3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explictly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what gcc 4.7 does.
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatiblities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
42 *** Warning categories are now displayed and prefix changes
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the suffix is displayed, in a
49 manner similar to gcc, as [-Werror=CATEGORY]. Also, the prefix is changed
50 from "warning: " to "error: ".
52 For instance, considering the above change, an output for -Werror=other
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space [-Wother]
60 bison: warnings being treated as errors
61 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
63 *** Deprecated constructs
65 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
66 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
67 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
69 *** Useless semantic types
71 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
72 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
73 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
74 types that trigger the warning:
78 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
79 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
81 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
83 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
84 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
86 *** Undefined but unused symbols
88 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
89 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
92 %destructor {} symbol2
97 *** Useless destructors or printers
99 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
100 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
101 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
102 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
104 %token <type1> token1
108 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
109 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
113 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
114 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
118 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
120 compare the previous version of bison:
123 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
124 $ bison -Werror foo.y
125 bison: warnings being treated as errors
126 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
128 with the new behavior:
131 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
132 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
133 $ bison -Werror foo.y
134 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
135 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
137 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
142 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
147 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
148 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
149 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
154 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
155 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
157 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
159 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
160 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
161 or more arguments. Instead of
163 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
164 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
165 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
166 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
170 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
172 ** Java skeleton improvements
174 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
175 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
176 and "%define init_throws".
178 ** C++ skeletons improvements
180 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
182 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
183 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
184 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
186 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
188 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
190 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
192 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
193 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
194 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
195 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
196 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
197 factory invoked by the user actions).
199 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
201 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
202 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
203 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
205 %token FILE for ERROR
206 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
208 start: FILE for ERROR;
210 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
211 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
212 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
213 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
215 ** Variable api.namespace
217 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
218 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
220 ** Variable parse.error
222 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
223 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
226 ** Semantic predicates
228 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
229 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
230 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
231 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
232 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
235 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
237 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
238 reduce/reduce conflicts.
240 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
244 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
246 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
247 users to the appropriate place to report them.
249 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
251 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
252 generated, are removed.
254 ** Changes in the format of errors and exceptions output
256 This used to be the format of many error reports:
258 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
259 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
263 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
264 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
266 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
270 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
271 suite have been fixed.
273 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
275 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
276 invalid C++. This is fixed.
278 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
280 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
282 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
284 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
288 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
289 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
290 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
292 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
296 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
300 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
302 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
304 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
306 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
307 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
310 ** Type names in actions
312 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
313 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
315 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
317 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
318 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
320 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
324 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
325 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
329 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
330 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
333 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
335 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
338 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
339 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
341 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
344 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
346 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
347 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
348 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
349 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
352 ** Generated Parser Headers
354 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
356 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
357 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
362 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
364 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
366 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
367 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
369 int bar_parse (void);
373 #define yyparse bar_parse
376 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
377 single compilation unit.
379 *** Exported symbols in C++
381 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
382 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
383 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
387 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
390 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
392 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
393 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
394 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
395 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
396 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
397 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
398 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
400 The following examples compares both:
402 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
403 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
404 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
410 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
411 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
413 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
414 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
415 > # if defined YYDEBUG
417 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
419 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
422 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
426 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
427 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
430 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
431 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
432 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
433 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
438 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
439 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
440 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
443 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
444 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
447 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
449 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
451 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
453 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
457 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
459 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
461 ** glr.c improvements:
463 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
465 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
466 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
468 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
470 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
471 when -std is passed to GCC).
473 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
475 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
476 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
480 *** C++11 compatibility:
482 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
487 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
488 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
490 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
491 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
493 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
495 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
496 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
497 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
499 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
501 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
502 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
504 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
508 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
509 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
510 documentation were fixed.
512 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
514 ** Changes in the manual:
516 *** %printer is documented
518 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
519 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
521 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
522 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
524 *** Several improvements have been made:
526 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
527 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
528 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
529 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
533 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
535 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
536 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
538 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
540 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
542 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
543 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
545 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
547 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
548 halts in the middle of its course.
