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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Bug fixes
6
7 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
8
9 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
10 users to the appropriate place to report them.
11
12 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
13
14 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
15 generated, are removed.
16
17 All the generated headers are self-contained.
18
19 ** Changes in the format of error messages
20
21 This used to be the format of many error reports:
22
23 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
24 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
25
26 It is now:
27
28 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
29 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
30
31 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
32
33 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
34 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
35 For instance the header generated from
36
37 %define api.prefix "calc"
38 %defines "lib/parse.h"
39
40 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
41
42 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
43
44 ** Bug fixes
45
46 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
47 suite have been fixed.
48
49 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
50
51 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
52 invalid C++. This is fixed.
53
54 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
55
56 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
57
58 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
59
60 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
61
62 ** Future Changes
63
64 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
65 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
66 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
67
68 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
69
70 write:
71
72 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
73
74 ** Bug fixes
75
76 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
77
78 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
79
80 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
81
82 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
83 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
84 now does.
85
86 ** Type names in actions
87
88 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
89 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
90
91 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
92
93 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
94 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
95
96 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
97
98 ** Future Changes
99
100 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
101 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
102
103 *** K&R C parsers
104
105 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
106 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
107 compilers.
108
109 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
110
111 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
112 YYLTYPE.
113
114 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
115 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
116
117 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
118 %error-verbose.
119
120 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
121
122 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
123 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
124 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
125 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
126 it.
127
128 ** Generated Parser Headers
129
130 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
131
132 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
133 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
134
135 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
136 # define YY_FOO_H
137 ...
138 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
139
140 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
141
142 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
143 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
144
145 int bar_parse (void);
146
147 rather than
148
149 #define yyparse bar_parse
150 int yyparse (void);
151
152 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
153 single compilation unit.
154
155 *** Exported symbols in C++
156
157 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
158 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
159 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
160
161 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
162
163 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
164 longer defined.
165
166 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
167
168 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
169 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
170 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
171 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
172 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
173 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
174 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
175
176 The following examples compares both:
177
178 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
179 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
180 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
181 %% %%
182 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
183
184 bison generates:
185
186 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
187 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
188
189 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
190 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
191 > # if defined YYDEBUG
192 > # if YYDEBUG
193 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
194 > # else
195 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
196 > # endif
197 > # else
198 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
199 > # endif
200 # endif | # endif
201
202 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
203 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
204 # endif # endif
205
206 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
207 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
208 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
209 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
210 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
211 }; };
212 # endif # endif
213
214 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
215 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
216 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
217 { {
218 int ival; int ival;
219 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
220 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
221 #endif #endif
222
223 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
224
225 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
226
227 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
228
229 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
230
231 ** Future changes:
232
233 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
234
235 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
236
237 ** glr.c improvements:
238
239 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
240
241 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
242 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
243
244 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
245
246 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
247 when -std is passed to GCC).
248
249 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
250
251 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
252 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
253
254 ** Changes for C++:
255
256 *** C++11 compatibility:
257
258 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
259 or higher.
260
261 *** Header guards
262
263 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
264 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
265
266 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
267 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
268 ...
269 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
270
271 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
272 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
273 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
274
275 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
276
277 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
278 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
279 ...
280 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
281
282 *** C++ locations:
283
284 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
285 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
286 documentation were fixed.
287
288 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
289
290 ** Changes in the manual:
291
292 *** %printer is documented
293
294 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
295 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
296
297 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
298 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
299
300 *** Several improvements have been made:
301
302 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
303 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
304 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
305 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
306
307 ** Building bison:
308
309 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
310
311 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
312 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
313
314 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
315
316 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
317
318 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
319 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
320
321 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
322
323 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
324 halts in the middle of its course.
325
326 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
327
328 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
329
330 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
331 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
332 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
333 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
334 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
335
336 ** Named references:
337
338 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
339 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
340 actions code.
341
342 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
343 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
344 as named references:
345
346 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
347 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
348
349 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
350
351 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
352 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
353
354 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
355 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
356 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
357
358 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
359 will help to stabilize them.
360
361 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
362
363 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
364 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
365 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
366 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
367 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
368 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
369 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
370 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
371 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
372
373 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
374 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
375 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
376 file with these directives:
377
378 %define lr.type lalr
379 %define lr.type ielr
380 %define lr.type canonical-lr
381
382 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
383 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
384 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
385 manual.
386
387 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
388 stabilize them.
389
390 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
391
392 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
393 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
394 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
395 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
396 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
397 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
398 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
399 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
400 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
401 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
402 tokens.
403
404 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
405 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
406 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
407 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
408 inconsistent states.
