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