3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
9 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
11 ** Diagnostics are improved
13 *** Changes in the format of error messages
15 This used to be the format of many error reports:
17 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
18 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
22 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
23 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
25 *** New format for error reports: carets
27 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
29 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
32 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
38 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
39 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
41 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
42 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
44 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
45 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
47 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
48 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
51 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
52 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
53 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
56 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
58 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
59 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
60 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
61 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
62 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
65 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
66 "%define api.pure full".
68 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
70 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
71 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
72 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
73 then responsible to define her type.
75 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
76 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
79 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
80 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
83 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
84 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
87 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
89 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
90 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
91 before re-throwing the exception.
93 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
96 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
98 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
99 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
100 numbered and left-justified.
102 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
103 diamond shaped nodes.
105 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
106 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
108 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
110 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
111 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
115 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
116 have been fixed and extended.
118 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
119 were not properly documented.
121 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
123 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
125 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
126 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
127 reporting them to us.
131 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
132 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
135 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
137 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
139 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
140 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
142 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
144 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
146 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
150 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
152 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
153 users to the appropriate place to report them.
155 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
157 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
158 generated, are removed.
160 All the generated headers are self-contained.
162 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
164 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
165 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
166 For instance the header generated from
168 %define api.prefix "calc"
169 %defines "lib/parse.h"
171 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
173 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
175 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
178 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
179 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
180 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
184 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
186 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
187 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
190 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
194 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
195 suite have been fixed.
197 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
199 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
200 invalid C++. This is fixed.
202 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
204 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
206 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
208 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
212 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
213 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
214 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
216 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
220 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
224 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
226 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
228 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
230 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
231 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
234 ** Type names in actions
236 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
237 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
239 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
241 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
242 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
244 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
248 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
249 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
253 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
254 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
257 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
259 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
262 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
263 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
265 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
268 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
270 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
271 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
272 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
273 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
276 ** Generated Parser Headers
278 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
280 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
281 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
286 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
288 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
290 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
291 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
293 int bar_parse (void);
297 #define yyparse bar_parse
300 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
301 single compilation unit.
303 *** Exported symbols in C++
305 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
306 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
307 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
311 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
314 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
316 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
317 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
318 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
319 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
320 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
321 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
322 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
324 The following examples compares both:
326 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
327 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
328 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
334 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
335 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
337 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
338 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
339 > # if defined YYDEBUG
341 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
343 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
346 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
350 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
351 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
354 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
355 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
356 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
357 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
362 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
363 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
364 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
367 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
368 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
371 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
373 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
375 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
377 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
381 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
383 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
385 ** glr.c improvements:
387 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
389 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
390 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
392 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
394 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
395 when -std is passed to GCC).
397 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
399 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
400 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
404 *** C++11 compatibility:
406 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
411 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
412 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
414 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
415 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
417 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
419 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
420 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
421 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
423 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
425 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
426 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
428 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
432 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
433 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
434 documentation were fixed.
436 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
438 ** Changes in the manual:
440 *** %printer is documented
442 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
443 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
445 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
446 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
448 *** Several improvements have been made:
450 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
451 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
452 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
453 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
457 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
459 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
460 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
462 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
464 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
466 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
467 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
469 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
471 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
472 halts in the middle of its course.
474 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
476 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
478 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
479 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
480 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
481 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
482 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
486 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
487 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
490 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
491 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
494 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
495 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
497 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
499 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
500 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
502 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
503 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
504 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
506 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
507 will help to stabilize them.
509 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
511 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
512 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
513 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
514 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
515 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
516 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
517 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
518 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
519 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
521 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
522 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
523 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
524 file with these directives:
528 %define lr.type canonical-lr
530 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
531 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
532 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
535 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
538 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
540 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
541 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
542 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
543 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
544 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
545 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
546 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
547 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
548 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
549 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
552 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
553 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
554 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
555 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
558 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
559 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
560 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
561 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
562 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
563 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
564 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
565 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
568 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
569 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
571 %define parse.lac full
573 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
574 details including a few caveats.
576 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
579 ** %define improvements:
581 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
583 Each of these command-line options
586 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
589 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
591 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
593 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
595 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
596 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
597 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
598 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
600 *** Variables renamed:
602 The following %define variables
605 lr.keep_unreachable_states
610 lr.keep-unreachable-states
612 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
613 for backward compatibility.
615 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
617 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
618 within quotations marks. For example,
620 %define api.push-pull "push"
624 %define api.push-pull push
626 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
628 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
630 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
632 ** Character literals not of length one:
634 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
635 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
636 the following grammar to be the same token:
642 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
643 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
645 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
647 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
648 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
649 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
650 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
652 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
654 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
655 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
656 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
657 and "last" members, instead of
659 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
663 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
664 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
668 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
674 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
678 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
679 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
683 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
687 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
689 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
690 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
691 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
692 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
694 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
696 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
697 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
698 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
699 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
700 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
701 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
702 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
703 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
705 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
707 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
708 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
709 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
710 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
712 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
716 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
718 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
719 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
720 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
721 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
722 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
723 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
724 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
726 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
728 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
729 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
730 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
731 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
732 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
734 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
735 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
736 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
737 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
738 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
739 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
740 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
741 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
742 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
743 shifted or discarded.
745 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
746 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
747 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
748 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
750 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
751 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
752 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
753 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
754 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
755 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
756 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
757 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
758 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
759 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
760 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
761 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
764 ** Java skeleton fixes:
766 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
768 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
769 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
771 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
773 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
775 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
777 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
778 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
780 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
782 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
784 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
785 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
786 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
787 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
790 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
791 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
792 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
793 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
795 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
796 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
797 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
798 then have no effect on the conflict report.
800 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
802 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
803 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
805 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
807 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
809 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
810 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
811 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
812 suppress all warnings:
816 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
818 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
819 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
820 produced an assertion failure. For example:
824 This bug has been fixed.
826 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
828 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
829 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
831 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
834 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
836 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
839 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
840 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
841 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
842 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
844 ** Minor documentation fixes.
846 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
848 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
849 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
850 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
851 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
854 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
856 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
857 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
858 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
859 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
860 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
861 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
862 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
863 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
864 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
866 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
868 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
869 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
872 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
874 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
878 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
879 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
882 %code requires {CODE}
883 %code provides {CODE}
886 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
887 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
888 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
889 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
890 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
892 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
893 is still considered experimental.
895 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
897 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
898 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
899 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
900 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
901 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
904 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
905 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
906 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
907 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
908 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
909 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
910 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
912 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
914 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
915 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
916 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
917 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
918 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
919 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
920 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
921 be removed altogether.
923 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
924 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
925 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
926 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
927 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
928 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
929 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
930 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
931 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
932 2.4.2 is not necessary.
934 ** Internationalization.
936 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
937 message translations were not installed although supported by the
940 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
942 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
943 declarations have been fixed.
945 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
947 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
948 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
950 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
954 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
956 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
957 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
958 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
959 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
960 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
963 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
965 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
967 ** %language is an experimental feature.
969 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
970 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
971 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
972 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
975 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
977 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
980 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
982 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
987 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
991 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
992 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
996 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
997 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
998 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
999 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1000 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1002 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1003 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1005 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1007 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1008 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1010 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1011 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1012 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1016 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1017 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1018 %skeleton to select it.
1020 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1022 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1023 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1027 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1028 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1029 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1030 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1032 ** XML Automaton Report
1034 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1035 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1036 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1038 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1039 %defines. For example:
1043 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1044 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1045 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1046 instead of "unused".
1048 ** Unreachable State Removal
1050 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1051 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1052 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1054 1. Removes unreachable states.
1056 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1057 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1058 directives in existing grammar files.
1060 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1061 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1063 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1065 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1067 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1068 for further discussion.
1070 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1072 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1073 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1074 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1075 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1076 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1077 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1078 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1081 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1084 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1087 %file-prefix "parser"
1091 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1093 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1094 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1095 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1096 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1099 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1100 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1101 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1102 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1104 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1105 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1106 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1107 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1109 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1110 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1112 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1114 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1115 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1118 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1120 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1121 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1123 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1125 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1126 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1127 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1129 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1130 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1132 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1134 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1137 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1138 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1139 declared semantic type tags.
1141 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1142 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1145 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1146 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1147 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1148 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1150 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1151 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1154 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1157 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1158 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1159 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1161 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1162 completely removed from Bison.
1164 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1166 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1167 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1168 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1169 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1170 and is required by POSIX.
1172 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1173 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1175 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1179 %union { char *string; }
1180 %token <string> STRING1
1181 %token <string> STRING2
1182 %type <string> string1
1183 %type <string> string2
1184 %union { char character; }
1185 %token <character> CHR
1186 %type <character> chr
1187 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1188 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1189 %destructor { } <character>
1191 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1192 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1193 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1194 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1195 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1197 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1198 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1201 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1202 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1203 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1204 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1205 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1207 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1208 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1210 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1211 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1212 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1213 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1214 declared after the first %union.
1216 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1217 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1218 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1219 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1220 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1221 after the token definitions.
1223 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1224 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1226 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1227 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1230 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1231 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1232 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1236 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1237 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1238 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1239 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1240 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1243 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1244 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1245 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1246 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1249 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1250 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1251 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1254 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1255 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1256 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1257 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1261 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1262 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1263 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1264 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1265 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1268 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1269 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1271 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1272 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1274 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1275 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1276 in a future release.
1278 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1280 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1281 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1283 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1284 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1286 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1288 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1289 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1290 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1292 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1294 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1296 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1297 their contents together.
1299 ** New warning: unused values
1300 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1301 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1303 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1307 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1308 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1309 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1311 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1312 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1314 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1317 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1318 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1319 values are used, e.g.:
1321 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1322 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1325 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1326 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1328 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1330 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1331 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1333 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1334 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1335 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1336 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1338 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1339 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1340 instead of warnings.
1342 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1343 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1344 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1346 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1348 ** %require "VERSION"
1349 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1350 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1352 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1353 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1354 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1355 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1356 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1358 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1359 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1360 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1361 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1363 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1364 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1366 ** DJGPP support added.
1368 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1370 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1372 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1373 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1374 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1375 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1376 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1377 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1379 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1380 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1381 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1382 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1384 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1385 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1386 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1388 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1389 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1390 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1391 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1392 unexpected "number"'.
1394 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1396 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1398 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1399 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1400 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1401 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1402 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1404 - Error token location.
1405 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1406 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1407 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1408 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1410 - Semicolon changes:
1411 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1412 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1414 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1415 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1416 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1417 forget a closing quote.
1419 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1423 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1425 - New directive: %initial-action.
1426 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1427 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1429 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1430 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1432 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1433 This is a GNU extension.
1435 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1436 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1438 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1440 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1441 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1445 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1446 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1447 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1448 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1449 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1450 these violations will become errors again.
1452 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1453 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1455 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1457 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1459 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1460 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1462 ** syntax error processing
1464 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1465 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1468 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1469 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1472 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1474 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1475 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1477 ** POSIX conformance
1479 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1480 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1481 compatibility with Yacc.
1483 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1484 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1485 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1486 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1489 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1490 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1492 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1493 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1495 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1496 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1498 - Yacc command and library now available
1499 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1500 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1501 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1502 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1504 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1506 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1507 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1508 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1510 ** Other compatibility issues
1512 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1513 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1514 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1515 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1516 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1517 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1519 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1520 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1522 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1523 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1525 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1526 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1527 withdrawn in a future release.
1532 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1535 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1536 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1538 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1539 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1540 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1543 - a single argument only can be added,
1544 - their types are weak (void *),
1545 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1546 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1548 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1551 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1552 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1553 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1555 results in the following signatures:
1557 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1558 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1560 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1562 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1563 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1565 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1566 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1567 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1569 ** #line in output files
1570 - --no-line works properly.
1572 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1573 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1574 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1575 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1577 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1579 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1581 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1584 Fix spurious parse errors.
1587 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1588 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1591 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1592 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1596 but the converse remains an error:
1600 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1603 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1605 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1606 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1608 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1613 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1614 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1615 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1616 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1618 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1619 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1622 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1623 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1624 now creates "bar.c".
1627 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1628 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1630 ** Unknown token numbers
1631 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1635 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1636 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1637 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1638 will be mapped onto another number.
1640 ** Verbose error messages
1641 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1642 error recovery is possible.
1645 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1647 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1648 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1649 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1650 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1651 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1652 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1653 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1654 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1655 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1658 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1661 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1662 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1663 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1664 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1666 ** Explicit initial rule
1667 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1668 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1672 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1673 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1675 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1676 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1678 ** Rules never reduced
1679 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1682 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1683 On a grammar such as
1685 %token useless useful
1687 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1689 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1690 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1692 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1693 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1695 ** Default locations
1696 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1697 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1698 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1699 the computation of @$.
1701 ** Token end-of-file
1702 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1703 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1704 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1708 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1711 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1714 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1715 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1717 ** Incorrect token definitions
1720 bison used to output
1723 ** Token definitions as enums
1724 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1725 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1726 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1729 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1730 produces additional information:
1732 complete the core item sets with their closure
1733 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1734 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1736 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1737 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1738 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1741 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1742 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1750 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1752 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1755 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1756 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1757 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1759 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1760 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1761 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1762 kludge will be disabled.
1764 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1767 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1769 ** File name clashes are detected
1770 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1771 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1773 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1774 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1775 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1776 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1777 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1778 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1780 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1781 many portability hassles.
1783 ** DJGPP support added.
1785 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1787 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1790 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1791 under some conditions.
1796 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1798 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1800 ** Portability fixes
1802 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1804 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1808 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1809 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1810 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1811 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1812 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1814 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1815 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1816 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1818 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1821 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1823 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1824 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1827 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1828 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1829 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1831 ** Better C++ compliance
1832 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1833 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1836 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1839 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1842 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1845 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1848 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1850 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1852 ** Swedish translation
1855 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1856 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1857 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1859 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1860 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1861 previous allocations were not freed.
1863 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1864 Some newlines were missing.
1865 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1867 ** Fixed conflict report.
1868 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1872 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1874 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1876 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1878 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1880 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1881 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1883 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1885 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1889 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1891 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1893 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1894 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1897 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1900 ** Portability fixes.
1902 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1904 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1905 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1906 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1907 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1909 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1911 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1913 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1915 ** Russian translation added.
1917 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1919 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1921 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1923 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1925 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1927 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1928 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1931 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1932 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1935 Automatic location tracking.
1937 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1939 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1943 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1945 ** There is now a FAQ.
1947 * Changes in version 1.27:
1949 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1950 some systems has been fixed.
1952 * Changes in version 1.26:
1954 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1956 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1958 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1960 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1962 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1964 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1966 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1967 not provide alloca().
1969 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1971 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1972 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1974 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1975 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1976 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1978 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1979 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1980 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1983 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1984 directives in the parser file.
1986 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1987 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1989 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1990 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1991 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1992 a switch statement body.
1994 * Changes in version 1.23:
1996 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1997 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1998 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1999 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2001 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2003 * Changes in version 1.22:
2005 --help option added.
2007 * Changes in version 1.20:
2009 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2013 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2015 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2017 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2018 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2019 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2020 (at your option) any later version.
2022 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2023 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2024 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2025 GNU General Public License for more details.
2027 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2028 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2030 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2031 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2032 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2033 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2034 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2035 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2036 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2037 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2038 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2039 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2040 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2041 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2042 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2043 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2044 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2045 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2046 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2047 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
2048 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's