409
410 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
411 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
412 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
413 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
414 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
415 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
416 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
417 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
418 power.
419
420 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
421 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
422
423 %define parse.lac full
424
425 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
426 details including a few caveats.
427
428 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
429 stabilize it.
430
431 ** %define improvements:
432
433 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
434
435 Each of these command-line options
436
437 -D NAME[=VALUE]
438 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
439
440 -F NAME[=VALUE]
441 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
442
443 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
444
445 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
446
447 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
448 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
449 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
450 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
451
452 *** Variables renamed:
453
454 The following %define variables
455
456 api.push_pull
457 lr.keep_unreachable_states
458
459 have been renamed to
460
461 api.push-pull
462 lr.keep-unreachable-states
463
464 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
465 for backward compatibility.
466
467 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
468
469 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
470 within quotations marks. For example,
471
472 %define api.push-pull "push"
473
474 can be rewritten as
475
476 %define api.push-pull push
477
478 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
479
480 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
481
482 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
483
484 ** Character literals not of length one:
485
486 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
487 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
488 the following grammar to be the same token:
489
490 exp: exp '++'
491 | exp '+' exp
492 ;
493
494 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
495 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
496
497 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
498
499 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
500 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
501 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
502 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
503
504 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
505
506 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
507 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
508 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
509 and "last" members, instead of
510
511 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
512 do \
513 if (N) \
514 { \
515 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
516 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
517 } \
518 else \
519 { \
520 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
521 } \
522 while (false)
523
524 use:
525
526 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
527 do \
528 if (N) \
529 { \
530 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
531 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
532 } \
533 else \
534 { \
535 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
536 } \
537 while (false)
538
539 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
540
541 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
542 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
543 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
544 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
545
546 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
547
548 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
549 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
550 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
551 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
552 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
553 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
554 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
555 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
556
557 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
558
559 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
560 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
561 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
562 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
563
564 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
565
566 instead of
567
568 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
569
570 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
571 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
572 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
573 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
574 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
575 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
576 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
577
578 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
579
580 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
581 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
582 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
583 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
584 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
585
586 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
587 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
588 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
589 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
590 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
591 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
592 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
593 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
594 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
595 shifted or discarded.
596
597 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
598 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
599 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
600 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
601
602 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
603 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
604 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
605 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
606 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
607 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
608 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
609 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
610 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
611 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
612 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
613 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
614 by default.
615
616 ** Java skeleton fixes:
617
618 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
619
620 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
621 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
622
623 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
624
625 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
626
627 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
628
629 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
630 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
631
632 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
633
634 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
635
636 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
637 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
638 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
639 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
640 example:
641
642 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
643 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
644 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
645 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
646
647 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
648 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
649 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
650 then have no effect on the conflict report.
651
652 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
653
654 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
655 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
656
657 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
658
659 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
660
661 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
662 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
663 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
664 suppress all warnings:
665
666 bison -Wnone gram.y
667
668 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
669
670 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
671 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
672 produced an assertion failure. For example:
673
674 %left END 0
675
676 This bug has been fixed.
677
678 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
679
680 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
681 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
682
683 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
684 been fixed.
685
686 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
687
688 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
689 been fixed.
690
691 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
692 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
693 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
694 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
695
696 ** Minor documentation fixes.
697
698 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
699
700 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
701 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
702 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
703 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
704 affected platforms.
705
706 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
707
708 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
709 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
710 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
711 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
712 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
713 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
714 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
715 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
716 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
717
718 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
719
720 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
721 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
722 avoided.
723
724 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
725
726 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
727
728 %{CODE%}
729
730 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
731 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
732
733 %code {CODE}
734 %code requires {CODE}
735 %code provides {CODE}
736 %code top {CODE}
737
738 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
739 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
740 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
741 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
742 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
743
744 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
745 is still considered experimental.
746
747 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
748
749 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
750 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
751 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
752 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
753 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
754 specified by POSIX.
755
756 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
757 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
758 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
759 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
760 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
761 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
762 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
763
764 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
765
766 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
767 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
768 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
769 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
770 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
771 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
772 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
773 be removed altogether.
774
775 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
776 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
777 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
778 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
779 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
780 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
781 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
782 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
783 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
784 2.4.2 is not necessary.
785
786 ** Internationalization.
787
788 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
789 message translations were not installed although supported by the
790 host system.
791
792 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
793
794 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
795 declarations have been fixed.
796
797 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
798
799 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
800 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
801
802 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
803
804 instead of
805
806 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
807
808 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
809 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
810 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
811 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
812 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
813 feature.
814
815 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
816
817 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
818
819 ** %language is an experimental feature.
820
821 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
822 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
823 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
824 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
825 in future releases.
826
827 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
828
829 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
830 fixed.
831
832 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
833
834 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
835 are now deprecated:
836
837 %define NAME "VALUE"
838
839 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
840
841 %define api.pure
842
843 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
844 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
845
846 ** Push Parsing
847
848 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
849 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
850 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
851 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
852 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
853
854 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
855 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
856
857 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
858
859 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
860 feedback will help to stabilize it.
861
862 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
863 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
864 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
865
866 ** Java
867
868 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
869 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
870 %skeleton to select it.
871
872 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
873
874 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
875 feedback will help to stabilize it.
876
877 ** %language
878
879 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
880 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
881 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
882 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
883
884 ** XML Automaton Report
885
886 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
887 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
888 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
889
890 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
891 %defines. For example:
892
893 %defines "parser.h"
894
895 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
896 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
897 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
898 instead of "unused".
899
900 ** Unreachable State Removal
901
902 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
903 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
904 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
905
906 1. Removes unreachable states.
907
908 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
909 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
910 directives in existing grammar files.
911
912 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
913 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
914
915 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
916
917 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
918
919 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
920 for further discussion.
921
922 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
923
924 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
925 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
926 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
927 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
928 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
929 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
930 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
931 code.
932
933 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
934 name.
935
936 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
937 deprecated:
938
939 %file-prefix "parser"
940 %name-prefix "c_"
941 %output "parser.c"
942
943 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
944
945 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
946 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
947 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
948 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
949 it:
950
951 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
952 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
953 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
954 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
955
956 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
957 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
958 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
959 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
960
961 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
962 determine whether they should become permanent features.
963
964 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
965
966 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
967 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
968 about unused $2 in:
969
970 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
971
972 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
973 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
974
975 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
976
977 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
978 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
979 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
980
981 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
982 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
983
984 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
985
986 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
987 %printer's:
988
989 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
990 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
991 declared semantic type tags.
992
993 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
994 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
995 type tags.
996
997 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
998 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
999 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1000 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1001
1002 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1003 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1004 features.
1005
1006 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1007 details.
1008
1009 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1010 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1011 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1012
1013 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1014 completely removed from Bison.
1015
1016 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1017
1018 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1019 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1020 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1021 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1022 and is required by POSIX.
1023
1024 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1025 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1026
1027 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1028
1029 For example:
1030
1031 %union { char *string; }
1032 %token <string> STRING1
1033 %token <string> STRING2
1034 %type <string> string1
1035 %type <string> string2
1036 %union { char character; }
1037 %token <character> CHR
1038 %type <character> chr
1039 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1040 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1041 %destructor { } <character>
1042
1043 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1044 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1045 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1046 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1047 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1048
1049 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1050 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1051 future versions.]
1052
1053 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1054 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1055 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1056 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1057 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1058
1059 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1060 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1061
1062 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1063 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1064 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1065 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1066 declared after the first %union.
1067
1068 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1069 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1070 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1071 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1072 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1073 after the token definitions.
1074
1075 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1076 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1077
1078 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1079 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1080 %after-header.
1081
1082 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1083 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1084 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1085 convenient for you:
1086
1087 %before-header {
1088 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1089 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1090 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1091 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1092 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1093 }
1094 %start-header {
1095 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1096 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1097 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1098 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1099 }
1100 %union {
1101 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1102 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1103 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1104 }
1105 %end-header {
1106 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1107 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1108 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1109 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1110 * definitions. */
1111 }
1112 %after-header {
1113 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1114 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1115 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1116 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1117 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1118 }
1119
1120 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1121 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1122
1123 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1124 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1125
1126 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1127 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1128 in a future release.
1129
1130 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1131
1132 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1133 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1134
1135 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1136 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1137
1138 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1139
1140 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1141 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1142 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1143
1144 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1145
1146 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1147
1148 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1149 their contents together.
1150
1151 ** New warning: unused values
1152 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1153 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1154
1155 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1156 | exp "+" exp
1157 ;
1158
1159 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1160 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1161 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1162
1163 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1164 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1165 | exp "+" exp
1166 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1167 ;
1168
1169 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1170 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1171 values are used, e.g.:
1172
1173 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1174 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1175 ;
1176
1177 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1178 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1179
1180 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1181
1182 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1183 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1184
1185 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1186 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1187 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1188 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1189
1190 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1191 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1192 instead of warnings.
1193
1194 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1195 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1196 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1197
1198 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1199
1200 ** %require "VERSION"
1201 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1202 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1203
1204 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1205 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1206 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1207 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1208 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1209
1210 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1211 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1212 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1213 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1214
1215 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1216 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1217
1218 ** DJGPP support added.
1219 \f
1220 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1221
1222 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1223
1224 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1225 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1226 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1227 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1228 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1229 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1230
1231 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1232 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1233 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1234 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1235
1236 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1237 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1238 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1239
1240 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1241 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1242 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1243 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1244 unexpected "number"'.
1245 \f
1246 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1247
1248 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1249
1250 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1251 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1252 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1253 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1254 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1255
1256 - Error token location.
1257 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1258 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1259 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1260 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1261
1262 - Semicolon changes:
1263 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1264 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1265
1266 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1267 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1268 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1269 forget a closing quote.
1270
1271 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1272
1273 ** New features
1274
1275 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1276
1277 - New directive: %initial-action.
1278 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1279 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1280
1281 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1282 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1283
1284 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1285 This is a GNU extension.
1286
1287 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1288 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1289
1290 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1291
1292 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1293 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1294
1295 ** Bug fixes
1296
1297 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1298 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1299 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1300 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1301 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1302 these violations will become errors again.
1303
1304 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1305 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1306
1307 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1308 \f
1309 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1310
1311 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1312 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1313
1314 ** syntax error processing
1315
1316 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1317 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1318
1319 - %destructor
1320 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1321 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1322
1323 - %error-verbose
1324 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1325
1326 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1327 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1328
1329 ** POSIX conformance
1330
1331 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1332 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1333 compatibility with Yacc.
1334
1335 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1336 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1337 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1338 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1339 be consistent.
1340
1341 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1342 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1343
1344 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1345 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1346
1347 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1348 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1349
1350 - Yacc command and library now available
1351 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1352 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1353 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1354 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1355
1356 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1357
1358 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1359 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1360 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1361
1362 ** Other compatibility issues
1363
1364 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1365 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1366 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1367 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1368 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1369 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1370
1371 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1372 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1373
1374 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1375 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1376
1377 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1378 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1379 withdrawn in a future release.
1380
1381 ** GLR parser notes
1382
1383 - GLR and inline
1384 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1385 C keyword "inline".
1386
1387 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1388 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1389
1390 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1391 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1392 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1393 shortcomings:
1394
1395 - a single argument only can be added,
1396 - their types are weak (void *),
1397 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1398 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1399
1400 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1401 For instance:
1402
1403 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1404 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1405 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1406
1407 results in the following signatures:
1408
1409 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1410 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1411
1412 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1413
1414 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1415 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1416
1417 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1418 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1419 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1420
1421 ** #line in output files
1422 - --no-line works properly.
1423
1424 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1425 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1426 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1427 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1428 \f
1429 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1430
1431 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1432
1433 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1434
1435 ** GLR parsers
1436 Fix spurious parse errors.
1437
1438 ** Pure parsers
1439 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1440 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1441
1442 ** Type Clashes
1443 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1444 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1445
1446 untyped: ... typed;
1447
1448 but the converse remains an error:
1449
1450 typed: ... untyped;
1451
1452 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1453 The following code:
1454
1455 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1456
1457 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1458 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1459 \f
1460 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1461
1462 ** GLR parsing
1463 The declaration
1464 %glr-parser
1465 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1466 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1467 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1468 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1469
1470 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1471 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1472
1473 ** Output Directory
1474 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1475 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1476 now creates "bar.c".
1477
1478 ** Undefined token
1479 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1480 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1481
1482 ** Unknown token numbers
1483 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1484 no longer the case.
1485
1486 ** Error token
1487 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1488 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1489 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1490 will be mapped onto another number.
1491
1492 ** Verbose error messages
1493 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1494 error recovery is possible.
1495
1496 ** End token
1497 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1498
1499 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1500 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1501 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1502 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1503 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1504 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1505 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1506 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1507 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1508
1509 ** Traces
1510 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1511
1512 ** Larger grammars
1513 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1514 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1515 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1516 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1517
1518 ** Explicit initial rule
1519 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1520 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1521 graphs as rule 0.
1522
1523 ** Useless rules
1524 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1525 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1526
1527 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1528 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1529
1530 ** Rules never reduced
1531 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1532 reported.
1533
1534 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1535 On a grammar such as
1536
1537 %token useless useful
1538 %%
1539 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1540
1541 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1542 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1543
1544 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1545 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1546
1547 ** Default locations
1548 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1549 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1550 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1551 the computation of @$.
