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>
70 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
72 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
73 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
74 or more arguments. Instead of
76 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
77 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
78 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
79 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
83 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
85 ** Java skeleton improvements
87 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
88 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
89 and "%define init_throws".
91 ** C++ skeletons improvements
93 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
95 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
96 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
97 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
99 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
101 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
103 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
105 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
106 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
107 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
108 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
109 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
110 factory invoked by the user actions).
112 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
114 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
115 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
116 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
118 %token FILE for ERROR
119 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
121 start: FILE for ERROR;
123 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
124 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
125 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
126 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
128 ** Variable api.namespace
130 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
131 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
133 ** Variable parse.error
135 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
136 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
139 ** Semantic predicates
141 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
142 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
143 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
144 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
145 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
148 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
151 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
155 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
156 suite have been fixed.
158 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
160 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
161 invalid C++. This is fixed.
163 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
165 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
167 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
169 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
173 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
174 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
175 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
177 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
181 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
185 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
187 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
189 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
191 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
192 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
195 ** Type names in actions
197 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
198 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
200 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
202 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
203 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
205 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
209 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
210 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
214 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
215 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
218 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
220 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
223 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
224 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
226 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
229 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
231 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
232 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
233 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
234 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
237 ** Generated Parser Headers
239 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
241 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
242 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
247 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
249 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
251 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
252 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
254 int bar_parse (void);
258 #define yyparse bar_parse
261 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
262 single compilation unit.
264 *** Exported symbols in C++
266 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
267 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
268 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
272 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
275 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
277 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
278 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
279 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
280 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
281 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
282 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
283 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
285 The following examples compares both:
287 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
288 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
289 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
295 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
296 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
298 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
299 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
300 > # if defined YYDEBUG
302 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
304 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
307 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
311 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
312 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
315 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
316 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
317 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
318 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
323 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
324 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
325 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
328 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
329 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
332 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
334 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
336 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
338 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
342 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
344 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
346 ** glr.c improvements:
348 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
350 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
351 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
353 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
355 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
356 when -std is passed to GCC).
358 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
360 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
361 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
365 *** C++11 compatibility:
367 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
372 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
373 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
375 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
376 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
378 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
380 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
381 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
382 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
384 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
386 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
387 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
389 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
393 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
394 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
395 documentation were fixed.
397 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
399 ** Changes in the manual:
401 *** %printer is documented
403 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
404 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
406 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
407 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
409 *** Several improvements have been made:
411 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
412 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
413 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
414 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
418 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
420 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
421 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
423 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
425 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
427 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
428 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
430 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
432 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
433 halts in the middle of its course.
435 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
437 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
439 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
440 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
441 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
442 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
443 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
447 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
448 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
451 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
452 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
455 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
456 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
458 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
460 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
461 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
463 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
464 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
465 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
467 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
468 will help to stabilize them.
470 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
472 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
473 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
474 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
475 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
476 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
477 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
478 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
479 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
480 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
482 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
483 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
484 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
485 file with these directives:
489 %define lr.type canonical-lr
491 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
492 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
493 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
496 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
499 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
501 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
502 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
503 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
504 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
505 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
506 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
507 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
508 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
509 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
510 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
513 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
514 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
515 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
516 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
519 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
520 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
521 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
522 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
523 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
524 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
525 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
526 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
529 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
530 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
532 %define parse.lac full
534 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
535 details including a few caveats.
537 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
540 ** %define improvements:
542 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
544 Each of these command-line options
547 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
550 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
552 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
554 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
556 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
557 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
558 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
559 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
561 *** Variables renamed:
563 The following %define variables
566 lr.keep_unreachable_states
571 lr.keep-unreachable-states
573 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
574 for backward compatibility.
576 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
578 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
579 within quotations marks. For example,
581 %define api.push-pull "push"
585 %define api.push-pull push
587 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
589 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
591 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
593 ** Character literals not of length one:
595 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
596 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
597 the following grammar to be the same token:
603 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
604 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
606 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
608 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
609 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
610 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
611 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
613 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
615 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
616 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
617 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
618 and "last" members, instead of
620 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
624 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
625 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
629 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
635 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
639 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
640 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
644 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
648 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
650 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
651 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
652 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
653 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
655 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
657 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
658 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
659 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
660 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
661 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
662 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
663 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
664 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
666 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
668 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
669 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
670 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
671 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
673 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
677 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
679 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
680 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
681 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
682 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
683 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
684 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
685 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
687 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
689 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
690 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
691 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
692 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
693 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
695 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
696 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
697 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
698 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
699 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
700 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
701 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
702 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
703 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
704 shifted or discarded.
706 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
707 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
708 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
709 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
711 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
712 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
713 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
714 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
715 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
716 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
717 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
718 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
719 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
720 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
721 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
722 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
725 ** Java skeleton fixes:
727 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
729 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
730 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
732 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
734 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
736 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
738 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
739 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
741 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
743 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
745 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
746 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
747 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
748 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
751 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
752 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
753 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
754 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
756 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
757 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
758 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
759 then have no effect on the conflict report.
761 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
763 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
764 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
766 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
768 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
770 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
771 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
772 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
773 suppress all warnings:
777 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
779 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
780 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
781 produced an assertion failure. For example:
785 This bug has been fixed.
787 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
789 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
790 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
792 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
795 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
797 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
800 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
801 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
802 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
803 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
805 ** Minor documentation fixes.
807 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
809 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
810 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
811 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
812 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
815 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
817 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
818 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
819 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
820 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
821 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
822 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
823 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
824 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
825 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
827 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
829 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
830 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
833 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
835 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
839 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
840 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
843 %code requires {CODE}
844 %code provides {CODE}
847 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
848 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
849 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
850 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
851 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
853 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
854 is still considered experimental.
856 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
858 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
859 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
860 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
861 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
862 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
865 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
866 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
867 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
868 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
869 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
870 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
871 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
873 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
875 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
876 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
877 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
878 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
879 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
880 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
881 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
882 be removed altogether.
884 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
885 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
886 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
887 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
888 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
889 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
890 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
891 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
892 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
893 2.4.2 is not necessary.
895 ** Internationalization.
897 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
898 message translations were not installed although supported by the
901 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
903 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
904 declarations have been fixed.
906 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
908 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
909 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
911 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
915 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
917 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
918 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
919 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
920 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
921 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
924 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
926 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
928 ** %language is an experimental feature.
930 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
931 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
932 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
933 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
936 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
938 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
941 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
943 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
948 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
952 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
953 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
957 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
958 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
959 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
960 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
961 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
963 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
964 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
966 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
968 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
969 feedback will help to stabilize it.
971 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
972 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
973 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
977 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
978 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
979 %skeleton to select it.
981 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
983 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
984 feedback will help to stabilize it.
988 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
989 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
990 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
991 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
993 ** XML Automaton Report
995 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
996 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
997 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
999 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1000 %defines. For example:
1004 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1005 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1006 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1007 instead of "unused".
1009 ** Unreachable State Removal
1011 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1012 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1013 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1015 1. Removes unreachable states.
1017 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1018 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1019 directives in existing grammar files.
1021 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1022 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1024 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1026 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1028 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1029 for further discussion.
1031 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1033 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1034 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1035 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1036 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1037 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1038 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1039 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1042 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1045 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1048 %file-prefix "parser"
1052 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1054 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1055 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1056 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1057 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1060 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1061 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1062 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1063 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1065 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1066 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1067 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1068 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1070 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1071 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1073 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1075 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1076 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1079 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1081 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1082 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1084 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1086 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1087 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1088 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1090 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1091 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1093 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1095 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1098 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1099 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1100 declared semantic type tags.
1102 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1103 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1106 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1107 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1108 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1109 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1111 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1112 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1115 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1118 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1119 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1120 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1122 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1123 completely removed from Bison.
1125 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1127 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1128 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1129 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1130 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1131 and is required by POSIX.
1133 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1134 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1136 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1140 %union { char *string; }
1141 %token <string> STRING1
1142 %token <string> STRING2
1143 %type <string> string1
1144 %type <string> string2
1145 %union { char character; }
1146 %token <character> CHR
1147 %type <character> chr
1148 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1149 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1150 %destructor { } <character>
1152 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1153 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1154 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1155 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1156 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1158 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1159 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1162 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1163 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1164 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1165 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1166 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1168 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1169 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1171 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1172 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1173 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1174 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1175 declared after the first %union.
1177 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1178 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1179 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1180 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1181 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1182 after the token definitions.
1184 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1185 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1187 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1188 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1191 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1192 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1193 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1197 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1198 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1199 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1200 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1201 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1204 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1205 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1206 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1207 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1210 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1211 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1212 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1215 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1216 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1217 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1218 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1222 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1223 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1224 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1225 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1226 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1229 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1230 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1232 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1233 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1235 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1236 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1237 in a future release.
1239 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1241 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1242 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1244 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1245 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1247 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1249 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1250 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1251 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1253 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1255 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1257 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1258 their contents together.
1260 ** New warning: unused values
1261 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1262 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1264 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1268 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1269 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1270 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1272 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1273 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1275 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1278 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1279 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1280 values are used, e.g.:
1282 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1283 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1286 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1287 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1289 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1291 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1292 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1294 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1295 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1296 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1297 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1299 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1300 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1301 instead of warnings.
1303 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1304 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1305 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1307 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1309 ** %require "VERSION"
1310 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1311 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1313 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1314 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1315 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1316 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1317 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1319 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1320 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1321 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1322 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1324 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1325 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1327 ** DJGPP support added.
1329 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1331 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1333 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1334 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1335 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1336 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1337 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1338 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1340 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1341 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1342 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1343 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1345 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1346 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1347 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1349 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1350 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1351 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1352 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1353 unexpected "number"'.
1355 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1357 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1359 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1360 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1361 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1362 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1363 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1365 - Error token location.
1366 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1367 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1368 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1369 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1371 - Semicolon changes:
1372 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1373 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1375 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1376 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1377 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1378 forget a closing quote.
1380 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1384 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1386 - New directive: %initial-action.
1387 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1388 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1390 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1391 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1393 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1394 This is a GNU extension.
1396 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1397 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1399 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1401 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1402 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1406 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1407 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1408 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1409 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1410 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1411 these violations will become errors again.
1413 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1414 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1416 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1418 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1420 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1421 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1423 ** syntax error processing
1425 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1426 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1429 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1430 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1433 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1435 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1436 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1438 ** POSIX conformance
1440 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1441 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1442 compatibility with Yacc.
1444 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1445 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1446 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1447 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1450 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1451 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1453 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1454 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1456 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1457 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1459 - Yacc command and library now available
1460 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1461 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1462 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1463 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1465 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1467 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1468 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1469 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1471 ** Other compatibility issues
1473 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1474 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1475 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1476 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1477 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1478 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1480 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1481 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1483 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1484 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1486 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1487 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1488 withdrawn in a future release.
1493 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1496 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1497 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1499 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1500 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1501 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1504 - a single argument only can be added,
1505 - their types are weak (void *),
1506 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1507 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1509 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1512 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1513 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1514 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1516 results in the following signatures:
1518 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1519 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1521 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1523 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1524 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1526 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1527 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1528 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1530 ** #line in output files
1531 - --no-line works properly.
1533 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1534 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1535 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1536 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1538 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1540 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1542 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1545 Fix spurious parse errors.
1548 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1549 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1552 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1553 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1557 but the converse remains an error:
1561 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1564 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1566 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1567 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1569 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1574 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1575 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1576 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1577 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1579 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1580 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1583 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1584 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1585 now creates "bar.c".
1588 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1589 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1591 ** Unknown token numbers
1592 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1596 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1597 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1598 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1599 will be mapped onto another number.
1601 ** Verbose error messages
1602 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1603 error recovery is possible.
1606 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1608 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1609 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1610 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1611 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1612 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1613 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1614 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1615 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1616 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1619 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1622 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1623 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1624 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1625 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1627 ** Explicit initial rule
1628 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1629 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1633 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1634 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1636 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1637 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1639 ** Rules never reduced
1640 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1643 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1644 On a grammar such as
1646 %token useless useful
1648 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1650 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1651 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1653 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1654 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1656 ** Default locations
1657 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1658 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1659 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1660 the computation of @$.
1662 ** Token end-of-file
1663 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1664 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1665 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1669 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1672 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1675 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1676 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1678 ** Incorrect token definitions
1681 bison used to output
1684 ** Token definitions as enums
1685 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1686 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1687 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1690 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1691 produces additional information:
1693 complete the core item sets with their closure
1694 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1695 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1697 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1698 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1699 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1702 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1703 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1711 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1713 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1716 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1717 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1718 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1720 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1721 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1722 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1723 kludge will be disabled.
1725 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1728 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1730 ** File name clashes are detected
1731 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1732 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1734 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1735 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1736 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1737 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1738 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1739 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1741 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1742 many portability hassles.
1744 ** DJGPP support added.
1746 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1748 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1751 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1752 under some conditions.
1757 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1759 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1761 ** Portability fixes
1763 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1765 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1769 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1770 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1771 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1772 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1773 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1775 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1776 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1777 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1779 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1782 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1784 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1785 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1788 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1789 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1790 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1792 ** Better C++ compliance
1793 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1794 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1797 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1800 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1803 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1806 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1809 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1811 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1813 ** Swedish translation
1816 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1817 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1818 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1820 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1821 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1822 previous allocations were not freed.
1824 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1825 Some newlines were missing.
1826 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1828 ** Fixed conflict report.
1829 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1833 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1835 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1837 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1839 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1841 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1842 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1844 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1846 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1850 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1852 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1854 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1855 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1858 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1861 ** Portability fixes.
1863 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1865 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1866 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1867 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1868 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1870 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1872 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1874 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1876 ** Russian translation added.
1878 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1880 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1882 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1884 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1886 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1888 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1889 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1892 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1893 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1896 Automatic location tracking.
1898 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1900 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1904 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1906 ** There is now a FAQ.
1908 * Changes in version 1.27:
1910 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1911 some systems has been fixed.
1913 * Changes in version 1.26:
1915 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1917 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1919 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1921 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1923 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1925 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1927 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1928 not provide alloca().
1930 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1932 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1933 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1935 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1936 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1937 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1939 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1940 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1941 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1944 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1945 directives in the parser file.
1947 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1948 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1950 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1951 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1952 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1953 a switch statement body.
1955 * Changes in version 1.23:
1957 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1958 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1959 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1960 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1962 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1964 * Changes in version 1.22:
1966 --help option added.
1968 * Changes in version 1.20:
1970 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1974 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1976 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1978 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1979 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1980 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1981 (at your option) any later version.
1983 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1984 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1985 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1986 GNU General Public License for more details.
1988 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1989 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1991 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1992 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1993 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1994 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1995 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1996 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1997 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1998 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1999 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2000 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2001 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2002 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2003 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2004 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2005 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2006 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2007 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2008 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init