3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Deprecated constructs
18 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
19 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
20 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
22 *** Warning categories are now displayed
26 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
28 *** Useless semantic types
30 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
31 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
32 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
33 types that trigger the warning:
37 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
38 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
40 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
42 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
43 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
45 *** Undefined but unused symbols
47 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
48 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
51 %destructor {} symbol2
56 *** Useless destructors or printers
58 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
59 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
60 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
61 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
67 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
68 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
72 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
73 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
77 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
79 compare the previous version of bison:
82 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
84 bison: warnings being treated as errors
85 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
87 with the new behavior:
90 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
91 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
93 bison: warnings being treated as errors
94 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
95 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
97 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
102 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
107 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
108 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
109 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
114 bar.y: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
115 bar.y: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
117 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
119 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
120 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
121 or more arguments. Instead of
123 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
124 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
125 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
126 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
130 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
132 ** Java skeleton improvements
134 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
135 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
136 and "%define init_throws".
138 ** C++ skeletons improvements
140 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
142 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
143 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
144 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
146 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
148 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
150 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
152 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
153 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
154 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
155 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
156 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
157 factory invoked by the user actions).
159 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
161 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
162 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
163 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
165 %token FILE for ERROR
166 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
168 start: FILE for ERROR;
170 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
171 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
172 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
173 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
175 ** Variable api.namespace
177 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
178 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
180 ** Variable parse.error
182 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
183 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
186 ** Semantic predicates
188 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
189 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
190 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
191 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
192 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
195 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
197 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
198 reduce/reduce conflicts.
200 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
204 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
206 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
207 users to the appropriate place to report them.
209 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
211 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
212 generated, are removed.
214 ** Changes in the format of errors and exceptions output
216 This used to be the format of many error reports:
218 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
219 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
223 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
224 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
226 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
230 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
231 suite have been fixed.
233 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
235 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
236 invalid C++. This is fixed.
238 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
240 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
242 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
244 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
248 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
249 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
250 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
252 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
256 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
260 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
262 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
264 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
266 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
267 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
270 ** Type names in actions
272 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
273 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
275 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
277 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
278 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
280 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
284 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
285 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
289 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
290 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
293 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
295 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
298 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
299 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
301 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
304 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
306 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
307 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
308 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
309 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
312 ** Generated Parser Headers
314 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
316 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
317 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
322 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
324 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
326 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
327 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
329 int bar_parse (void);
333 #define yyparse bar_parse
336 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
337 single compilation unit.
339 *** Exported symbols in C++
341 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
342 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
343 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
347 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
350 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
352 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
353 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
354 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
355 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
356 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
357 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
358 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
360 The following examples compares both:
362 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
363 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
364 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
370 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
371 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
373 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
374 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
375 > # if defined YYDEBUG
377 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
379 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
382 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
386 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
387 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
390 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
391 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
392 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
393 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
398 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
399 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
400 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
403 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
404 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
407 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
409 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
411 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
413 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
417 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
419 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
421 ** glr.c improvements:
423 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
425 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
426 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
428 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
430 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
431 when -std is passed to GCC).
433 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
435 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
436 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
440 *** C++11 compatibility:
442 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
447 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
448 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
450 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
451 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
453 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
455 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
456 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
457 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
459 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
461 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
462 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
464 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
468 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
469 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
470 documentation were fixed.
472 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
474 ** Changes in the manual:
476 *** %printer is documented
478 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
479 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
481 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
482 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
484 *** Several improvements have been made:
486 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
487 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
488 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
489 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
493 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
495 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
496 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
498 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
500 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
502 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
503 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
505 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
507 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
508 halts in the middle of its course.
510 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
512 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
514 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
515 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
516 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
517 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
518 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
522 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
523 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
526 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
527 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
530 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
531 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
533 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
535 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
536 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
538 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
539 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
540 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
542 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
543 will help to stabilize them.
545 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
547 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
548 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
549 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
550 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
551 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
552 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
553 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
554 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
555 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
557 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
558 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
559 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
560 file with these directives:
564 %define lr.type canonical-lr
566 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
567 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
568 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
571 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
574 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
576 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
577 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
578 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
579 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
580 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
581 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
582 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
583 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
584 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
585 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
588 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
589 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
590 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
591 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
594 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
595 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
596 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
597 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
598 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
599 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
600 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
601 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
604 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
605 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
607 %define parse.lac full
609 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
610 details including a few caveats.
612 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
615 ** %define improvements:
617 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
619 Each of these command-line options
622 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
625 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
627 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
629 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
631 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
632 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
633 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
634 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
636 *** Variables renamed:
638 The following %define variables
641 lr.keep_unreachable_states
646 lr.keep-unreachable-states
648 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
649 for backward compatibility.
651 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
653 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
654 within quotations marks. For example,
656 %define api.push-pull "push"
660 %define api.push-pull push
662 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
664 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
666 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
668 ** Character literals not of length one:
670 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
671 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
672 the following grammar to be the same token:
678 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
679 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
681 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
683 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
684 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
685 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
686 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
688 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
690 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
691 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
692 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
693 and "last" members, instead of
695 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
699 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
700 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
704 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
710 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
714 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
715 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
719 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
723 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
725 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
726 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
727 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
728 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
730 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
732 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
733 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
734 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
735 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
736 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
737 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
738 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
739 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
741 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
743 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
744 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
745 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
746 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
748 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
752 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
754 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
755 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
756 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
757 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
758 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
759 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
760 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
762 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
764 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
765 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
766 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
767 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
768 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
770 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
771 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
772 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
773 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
774 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
775 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
776 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
777 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
778 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
779 shifted or discarded.
781 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
782 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
783 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
784 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
786 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
787 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
788 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
789 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
790 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
791 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
792 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
793 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
794 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
795 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
796 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
797 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
800 ** Java skeleton fixes:
802 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
804 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
805 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
807 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
809 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
811 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
813 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
814 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
816 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
818 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
820 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
821 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
822 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
823 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
826 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
827 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
828 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
829 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
831 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
832 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
833 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
834 then have no effect on the conflict report.
836 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
838 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
839 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
841 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
843 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
845 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
846 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
847 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
848 suppress all warnings:
852 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
854 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
855 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
856 produced an assertion failure. For example:
860 This bug has been fixed.
862 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
864 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
865 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
867 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
870 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
872 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
875 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
876 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
877 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
878 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
880 ** Minor documentation fixes.
882 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
884 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
885 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
886 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
887 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
890 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
892 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
893 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
894 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
895 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
896 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
897 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
898 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
899 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
900 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
902 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
904 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
905 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
908 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
910 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
914 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
915 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
918 %code requires {CODE}
919 %code provides {CODE}
922 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
923 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
924 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
925 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
926 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
928 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
929 is still considered experimental.
931 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
933 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
934 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
935 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
936 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
937 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
940 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
941 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
942 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
943 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
944 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
945 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
946 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
948 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
950 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
951 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
952 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
953 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
954 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
955 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
956 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
957 be removed altogether.
959 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
960 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
961 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
962 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
963 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
964 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
965 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
966 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
967 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
968 2.4.2 is not necessary.
970 ** Internationalization.
972 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
973 message translations were not installed although supported by the
976 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
978 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
979 declarations have been fixed.
981 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
983 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
984 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
986 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
990 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
992 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
993 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
994 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
995 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
996 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
999 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1001 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1003 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1005 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1006 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1007 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1008 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1011 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1013 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1016 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1018 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1021 %define NAME "VALUE"
1023 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1027 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1028 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1032 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1033 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1034 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1035 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1036 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1038 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1039 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1041 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1043 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1044 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1046 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1047 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1048 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1052 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1053 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1054 %skeleton to select it.
1056 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1058 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1059 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1063 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1064 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1065 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1066 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1068 ** XML Automaton Report
1070 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1071 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1072 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1074 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1075 %defines. For example:
1079 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1080 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1081 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1082 instead of "unused".
1084 ** Unreachable State Removal
1086 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1087 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1088 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1090 1. Removes unreachable states.
1092 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1093 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1094 directives in existing grammar files.
1096 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1097 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1099 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1101 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1103 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1104 for further discussion.
1106 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1108 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1109 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1110 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1111 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1112 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1113 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1114 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1117 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1120 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1123 %file-prefix "parser"
1127 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1129 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1130 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1131 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1132 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1135 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1136 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1137 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1138 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1140 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1141 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1142 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1143 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1145 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1146 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1148 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1150 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1151 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1154 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1156 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1157 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1159 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1161 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1162 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1163 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1165 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1166 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1168 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1170 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1173 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1174 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1175 declared semantic type tags.
1177 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1178 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1181 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1182 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1183 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1184 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1186 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1187 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1190 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1193 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1194 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1195 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1197 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1198 completely removed from Bison.
1200 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1202 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1203 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1204 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1205 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1206 and is required by POSIX.
1208 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1209 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1211 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1215 %union { char *string; }
1216 %token <string> STRING1
1217 %token <string> STRING2
1218 %type <string> string1
1219 %type <string> string2
1220 %union { char character; }
1221 %token <character> CHR
1222 %type <character> chr
1223 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1224 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1225 %destructor { } <character>
1227 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1228 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1229 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1230 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1231 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1233 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1234 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1237 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1238 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1239 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1240 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1241 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1243 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1244 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1246 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1247 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1248 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1249 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1250 declared after the first %union.
1252 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1253 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1254 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1255 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1256 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1257 after the token definitions.
1259 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1260 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1262 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1263 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1266 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1267 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1268 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1272 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1273 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1274 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1275 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1276 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1279 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1280 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1281 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1282 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1285 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1286 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1287 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1290 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1291 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1292 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1293 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1297 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1298 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1299 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1300 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1301 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1304 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1305 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1307 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1308 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1310 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1311 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1312 in a future release.
1314 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1316 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1317 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1319 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1320 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1322 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1324 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1325 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1326 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1328 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1330 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1332 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1333 their contents together.
1335 ** New warning: unused values
1336 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1337 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1339 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1343 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1344 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1345 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1347 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1348 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1350 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1353 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1354 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1355 values are used, e.g.:
1357 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1358 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1361 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1362 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1364 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1366 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1367 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1369 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1370 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1371 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1372 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1374 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1375 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1376 instead of warnings.
1378 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1379 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1380 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1382 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1384 ** %require "VERSION"
1385 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1386 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1388 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1389 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1390 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1391 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1392 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1394 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1395 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1396 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1397 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1399 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1400 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1402 ** DJGPP support added.
1404 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1406 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1408 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1409 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1410 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1411 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1412 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1413 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1415 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1416 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1417 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1418 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1420 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1421 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1422 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1424 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1425 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1426 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1427 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1428 unexpected "number"'.
1430 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1432 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1434 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1435 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1436 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1437 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1438 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1440 - Error token location.
1441 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1442 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1443 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1444 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1446 - Semicolon changes:
1447 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1448 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1450 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1451 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1452 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1453 forget a closing quote.
1455 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1459 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1461 - New directive: %initial-action.
1462 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1463 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1465 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1466 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1468 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1469 This is a GNU extension.
1471 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1472 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1474 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1476 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1477 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1481 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1482 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1483 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1484 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1485 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1486 these violations will become errors again.
1488 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1489 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1491 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1493 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1495 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1496 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1498 ** syntax error processing
1500 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1501 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1504 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1505 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1508 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1510 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1511 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1513 ** POSIX conformance
1515 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1516 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1517 compatibility with Yacc.
1519 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1520 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1521 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1522 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1525 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1526 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1528 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1529 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1531 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1532 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1534 - Yacc command and library now available
1535 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1536 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1537 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1538 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1540 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1542 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1543 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1544 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1546 ** Other compatibility issues
1548 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1549 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1550 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1551 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1552 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1553 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1555 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1556 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1558 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1559 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1561 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1562 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1563 withdrawn in a future release.
1568 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1571 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1572 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1574 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1575 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1576 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1579 - a single argument only can be added,
1580 - their types are weak (void *),
1581 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1582 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1584 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1587 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1588 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1589 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1591 results in the following signatures:
1593 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1594 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1596 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1598 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1599 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1601 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1602 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1603 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1605 ** #line in output files
1606 - --no-line works properly.
1608 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1609 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1610 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1611 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1613 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1615 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1617 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1620 Fix spurious parse errors.
1623 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1624 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1627 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1628 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1632 but the converse remains an error:
1636 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1639 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1641 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1642 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1644 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1649 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1650 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1651 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1652 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1654 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1655 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1658 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1659 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1660 now creates "bar.c".
1663 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1664 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1666 ** Unknown token numbers
1667 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1671 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1672 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1673 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1674 will be mapped onto another number.
1676 ** Verbose error messages
1677 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1678 error recovery is possible.
1681 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1683 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1684 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1685 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1686 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1687 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1688 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1689 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1690 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1691 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1694 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1697 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1698 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1699 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1700 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1702 ** Explicit initial rule
1703 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1704 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1708 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1709 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1711 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1712 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1714 ** Rules never reduced
1715 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1718 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1719 On a grammar such as
1721 %token useless useful
1723 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1725 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1726 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1728 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1729 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1731 ** Default locations
1732 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1733 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1734 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1735 the computation of @$.
1737 ** Token end-of-file
1738 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1739 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1740 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1744 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1747 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1750 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1751 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1753 ** Incorrect token definitions
1756 bison used to output
1759 ** Token definitions as enums
1760 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1761 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1762 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1765 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1766 produces additional information:
1768 complete the core item sets with their closure
1769 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1770 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1772 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1773 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1774 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1777 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1778 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1786 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1788 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1791 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1792 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1793 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1795 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1796 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1797 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1798 kludge will be disabled.
1800 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1803 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1805 ** File name clashes are detected
1806 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1807 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1809 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1810 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1811 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1812 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1813 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1814 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1816 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1817 many portability hassles.
1819 ** DJGPP support added.
1821 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1823 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1826 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1827 under some conditions.
1832 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1834 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1836 ** Portability fixes
1838 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1840 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1844 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1845 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1846 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1847 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1848 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1850 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1851 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1852 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1854 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1857 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1859 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1860 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1863 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1864 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1865 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1867 ** Better C++ compliance
1868 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1869 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1872 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1875 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1878 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1881 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1884 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1886 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1888 ** Swedish translation
1891 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1892 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1893 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1895 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1896 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1897 previous allocations were not freed.
1899 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1900 Some newlines were missing.
1901 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1903 ** Fixed conflict report.
1904 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1908 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1910 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1912 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1914 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1916 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1917 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1919 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1921 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1925 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1927 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1929 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1930 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1933 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1936 ** Portability fixes.
1938 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1940 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1941 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1942 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1943 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1945 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1947 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1949 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1951 ** Russian translation added.
1953 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1955 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1957 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1959 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1961 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1963 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1964 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1967 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1968 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1971 Automatic location tracking.
1973 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1975 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1979 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1981 ** There is now a FAQ.
1983 * Changes in version 1.27:
1985 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1986 some systems has been fixed.
1988 * Changes in version 1.26:
1990 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1992 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1994 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1996 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1998 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2000 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2002 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2003 not provide alloca().
2005 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2007 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2008 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2010 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2011 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2012 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2014 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2015 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2016 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2019 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2020 directives in the parser file.
2022 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2023 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2025 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2026 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2027 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2028 a switch statement body.
2030 * Changes in version 1.23:
2032 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2033 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2034 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2035 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2037 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2039 * Changes in version 1.22:
2041 --help option added.
2043 * Changes in version 1.20:
2045 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2049 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2051 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2053 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2054 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2055 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2056 (at your option) any later version.
2058 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2059 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2060 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2061 GNU General Public License for more details.
2063 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2064 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2066 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2067 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2068 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2069 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2070 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2071 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2072 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2073 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2074 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2075 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2076 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2077 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2078 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2079 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2080 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2081 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2082 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2083 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init