550 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
552 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
554 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
555 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
556 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
557 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
558 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
562 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
563 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
566 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
567 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
570 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
571 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
573 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
575 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
576 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
578 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
579 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
580 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
582 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
583 will help to stabilize them.
585 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
587 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
588 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
589 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
590 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
591 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
592 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
593 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
594 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
595 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
597 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
598 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
599 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
600 file with these directives:
604 %define lr.type canonical-lr
606 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
607 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
608 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
611 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
614 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
616 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
617 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
618 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
619 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
620 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
621 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
622 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
623 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
624 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
625 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
628 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
629 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
630 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
631 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
634 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
635 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
636 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
637 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
638 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
639 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
640 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
641 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
644 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
645 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
647 %define parse.lac full
649 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
650 details including a few caveats.
652 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
655 ** %define improvements:
657 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
659 Each of these command-line options
662 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
665 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
667 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
669 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
671 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
672 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
673 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
674 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
676 *** Variables renamed:
678 The following %define variables
681 lr.keep_unreachable_states
686 lr.keep-unreachable-states
688 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
689 for backward compatibility.
691 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
693 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
694 within quotations marks. For example,
696 %define api.push-pull "push"
700 %define api.push-pull push
702 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
704 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
706 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
708 ** Character literals not of length one:
710 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
711 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
712 the following grammar to be the same token:
718 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
719 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
721 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
723 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
724 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
725 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
726 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
728 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
730 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
731 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
732 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
733 and "last" members, instead of
735 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
739 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
740 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
744 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
750 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
754 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
755 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
759 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
763 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
765 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
766 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
767 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
768 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
770 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
772 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
773 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
774 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
775 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
776 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
777 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
778 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
779 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
781 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
783 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
784 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
785 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
786 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
788 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
792 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
794 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
795 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
796 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
797 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
798 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
799 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
800 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
802 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
804 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
805 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
806 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
807 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
808 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
810 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
811 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
812 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
813 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
814 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
815 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
816 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
817 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
818 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
819 shifted or discarded.
821 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
822 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
823 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
824 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
826 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
827 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
828 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
829 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
830 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
831 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
832 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
833 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
834 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
835 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
836 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
837 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
840 ** Java skeleton fixes:
842 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
844 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
845 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
847 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
849 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
851 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
853 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
854 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
856 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
858 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
860 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
861 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
862 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
863 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
866 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
867 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
868 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
869 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
871 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
872 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
873 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
874 then have no effect on the conflict report.
876 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
878 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
879 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
881 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
883 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
885 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
886 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
887 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
888 suppress all warnings:
892 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
894 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
895 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
896 produced an assertion failure. For example:
900 This bug has been fixed.
902 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
904 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
905 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
907 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
910 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
912 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
915 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
916 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
917 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
918 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
920 ** Minor documentation fixes.
922 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
924 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
925 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
926 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
927 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
930 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
932 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
933 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
934 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
935 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
936 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
937 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
938 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
939 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
940 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
942 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
944 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
945 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
948 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
950 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
954 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
955 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
958 %code requires {CODE}
959 %code provides {CODE}
962 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
963 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
964 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
965 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
966 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
968 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
969 is still considered experimental.
971 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
973 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
974 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
975 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
976 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
977 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
980 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
981 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
982 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
983 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
984 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
985 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
986 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
988 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
990 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
991 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
992 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
993 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
994 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
995 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
996 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
997 be removed altogether.
999 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1000 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1001 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1002 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1003 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1004 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1005 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1006 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1007 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1008 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1010 ** Internationalization.
1012 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1013 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1016 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1018 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1019 declarations have been fixed.
1021 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1023 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1024 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1026 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1030 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1032 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1033 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1034 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1035 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1036 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1039 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1041 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1043 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1045 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1046 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1047 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1048 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1051 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1053 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1056 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1058 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1061 %define NAME "VALUE"
1063 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1067 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1068 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1072 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1073 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1074 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1075 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1076 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1078 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1079 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1081 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1083 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1084 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1086 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1087 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1088 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1092 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1093 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1094 %skeleton to select it.
1096 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1098 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1099 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1103 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1104 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1105 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1106 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1108 ** XML Automaton Report
1110 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1111 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1112 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1114 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1115 %defines. For example:
1119 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1120 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1121 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1122 instead of "unused".
1124 ** Unreachable State Removal
1126 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1127 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1128 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1130 1. Removes unreachable states.
1132 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1133 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1134 directives in existing grammar files.
1136 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1137 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1139 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1141 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1143 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1144 for further discussion.
1146 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1148 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1149 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1150 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1151 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1152 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1153 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1154 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1157 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1160 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1163 %file-prefix "parser"
1167 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1169 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1170 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1171 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1172 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1175 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1176 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1177 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1178 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1180 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1181 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1182 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1183 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1185 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1186 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1188 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1190 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1191 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1194 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1196 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1197 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1199 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1201 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1202 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1203 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1205 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1206 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1208 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1210 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1213 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1214 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1215 declared semantic type tags.
1217 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1218 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1221 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1222 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1223 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1224 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1226 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1227 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1230 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1233 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1234 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1235 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1237 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1238 completely removed from Bison.
1240 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1242 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1243 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1244 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1245 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1246 and is required by POSIX.
1248 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1249 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1251 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1255 %union { char *string; }
1256 %token <string> STRING1
1257 %token <string> STRING2
1258 %type <string> string1
1259 %type <string> string2
1260 %union { char character; }
1261 %token <character> CHR
1262 %type <character> chr
1263 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1264 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1265 %destructor { } <character>
1267 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1268 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1269 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1270 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1271 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1273 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1274 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1277 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1278 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1279 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1280 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1281 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1283 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1284 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1286 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1287 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1288 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1289 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1290 declared after the first %union.
1292 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1293 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1294 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1295 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1296 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1297 after the token definitions.
1299 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1300 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1302 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1303 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1306 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1307 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1308 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1312 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1313 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1314 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1315 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1316 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1319 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1320 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1321 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1322 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1325 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1326 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1327 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1330 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1331 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1332 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1333 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1337 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1338 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1339 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1340 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1341 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1344 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1345 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1347 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1348 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1350 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1351 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1352 in a future release.
1354 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1356 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1357 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1359 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1360 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1362 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1364 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1365 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1366 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1368 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1370 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1372 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1373 their contents together.
1375 ** New warning: unused values
1376 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1377 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1379 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1383 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1384 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1385 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1387 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1388 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1390 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1393 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1394 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1395 values are used, e.g.:
1397 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1398 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1401 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1402 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1404 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1406 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1407 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1409 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1410 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1411 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1412 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1414 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1415 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1416 instead of warnings.
1418 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1419 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1420 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1422 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1424 ** %require "VERSION"
1425 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1426 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1428 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1429 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1430 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1431 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1432 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1434 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1435 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1436 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1437 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1439 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1440 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1442 ** DJGPP support added.
1444 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1446 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1448 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1449 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1450 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1451 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1452 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1453 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1455 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1456 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1457 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1458 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1460 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1461 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1462 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1464 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1465 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1466 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1467 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1468 unexpected "number"'.
1470 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1472 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1474 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1475 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1476 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1477 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1478 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1480 - Error token location.
1481 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1482 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1483 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1484 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1486 - Semicolon changes:
1487 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1488 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1490 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1491 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1492 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1493 forget a closing quote.
1495 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1499 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1501 - New directive: %initial-action.
1502 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1503 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1505 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1506 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1508 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1509 This is a GNU extension.
1511 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1512 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1514 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1516 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1517 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1521 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1522 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1523 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1524 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1525 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1526 these violations will become errors again.
1528 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1529 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1531 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1533 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1535 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1536 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1538 ** syntax error processing
1540 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1541 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1544 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1545 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1548 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1550 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1551 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1553 ** POSIX conformance
1555 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1556 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1557 compatibility with Yacc.
1559 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1560 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1561 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1562 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1565 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1566 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1568 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1569 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1571 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1572 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1574 - Yacc command and library now available
1575 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1576 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1577 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1578 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1580 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1582 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1583 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1584 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1586 ** Other compatibility issues
1588 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1589 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1590 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1591 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1592 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1593 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1595 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1596 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1598 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1599 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1601 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1602 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1603 withdrawn in a future release.
1608 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1611 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1612 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1614 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1615 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1616 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1619 - a single argument only can be added,
1620 - their types are weak (void *),
1621 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1622 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1624 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1627 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1628 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1629 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1631 results in the following signatures:
1633 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1634 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1636 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1638 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1639 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1641 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1642 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1643 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1645 ** #line in output files
1646 - --no-line works properly.
1648 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1649 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1650 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1651 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1653 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1655 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1657 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1660 Fix spurious parse errors.
1663 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1664 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1667 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1668 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1672 but the converse remains an error:
1676 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1679 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1681 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1682 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1684 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1689 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1690 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1691 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1692 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1694 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1695 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1698 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1699 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1700 now creates "bar.c".
1703 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1704 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1706 ** Unknown token numbers
1707 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1711 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1712 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1713 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1714 will be mapped onto another number.
1716 ** Verbose error messages
1717 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1718 error recovery is possible.
1721 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1723 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1724 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1725 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1726 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1727 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1728 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1729 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1730 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1731 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1734 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1737 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1738 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1739 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1740 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1742 ** Explicit initial rule
1743 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1744 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1748 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1749 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1751 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1752 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1754 ** Rules never reduced
1755 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1758 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1759 On a grammar such as
1761 %token useless useful
1763 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1765 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1766 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1768 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1769 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1771 ** Default locations
1772 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1773 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1774 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1775 the computation of @$.
1777 ** Token end-of-file
1778 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1779 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1780 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1784 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1787 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1790 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1791 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1793 ** Incorrect token definitions
1796 bison used to output
1799 ** Token definitions as enums
1800 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1801 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1802 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1805 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1806 produces additional information:
1808 complete the core item sets with their closure
1809 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1810 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1812 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1813 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1814 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1817 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1818 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1826 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1828 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1831 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1832 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1833 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1835 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1836 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1837 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1838 kludge will be disabled.
1840 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1843 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1845 ** File name clashes are detected
1846 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1847 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1849 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1850 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1851 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1852 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1853 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1854 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1856 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1857 many portability hassles.
1859 ** DJGPP support added.
1861 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1863 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1866 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1867 under some conditions.
1872 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1874 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1876 ** Portability fixes
1878 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1880 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1884 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1885 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1886 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1887 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1888 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1890 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1891 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1892 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1894 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1897 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1899 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1900 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1903 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1904 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1905 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1907 ** Better C++ compliance
1908 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1909 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1912 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1915 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1918 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1921 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1924 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1926 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1928 ** Swedish translation
1931 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1932 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1933 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1935 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1936 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1937 previous allocations were not freed.
1939 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1940 Some newlines were missing.
1941 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1943 ** Fixed conflict report.
1944 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1948 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1950 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1952 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1954 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1956 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1957 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1959 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1961 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1965 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1967 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1969 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1970 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1973 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1976 ** Portability fixes.
1978 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1980 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1981 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1982 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1983 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1985 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1987 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1989 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1991 ** Russian translation added.
1993 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1995 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1997 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1999 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2001 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2003 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2004 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2007 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2008 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2011 Automatic location tracking.
2013 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2015 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2019 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2021 ** There is now a FAQ.
2023 * Changes in version 1.27:
2025 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2026 some systems has been fixed.
2028 * Changes in version 1.26:
2030 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2032 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2034 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2036 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2038 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2040 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2042 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2043 not provide alloca().
2045 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2047 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2048 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2050 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2051 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2052 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2054 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2055 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2056 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2059 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2060 directives in the parser file.
2062 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2063 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2065 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2066 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2067 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2068 a switch statement body.
2070 * Changes in version 1.23:
2072 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2073 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2074 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2075 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2077 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2079 * Changes in version 1.22:
2081 --help option added.
2083 * Changes in version 1.20:
2085 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2089 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2091 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2093 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2094 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2095 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2096 (at your option) any later version.
2098 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2099 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2100 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2101 GNU General Public License for more details.
2103 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2104 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2106 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2107 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2108 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2109 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2110 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2111 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2112 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2113 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2114 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2115 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2116 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2117 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2118 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2119 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2120 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2121 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2122 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2123 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init