1552
1553 ** Token end-of-file
1554 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1555 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1556 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1557 For instance
1558 %token MYEOF 0
1559 or
1560 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1561
1562 ** Semantic parser
1563 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1564
1565 ** New translations
1566 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1567 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1568
1569 ** Incorrect token definitions
1570 When given
1571 %token 'a' "A"
1572 bison used to output
1573 #define 'a' 65
1574
1575 ** Token definitions as enums
1576 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1577 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1578 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1579
1580 ** Reports
1581 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1582 produces additional information:
1583 - itemset
1584 complete the core item sets with their closure
1585 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1586 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1587 - solved
1588 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1589 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1590 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1591
1592 ** Type clashes
1593 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1594 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1595
1596 %type <foo> bar
1597 %%
1598 bar: '0' {} '0';
1599
1600 This is fixed.
1601
1602 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1603 \f
1604 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1605
1606 ** C Skeleton
1607 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1608 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1609 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1610
1611 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1612 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1613 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1614 kludge will be disabled.
1615
1616 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1617 extended.
1618 \f
1619 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1620
1621 ** File name clashes are detected
1622 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1623 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1624
1625 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1626 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1627 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1628 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1629 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1630 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1631
1632 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1633 many portability hassles.
1634
1635 ** DJGPP support added.
1636
1637 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1638 \f
1639 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1640
1641 ** Fix C++ issues
1642 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1643 under some conditions.
1644
1645 ** Catch invalid @n
1646 As is done with $n.
1647 \f
1648 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1649
1650 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1651
1652 ** Portability fixes
1653
1654 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1655 \f
1656 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1657
1658 ** Many Bug Fixes
1659
1660 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1661 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1662 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1663 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1664 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1665
1666 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1667 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1668 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1669
1670 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1671 problems as on AIX.
1672
1673 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1674
1675 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1676 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1677
1678 ** User Actions
1679 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1680 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1681 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1682
1683 ** Better C++ compliance
1684 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1685 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1686
1687 ** Reduced Grammars
1688 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1689
1690 ** 64 bit hosts
1691 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1692
1693 ** Error messages
1694 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1695
1696 ** %expect
1697 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1698 any warning.
1699
1700 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1701
1702 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1703
1704 ** Swedish translation
1705
1706 ** Parse errors
1707 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1708 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1709 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1710
1711 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1712 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1713 previous allocations were not freed.
1714
1715 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1716 Some newlines were missing.
1717 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1718
1719 ** Fixed conflict report.
1720 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1721
1722 ** %expect
1723 Was not used.
1724 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1725
1726 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1727
1728 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1729
1730 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1731
1732 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1733 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1734
1735 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1736
1737 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1738 New.
1739
1740 ** --output
1741 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1742 \f
1743 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1744
1745 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1746 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1747 argument.
1748
1749 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1750 experiment.
1751
1752 ** Portability fixes.
1753 \f
1754 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1755
1756 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1757 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1758 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1759 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1760
1761 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1762
1763 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1764
1765 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1766
1767 ** Russian translation added.
1768
1769 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1770
1771 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1772
1773 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1774
1775 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1776
1777 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1778
1779 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1780 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1781
1782 ** New directives.
1783 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1784 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1785
1786 ** @$
1787 Automatic location tracking.
1788 \f
1789 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1790
1791 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1792
1793 ** Added NLS.
1794
1795 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1796
1797 ** There is now a FAQ.
1798 \f
1799 * Changes in version 1.27:
1800
1801 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1802 some systems has been fixed.
1803 \f
1804 * Changes in version 1.26:
1805
1806 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1807
1808 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1809
1810 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1811
1812 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1813
1814 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1815
1816 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1817
1818 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1819 not provide alloca().
1820 \f
1821 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1822
1823 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1824 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1825
1826 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1827 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1828 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1829
1830 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1831 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1832 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1833 purposes.
1834
1835 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1836 directives in the parser file.
1837
1838 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1839 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1840
1841 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1842 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1843 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1844 a switch statement body.
1845 \f
1846 * Changes in version 1.23:
1847
1848 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1849 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1850 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1851 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1852
1853 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1854 \f
1855 * Changes in version 1.22:
1856
1857 --help option added.
1858 \f
1859 * Changes in version 1.20:
1860
1861 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1862
1863 -----
1864
1865 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1866
1867 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1868
1869 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1870 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1871 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1872 (at your option) any later version.
1873
1874 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1875 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1876 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1877 GNU General Public License for more details.
1878
1879 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1880 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1881
1882 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1883 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1884 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1885 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1886 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1887 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1888 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1889 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1890 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1891 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1892 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1893 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1894 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1895 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1896 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1897 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1898 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1899 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval
1900
1901 Local Variables:
1902 mode: outline
1903 fill-column: 76
1904 End: