553 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1554 be removed altogether.
1556 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1557 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1558 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1559 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1560 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1561 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1562 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1563 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1564 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1565 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1567 ** Internationalization.
1569 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1570 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1573 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1575 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1576 declarations have been fixed.
1578 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1580 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1581 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1583 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1587 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1589 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1590 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1591 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1592 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1593 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1596 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1598 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1600 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1602 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1603 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1604 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1605 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1608 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1610 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1613 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1615 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1618 %define NAME "VALUE"
1620 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1624 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1625 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1629 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1630 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1631 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1632 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1633 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1635 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1636 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1638 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1640 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1641 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1643 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1644 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1645 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1649 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1650 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1651 %skeleton to select it.
1653 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1655 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1656 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1657 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1661 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1662 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1663 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1664 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1666 ** XML Automaton Report
1668 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1669 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1670 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1671 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1673 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1674 %defines. For example:
1678 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1679 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1680 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1681 instead of "unused".
1683 ** Unreachable State Removal
1685 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1686 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1687 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1689 1. Removes unreachable states.
1691 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1692 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1693 directives in existing grammar files.
1695 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1696 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1698 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1700 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1702 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1703 for further discussion.
1705 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1707 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1708 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1709 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1710 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1711 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1712 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1713 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1716 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1719 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1722 %file-prefix "parser"
1726 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1728 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1729 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1730 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1731 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1734 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1735 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1736 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1737 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1739 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1740 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1741 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1742 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1744 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1745 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1747 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1749 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1750 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1753 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1755 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1756 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1758 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1760 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1761 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1762 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1764 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1765 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1767 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1769 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1772 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1773 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1774 declared semantic type tags.
1776 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1777 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1780 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1781 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1782 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1783 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1785 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1786 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1789 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1792 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1793 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1794 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1796 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1797 completely removed from Bison.
1799 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1801 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1802 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1803 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1804 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1805 and is required by POSIX.
1807 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1808 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1810 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1814 %union { char *string; }
1815 %token <string> STRING1
1816 %token <string> STRING2
1817 %type <string> string1
1818 %type <string> string2
1819 %union { char character; }
1820 %token <character> CHR
1821 %type <character> chr
1822 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1823 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1824 %destructor { } <character>
1826 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1827 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1828 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1829 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1830 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1832 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1833 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1836 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1837 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1838 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1839 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1840 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1842 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1843 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1845 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1846 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1847 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1848 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1849 declared after the first %union.
1851 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1852 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1853 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1854 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1855 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1856 after the token definitions.
1858 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1859 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1861 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1862 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1865 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1866 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1867 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1871 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1872 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1873 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1874 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1875 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1878 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1879 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1880 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1881 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1884 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1885 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1886 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1889 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1890 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1891 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1892 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1896 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1897 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1898 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1899 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1900 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1903 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1904 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1906 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1907 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1909 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1910 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1911 in a future release.
1913 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1915 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1916 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1918 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1919 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1921 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1923 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1924 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1925 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1927 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1929 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1931 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1932 their contents together.
1934 ** New warning: unused values
1935 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1936 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1938 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1942 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1943 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1944 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1946 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1947 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1949 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1952 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1953 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1954 values are used, e.g.:
1956 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1957 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1960 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1961 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1963 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1965 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1966 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1968 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1969 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1970 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1971 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1973 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1974 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1975 instead of warnings.
1977 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1978 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1979 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1981 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1983 ** %require "VERSION"
1984 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1985 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1987 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1988 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1989 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1990 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1991 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1993 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1994 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1995 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1996 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1998 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1999 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
2001 ** DJGPP support added.
2003 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
2005 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
2007 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
2008 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2009 language is still English. For details, please see the new
2010 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2011 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2012 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
2014 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
2015 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2016 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2017 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2019 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
2020 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2021 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2023 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
2024 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2025 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2026 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2027 unexpected "number"'.
2029 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
2031 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
2033 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2034 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2035 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2036 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2037 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
2039 - Error token location.
2040 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2041 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2042 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2043 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
2045 - Semicolon changes:
2046 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2047 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
2049 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2050 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2051 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2052 forget a closing quote.
2054 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
2058 - GLR grammars now support locations.
2060 - New directive: %initial-action.
2061 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2062 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
2064 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2065 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
2067 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
2068 This is a GNU extension.
2070 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
2071 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
2073 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
2075 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2076 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
2080 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2081 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2082 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2083 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2084 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2085 these violations will become errors again.
2087 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2088 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
2090 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
2092 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
2094 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
2095 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
2097 ** syntax error processing
2099 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2100 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
2103 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2104 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
2107 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
2109 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2110 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
2112 ** POSIX conformance
2114 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2115 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2116 compatibility with Yacc.
2118 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2119 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2120 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2121 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
2124 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2125 declared before use. C99 requires this.
2127 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2128 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
2130 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2131 output as "foo\\bar.y".
2133 - Yacc command and library now available
2134 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
2135 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2136 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2137 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
2139 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
2141 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2142 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2143 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
2145 ** Other compatibility issues
2147 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2148 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2149 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2150 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2151 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
2152 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
2154 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
2155 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
2157 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
2158 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
2160 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
2161 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2162 withdrawn in a future release.
2167 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
2170 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2171 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2173 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2174 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2175 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2178 - a single argument only can be added,
2179 - their types are weak (void *),
2180 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2181 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2183 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2186 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2187 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2188 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2190 results in the following signatures:
2192 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2193 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2195 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2197 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2198 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2200 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2201 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2202 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2204 ** #line in output files
2205 - --no-line works properly.
2207 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2208 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2209 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2210 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2212 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2214 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2216 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2219 Fix spurious parse errors.
2222 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2223 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2226 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2227 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2231 but the converse remains an error:
2235 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2238 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2240 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2241 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2243 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2248 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2249 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2250 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2251 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2253 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2254 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2257 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2258 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2259 now creates "bar.c".
2262 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2263 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2265 ** Unknown token numbers
2266 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2270 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2271 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2272 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2273 will be mapped onto another number.
2275 ** Verbose error messages
2276 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2277 error recovery is possible.
2280 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2282 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2283 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2284 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2285 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2286 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2287 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2288 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2289 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2290 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2293 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2296 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2297 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2298 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2299 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2301 ** Explicit initial rule
2302 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2303 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2307 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2308 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2310 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2311 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2313 ** Rules never reduced
2314 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2317 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2318 On a grammar such as
2320 %token useless useful
2322 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2324 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2325 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2327 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2328 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2330 ** Default locations
2331 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2332 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2333 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2334 the computation of @$.
2336 ** Token end-of-file
2337 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2338 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2339 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2343 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2346 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2349 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2350 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2352 ** Incorrect token definitions
2355 bison used to output
2358 ** Token definitions as enums
2359 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2360 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2361 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2364 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2365 produces additional information:
2367 complete the core item sets with their closure
2368 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2369 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2371 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2372 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2373 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2376 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2377 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2385 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2387 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2390 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2391 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2392 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2394 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2395 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2396 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2397 kludge will be disabled.
2399 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2402 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2404 ** File name clashes are detected
2405 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2406 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2408 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2409 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2410 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2411 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2412 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2413 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2415 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2416 many portability hassles.
2418 ** DJGPP support added.
2420 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2422 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2425 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2426 under some conditions.
2431 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2433 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2435 ** Portability fixes
2437 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2439 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2443 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2444 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2445 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2446 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2447 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2449 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2450 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2451 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2453 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2456 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2458 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2459 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2462 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2463 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2464 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2466 ** Better C++ compliance
2467 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2468 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2471 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2474 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2477 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2480 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2483 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2485 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2487 ** Swedish translation
2490 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2491 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2492 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2494 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2495 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2496 previous allocations were not freed.
2498 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2499 Some newlines were missing.
2500 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2502 ** Fixed conflict report.
2503 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2507 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2509 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2511 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2513 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2515 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2516 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2518 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2520 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2524 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2526 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2528 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2529 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2532 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2535 ** Portability fixes.
2537 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2539 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2540 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2541 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2542 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2544 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2546 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2548 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2550 ** Russian translation added.
2552 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2554 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2556 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2558 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2560 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2562 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2563 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2566 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2567 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2570 Automatic location tracking.
2572 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2574 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2578 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2580 ** There is now a FAQ.
2582 * Changes in version 1.27:
2584 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2585 some systems has been fixed.
2587 * Changes in version 1.26:
2589 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2591 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2593 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2595 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2597 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2599 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2601 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2602 not provide alloca().
2604 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2606 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2607 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2609 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2610 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2611 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2613 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2614 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2615 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2618 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2619 directives in the parser file.
2621 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2622 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2624 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2625 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2626 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2627 a switch statement body.
2629 * Changes in version 1.23:
2631 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2632 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2633 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2634 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2636 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2638 * Changes in version 1.22:
2640 --help option added.
2642 * Changes in version 1.20:
2644 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2648 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2650 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2652 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2653 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2654 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2655 (at your option) any later version.
2657 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2658 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2659 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2660 GNU General Public License for more details.
2662 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2663 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2665 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2666 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2667 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2668 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2669 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2670 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2671 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2672 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2673 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2674 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2675 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2676 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2677 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2678 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2679 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2680 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2681 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2682 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2683 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2684 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2685 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2686 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2687 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
2688 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype