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Bison 2.5.1_rc1.
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1 Bison News
2 ----------
3
4 * Changes in version 2.5.1_rc1 (2012-05-14):
5
6 ** Future changes:
7
8 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in
9 K&R C.
10
11 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
12
13 ** glr.c improvements:
14
15 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
16
17 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when
18 locations were not requested, and therefore not even usable.
19
20 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
21
22 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined
23 (i.e., when -std is passed to GCC).
24
25 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
26
27 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if
28 the first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
29
30 ** C++11 compatibility:
31
32 C and C++ parsers use nullptr instead of 0 when __cplusplus is
33 201103L or higher.
34
35 ** C++ locations:
36
37 The position and location constructors (and their initialize
38 methods) accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues
39 in the documentation were fixed.
40
41 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
42
43 ** Changes in the manual:
44
45 *** %printer is documented
46
47 The %printer directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is
48 finally documented. The %mfcalc example is extended to demonstrate
49 its use of printer.
50
51 The C++ parsers now also support yyoutput (as an alias to
52 debug_stream ()) for consistency with the C skeletons.
53
54 *** Several improvements have been made:
55
56 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact
57 scheme. Named references are motivated. The description of the
58 automaton description file (*.output) is updated to the current
59 format. Incorrect index entries were fixed. Some other errors were
60 fixed.
61
62 ** Changes to the build system:
63
64 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
65
66 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
67
68 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of
69 tools such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself,
70 etc.
71
72 *** The install-pdf target work properly:
73
74 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no
75 longer halts in the middle of its course.
76
77 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
78
79 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
80
81 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
82 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
83 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
84 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
85 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
86
87 ** Named references:
88
89 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
90 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
91 actions code.
92
93 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
94 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
95 as named references:
96
97 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
98 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
99
100 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
101
102 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
103 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
104
105 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
106 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
107 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
108
109 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
110 will help to stabilize them.
111
112 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
113
114 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
115 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
116 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
117 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
118 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
119 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
120 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
121 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
122 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
123
124 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
125 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
126 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
127 file with these directives:
128
129 %define lr.type lalr
130 %define lr.type ielr
131 %define lr.type canonical-lr
132
133 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
134 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
135 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
136 manual.
137
138 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
139 stabilize them.
140
141 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
142
143 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
144 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
145 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
146 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
147 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
148 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
149 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
150 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
151 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
152 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
153 tokens.
154
155 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
156 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
157 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
158 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
159 inconsistent states.
160
161 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
162 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
163 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
164 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
165 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
166 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
167 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
168 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
169 power.
170
171 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
172 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
173
174 %define parse.lac full
175
176 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
177 details including a few caveats.
178
179 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
180 stabilize it.
181
182 ** %define improvements:
183
184 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
185
186 Each of these command-line options
187
188 -D NAME[=VALUE]
189 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
190
191 -F NAME[=VALUE]
192 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
193
194 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
195
196 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
197
198 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
199 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
200 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
201 details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual.
202
203 *** Variables renamed:
204
205 The following %define variables
206
207 api.push_pull
208 lr.keep_unreachable_states
209
210 have been renamed to
211
212 api.push-pull
213 lr.keep-unreachable-states
214
215 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
216 for backward compatibility.
217
218 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
219
220 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
221 within quotations marks. For example,
222
223 %define api.push-pull "push"
224
225 can be rewritten as
226
227 %define api.push-pull push
228
229 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
230
231 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
232
233 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
234
235 ** Character literals not of length one:
236
237 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
238 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
239 the following grammar to be the same token:
240
241 exp: exp '++'
242 | exp '+' exp
243 ;
244
245 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
246 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
247
248 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
249
250 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
251 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
252 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
253 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
254
255 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
256
257 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
258 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
259 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first'
260 and `last' members, instead of
261
262 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
263 do \
264 if (N) \
265 { \
266 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
267 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
268 } \
269 else \
270 { \
271 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
272 } \
273 while (false)
274
275 use:
276
277 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
278 do \
279 if (N) \
280 { \
281 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
282 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
283 } \
284 else \
285 { \
286 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
287 } \
288 while (false)
289
290 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
291
292 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
293 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
294 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
295 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
296
297 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
298
299 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
300 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
301 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
302 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
303 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
304 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
305 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
306 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
307
308 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
309
310 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
311 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
312 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
313 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
314
315 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
316
317 instead of
318
319 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
320
321 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
322 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
323 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
324 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
325 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
326 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
327 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
328
329 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
330
331 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
332 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
333 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
334 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
335 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
336
337 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
338 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
339 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
340 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
341 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
342 reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this
343 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
344 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
345 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
346 shifted or discarded.
347
348 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
349 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
350 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
351 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
352
353 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
354 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
355 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
356 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
357 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
358 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
359 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
360 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
361 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
362 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
363 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
364 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
365 by default.
366
367 ** Java skeleton fixes:
368
369 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
370
371 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
372 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
373
374 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
375
376 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
377
378 *** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories:
379
380 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
381 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
382
383 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
384
385 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
386
387 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
388 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
389 `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important
390 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
391 example:
392
393 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
394 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
395 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
396 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
397
398 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
399 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
400 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
401 then have no effect on the conflict report.
402
403 *** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error':
404
405 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
406 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
407
408 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
409
410 *** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings:
411
412 Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for
413 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
414 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
415 suppress all warnings:
416
417 bison -Wnone gram.y
418
419 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
420
421 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
422 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
423 produced an assertion failure. For example:
424
425 %left END 0
426
427 This bug has been fixed.
428
429 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
430
431 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
432 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
433
434 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
435 been fixed.
436
437 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
438
439 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
440 been fixed.
441
442 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
443 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
444 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
445 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
446
447 ** Minor documentation fixes.
448
449 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
450
451 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
452 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
453 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
454 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
455 affected platforms.
456
457 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
458
459 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
460 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
461 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
462 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
463 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
464 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
465 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
466 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
467 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
468
469 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
470
471 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
472 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
473 avoided.
474
475 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
476
477 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
478
479 %{CODE%}
480
481 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
482 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
483
484 %code {CODE}
485 %code requires {CODE}
486 %code provides {CODE}
487 %code top {CODE}
488
489 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
490 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
491 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
492 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
493 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
494
495 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
496 is still considered experimental.
497
498 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
499
500 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
501 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
502 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
503 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
504 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
505 specified by POSIX.
506
507 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
508 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
509 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
510 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
511 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
512 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
513 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
514
515 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
516
517 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
518 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
519 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
520 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
521 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
522 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
523 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
524 be removed altogether.
525
526 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
527 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
528 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
529 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
530 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
531 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
532 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
533 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
534 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
535 2.4.2 is not necessary.
536
537 ** Internationalization.
538
539 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
540 message translations were not installed although supported by the
541 host system.
542
543 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
544
545 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
546 declarations have been fixed.
547
548 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
549
550 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
551 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
552
553 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
554
555 instead of
556
557 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
558
559 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
560 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
561 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
562 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
563 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
564 feature.
565
566 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
567
568 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
569
570 ** %language is an experimental feature.
571
572 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
573 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
574 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
575 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
576 in future releases.
577
578 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
579
580 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
581 fixed.
582
583 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
584
585 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
586 are now deprecated:
587
588 %define NAME "VALUE"
589
590 ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
591
592 %define api.pure
593
594 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
595 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
596
597 ** Push Parsing
598
599 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
600 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
601 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
602 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
603 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
604
605 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
606 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
607
608 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
609
610 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
611 feedback will help to stabilize it.
612
613 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
614 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
615 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
616
617 ** Java
618
619 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
620 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
621 %skeleton to select it.
622
623 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
624
625 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
626 feedback will help to stabilize it.
627
628 ** %language
629
630 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
631 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
632 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
633 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
634
635 ** XML Automaton Report
636
637 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
638 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
639 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
640
641 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
642 %defines. For example:
643
644 %defines "parser.h"
645
646 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
647 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
648 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
649 instead of "unused".
650
651 ** Unreachable State Removal
652
653 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
654 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
655 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
656
657 1. Removes unreachable states.
658
659 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
660 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
661 directives in existing grammar files.
662
663 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
664 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
665
666 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
667
668 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
669
670 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
671 for further discussion.
672
673 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
674
675 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
676 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
677 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
678 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
679 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
680 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
681 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
682 code.
683
684 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
685 name.
686
687 ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
688 deprecated:
689
690 %file-prefix "parser"
691 %name-prefix "c_"
692 %output "parser.c"
693
694 ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
695
696 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
697 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
698 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
699 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
700 it:
701
702 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
703 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
704 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
705 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
706
707 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
708 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
709 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
710 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
711
712 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
713 determine whether they should become permanent features.
714
715 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
716
717 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
718 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
719 about unused $2 in:
720
721 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
722
723 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
724 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
725
726 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
727
728 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
729 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
730 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
731
732 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
733 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
734
735 ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
736
737 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
738 %printer's:
739
740 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
741 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
742 declared semantic type tags.
743
744 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
745 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
746 type tags.
747
748 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
749 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
750 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
751 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
752
753 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
754 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
755 features.
756
757 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
758 details.
759
760 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
761 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
762 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
763
764 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
765 completely removed from Bison.
766
767 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
768
769 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
770 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
771 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
772 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
773 and is required by POSIX.
774
775 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
776 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
777
778 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
779
780 For example:
781
782 %union { char *string; }
783 %token <string> STRING1
784 %token <string> STRING2
785 %type <string> string1
786 %type <string> string2
787 %union { char character; }
788 %token <character> CHR
789 %type <character> chr
790 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
791 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
792 %destructor { } <character>
793
794 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
795 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
796 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
797 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
798 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
799
800 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
801 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
802 future versions.]
803
804 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
805 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
806 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
807 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
808 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
809
810 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
811 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
812
813 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
814 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
815 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
816 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
817 declared after the first %union.
818
819 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
820 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
821 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
822 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
823 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
824 after the token definitions.
825
826 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
827 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
828
829 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
830 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
831 %after-header.
832
833 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
834 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
835 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
836 convenient for you:
837
838 %before-header {
839 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
840 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
841 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
842 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
843 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
844 }
845 %start-header {
846 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
847 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
848 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
849 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
850 }
851 %union {
852 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
853 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
854 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
855 }
856 %end-header {
857 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
858 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
859 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
860 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
861 * definitions. */
862 }
863 %after-header {
864 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
865 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
866 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
867 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
868 * Bison-generated definitions. */
869 }
870
871 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
872 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
873
874 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
875 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
876
877 ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
878 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
879 in a future release.
880
881 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
882
883 ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
884 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
885
886 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
887 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
888
889 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
890
891 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
892 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
893 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
894
895 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
896
897 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
898
899 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
900 their contents together.
901
902 ** New warning: unused values
903 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
904 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
905
906 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
907 | exp "+" exp
908 ;
909
910 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
911 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
912 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
913
914 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
915 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
916 | exp "+" exp
917 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
918 ;
919
920 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
921 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
922 values are used, e.g.:
923
924 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
925 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
926 ;
927
928 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
929 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
930
931 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
932
933 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
934 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
935
936 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
937 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
938 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
939 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
940
941 ** %expect, %expect-rr
942 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
943 instead of warnings.
944
945 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
946 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
947 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
948
949 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
950
951 ** %require "VERSION"
952 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
953 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
954
955 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
956 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
957 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
958 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
959 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
960
961 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
962 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
963 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
964 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
965
966 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
967 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
968
969 ** DJGPP support added.
970 \f
971 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
972
973 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
974
975 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
976 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
977 language is still English. For details, please see the new
978 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
979 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
980 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
981
982 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
983 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
984 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
985 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
986
987 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
988 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
989 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
990
991 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
992 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
993 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
994 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
995 unexpected "number"'.
996 \f
997 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
998
999 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1000
1001 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1002 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1003 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1004 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1005 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1006
1007 - Error token location.
1008 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1009 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1010 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1011 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1012
1013 - Semicolon changes:
1014 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1015 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1016
1017 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1018 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1019 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1020 forget a closing quote.
1021
1022 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1023
1024 ** New features
1025
1026 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1027
1028 - New directive: %initial-action.
1029 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1030 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1031
1032 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1033 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1034
1035 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
1036 This is a GNU extension.
1037
1038 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
1039 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1040
1041 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1042
1043 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1044 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1045
1046 ** Bug fixes
1047
1048 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1049 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1050 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1051 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1052 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1053 these violations will become errors again.
1054
1055 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1056 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1057
1058 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1059 \f
1060 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1061
1062 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1063 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1064
1065 ** syntax error processing
1066
1067 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1068 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1069
1070 - %destructor
1071 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1072 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1073
1074 - %error-verbose
1075 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1076
1077 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1078 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1079
1080 ** POSIX conformance
1081
1082 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1083 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1084 compatibility with Yacc.
1085
1086 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1087 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1088 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1089 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1090 be consistent.
1091
1092 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1093 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1094
1095 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1096 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1097
1098 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1099 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1100
1101 - Yacc command and library now available
1102 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1103 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1104 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1105 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1106
1107 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1108
1109 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1110 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1111 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1112
1113 ** Other compatibility issues
1114
1115 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1116 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1117 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1118 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1119 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1120 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1121
1122 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1123 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1124
1125 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1126 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
1127
1128 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1129 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1130 withdrawn in a future release.
1131
1132 ** GLR parser notes
1133
1134 - GLR and inline
1135 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1136 C keyword `inline'.
1137
1138 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1139 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
1140
1141 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1142 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1143 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1144
1145 ** #line in output files
1146 - --no-line works properly.
1147
1148 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1149 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1150 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1151 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1152 \f
1153 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1154
1155 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1156
1157 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1158
1159 ** GLR parsers
1160 Fix spurious parse errors.
1161
1162 ** Pure parsers
1163 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1164 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1165
1166 ** Type Clashes
1167 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1168 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1169
1170 untyped: ... typed;
1171
1172 but the converse remains an error:
1173
1174 typed: ... untyped;
1175
1176 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1177 The following code:
1178
1179 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1180
1181 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1182 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1183 \f
1184 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1185
1186 ** GLR parsing
1187 The declaration
1188 %glr-parser
1189 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1190 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1191 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1192 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1193
1194 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1195 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1196
1197 ** Output Directory
1198 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1199 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
1200 now creates `bar.c'.
1201
1202 ** Undefined token
1203 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1204 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1205
1206 ** Unknown token numbers
1207 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1208 no longer the case.
1209
1210 ** Error token
1211 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1212 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1213 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1214 will be mapped onto another number.
1215
1216 ** Verbose error messages
1217 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1218 error recovery is possible.
1219
1220 ** End token
1221 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1222
1223 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1224 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1225 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1226 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1227 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1228 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1229 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1230 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1231 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1232
1233 ** Traces
1234 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1235
1236 ** Larger grammars
1237 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1238 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1239 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1240 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1241
1242 ** Explicit initial rule
1243 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1244 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1245 graphs as rule 0.
1246
1247 ** Useless rules
1248 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1249 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1250
1251 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1252 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1253
1254 ** Rules never reduced
1255 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1256 reported.
1257
1258 ** Incorrect `Token not used'
1259 On a grammar such as
1260
1261 %token useless useful
1262 %%
1263 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1264
1265 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1266 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1267
1268 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1269 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1270
1271 ** Default locations
1272 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1273 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1274 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1275 the computation of @$.
1276
1277 ** Token end-of-file
1278 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1279 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1280 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1281 For instance
1282 %token MYEOF 0
1283 or
1284 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1285
1286 ** Semantic parser
1287 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1288
1289 ** New translations
1290 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1291 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1292
1293 ** Incorrect token definitions
1294 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1295
1296 ** Token definitions as enums
1297 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1298 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1299 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1300
1301 ** Reports
1302 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1303 produces additional information:
1304 - itemset
1305 complete the core item sets with their closure
1306 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1307 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1308 - solved
1309 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1310 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1311 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1312
1313 ** Type clashes
1314 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1315 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1316
1317 %type <foo> bar
1318 %%
1319 bar: '0' {} '0';
1320
1321 This is fixed.
1322
1323 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1324 \f
1325 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1326
1327 ** C Skeleton
1328 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1329 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1330 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1331
1332 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1333 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1334 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1335 kludge will be disabled.
1336
1337 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1338 extended.
1339 \f
1340 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1341
1342 ** File name clashes are detected
1343 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1344 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1345
1346 ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1347 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1348 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1349 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1350 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1351 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1352
1353 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1354 many portability hassles.
1355
1356 ** DJGPP support added.
1357
1358 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1359 \f
1360 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1361
1362 ** Fix C++ issues
1363 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1364 under some conditions.
1365
1366 ** Catch invalid @n
1367 As is done with $n.
1368 \f
1369 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1370
1371 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1372
1373 ** Portability fixes
1374
1375 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1376 \f
1377 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1378
1379 ** Many Bug Fixes
1380
1381 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1382 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1383 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1384 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1385 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1386
1387 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1388 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1389 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1390
1391 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1392 problems as on AIX.
1393
1394 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1395
1396 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1397 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1398
1399 ** User Actions
1400 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1401 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1402 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1403
1404 ** Better C++ compliance
1405 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1406 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1407
1408 ** Reduced Grammars
1409 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1410
1411 ** 64 bit hosts
1412 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1413
1414 ** Error messages
1415 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1416
1417 ** %expect
1418 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1419 any warning.
1420
1421 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1422
1423 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1424
1425 ** Swedish translation
1426
1427 ** Parse errors
1428 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1429 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1430 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1431
1432 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1433 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1434 previous allocations were not freed.
1435
1436 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1437 Some newlines were missing.
1438 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1439
1440 ** Fixed conflict report.
1441 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1442
1443 ** %expect
1444 Was not used.
1445 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1446
1447 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1448
1449 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1450
1451 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1452
1453 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1454 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1455
1456 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1457
1458 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1459 New.
1460
1461 ** --output
1462 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1463 \f
1464 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1465
1466 ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1467 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1468 argument.
1469
1470 ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1471 experiment.
1472
1473 ** Portability fixes.
1474 \f
1475 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1476
1477 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1478 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1479 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1480 `-Dconst='. Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1481
1482 ** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1483
1484 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1485
1486 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1487
1488 ** Russian translation added.
1489
1490 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1491
1492 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1493
1494 ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1495
1496 ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1497
1498 ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1499
1500 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1501 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1502
1503 ** New directives.
1504 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1505 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1506
1507 ** @$
1508 Automatic location tracking.
1509 \f
1510 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1511
1512 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1513
1514 ** Added NLS.
1515
1516 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1517
1518 ** There is now a FAQ.
1519 \f
1520 * Changes in version 1.27:
1521
1522 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1523 some systems has been fixed.
1524 \f
1525 * Changes in version 1.26:
1526
1527 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1528
1529 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1530
1531 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1532
1533 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1534
1535 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1536
1537 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1538
1539 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1540 not provide alloca().
1541 \f
1542 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1543
1544 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1545 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1546
1547 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1548 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1549 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1550
1551 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1552 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1553 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1554 purposes.
1555
1556 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1557 directives in the parser file.
1558
1559 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1560 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1561
1562 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1563 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1564 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1565 a switch statement body.
1566 \f
1567 * Changes in version 1.23:
1568
1569 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1570 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1571 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1572 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1573
1574 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1575 \f
1576 * Changes in version 1.22:
1577
1578 --help option added.
1579 \f
1580 * Changes in version 1.20:
1581
1582 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1583
1584 -----
1585
1586 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1587
1588 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1589
1590 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1591 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1592 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1593 (at your option) any later version.
1594
1595 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1596 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1597 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1598 GNU General Public License for more details.
1599
1600 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1601 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1602
1603 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1604 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1605 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1606 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1607 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1608 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1609 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1610 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1611 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1612 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1613 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1614 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1615 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1616 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1617 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1618 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ
1619
1620 Local Variables:
1621 mode: outline
1622 End: