]> git.saurik.com Git - bison.git/blob - NEWS
Remove restrictions on expanding GLR stacks in C++.
[bison.git] / NEWS
1 Bison News
2 ----------
3
4 * Changes in version ?.? (????-??-??):
5
6 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
7
8 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
9 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives
10 support one or more arguments. Instead of
11
12 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
13 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
14 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
15 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
16
17 one may now declare
18
19 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
20
21 ** Java skeleton improvements
22
23 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
24 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
25 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
26
27 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
28
29 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
30 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
31 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
32
33 %token FILE for ERROR
34 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
35 %%
36 start: FILE for ERROR;
37
38 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
39 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
40 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
41 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
42
43 ** Variable api.namespace
44
45 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
46 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
47
48 ** Variable parse.error
49
50 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
51 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
52 %define parse.error "verbose".
53
54 ** Semantic predicates
55
56 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
57 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
58 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
59 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
60 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
61 runtime expressions.
62
63 * Changes in version 2.5 (????-??-??):
64
65 ** Named References Support
66
67 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
68 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
69 actions code.
70
71 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
72 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
73 as named references:
74
75 if_stmt : 'if' cond_expr 'then' then_stmt ';'
76 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
77
78 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
79
80 stmt[res] : 'if' expr[cond] 'then' stmt[then] 'else' stmt[else] ';'
81 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
82
83 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
84 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
85 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
86
87 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
88 will help to stabilize them.
89
90 ** IELR(1) and Canonical LR(1) Support
91
92 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
93 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
94 with the full language recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
95 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction in
96 parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
97 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
98 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
99 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
100 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
101
102 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
103 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
104 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
105 file with these directives:
106
107 %define lr.type lalr
108 %define lr.type ielr
109 %define lr.type canonical-lr
110
111 The default reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
112 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. See the documentation
113 for `%define lr.type' and `%define lr.default-reductions' in the
114 section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual for the
115 details.
116
117 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
118 stabilize them.
119
120 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now an error not a warning.
121
122 ** %define improvements.
123
124 *** Unrecognized variables are now an error not a warning.
125
126 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
127
128 *** Can now be invoked via the command line.
129
130 Each of these command-line options
131
132 -D NAME[=VALUE]
133 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
134
135 -F NAME[=VALUE]
136 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
137
138 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
139
140 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
141
142 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
143 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
144 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
145 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
146
147 *** Variables renamed.
148
149 The following %define variables
150
151 api.push_pull
152 lr.keep_unreachable_states
153
154 have been renamed to
155
156 api.push-pull
157 lr.keep-unreachable-states
158
159 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
160 for backward compatibility.
161
162 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in grammar file.
163
164 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
165 within quotations marks. For example,
166
167 %define api.push-pull "push"
168
169 can be rewritten as
170
171 %define api.push-pull push
172
173 ** Symbol names.
174
175 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and variables
176 (e.g. push-pull), symbol names may include dashes in any position,
177 similarly to periods and underscores. This is GNU extension over
178 POSIX Yacc whose use is reported by -Wyacc, and rejected in Yacc
179 mode (--yacc).
180
181 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it.
182
183 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
184 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
185 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
186 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
187 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
188 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
189 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
190 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
191
192 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
193
194 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
195 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
196 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
197 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
198
199 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
200
201 instead of
202
203 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
204
205 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
206 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
207 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
208 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
209 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
210 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
211 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
212
213 ** Character literals not of length one.
214
215 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
216 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
217 the following grammar to be the same token:
218
219 exp: exp '++'
220 | exp '+' exp
221 ;
222
223 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
224 some future release, Bison will report an error instead.
225
226 ** Verbose error messages fixed for nonassociative tokens.
227
228 When %error-verbose is specified, syntax error messages produced by
229 the generated parser include the unexpected token as well as a list of
230 expected tokens. Previously, this list erroneously included tokens
231 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
232 were resolved with %nonassoc. Such tokens are now properly omitted
233 from the list.
234
235 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions.
236
237 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
238 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
239 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
240 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
241
242 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC
243
244 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
245 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
246 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
247 and "last" members, instead of
248
249 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
250 do \
251 if (N) \
252 { \
253 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
254 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
255 } \
256 else \
257 { \
258 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
259 } \
260 while (false)
261
262 use:
263
264 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
265 do \
266 if (N) \
267 { \
268 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
269 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
270 } \
271 else \
272 { \
273 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
274 } \
275 while (false)
276
277 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++
278
279 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
280 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
281 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
282 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
283
284 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (????-??-??):
285
286 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
287 been fixed.
288
289 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
290
291 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
292 been fixed.
293
294 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
295 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
296 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
297 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
298
299 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
300
301 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
302 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
303 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
304 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
305 affected platforms.
306
307 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
308
309 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
310 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
311 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
312 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
313 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
314 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
315 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
316 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
317 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
318
319 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
320
321 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
322 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
323 avoided.
324
325 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
326
327 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
328
329 %{CODE%}
330
331 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
332 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
333
334 %code {CODE}
335 %code requires {CODE}
336 %code provides {CODE}
337 %code top {CODE}
338
339 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
340 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
341 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
342 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
343 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
344
345 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
346 is still considered experimental.
347
348 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
349
350 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
351 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
352 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
353 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
354 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
355 specified by POSIX.
356
357 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
358 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
359 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
360 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
361 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
362 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
363 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
364
365 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
366
367 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
368 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
369 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
370 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
371 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
372 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
373 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
374 be removed altogether.
375
376 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
377 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
378 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
379 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
380 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
381 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
382 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
383 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
384 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
385 2.4.2 is not necessary.
386
387 ** Internationalization.
388
389 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
390 message translations were not installed although supported by the
391 host system.
392
393 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
394
395 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
396 declarations have been fixed.
397
398 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
399
400 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
401 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
402
403 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
404
405 instead of
406
407 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
408
409 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
410 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
411 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
412 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
413 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
414 feature.
415
416 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
417
418 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
419
420 ** %language is an experimental feature.
421
422 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
423 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
424 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
425 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
426 in future releases.
427
428 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
429
430 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
431 fixed.
432
433 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
434
435 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
436 are now deprecated:
437
438 %define NAME "VALUE"
439
440 ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
441
442 %define api.pure
443
444 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
445 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
446
447 ** Push Parsing
448
449 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
450 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
451 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
452 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
453 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
454
455 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
456 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
457
458 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
459
460 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
461 feedback will help to stabilize it.
462
463 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
464 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
465 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
466
467 ** Java
468
469 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
470 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
471 %skeleton to select it.
472
473 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
474
475 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
476 feedback will help to stabilize it.
477
478 ** %language
479
480 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
481 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
482 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
483 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
484
485 ** XML Automaton Report
486
487 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
488 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
489 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
490
491 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
492 %defines. For example:
493
494 %defines "parser.h"
495
496 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
497 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
498 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
499 instead of "unused".
500
501 ** Unreachable State Removal
502
503 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
504 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
505 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
506
507 1. Removes unreachable states.
508
509 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
510 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
511 directives in existing grammar files.
512
513 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
514 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
515
516 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
517
518 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
519
520 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
521 for further discussion.
522
523 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
524
525 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
526 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
527 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
528 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
529 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
530 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
531 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
532 code.
533
534 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
535 name.
536
537 ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
538 deprecated:
539
540 %file-prefix "parser"
541 %name-prefix "c_"
542 %output "parser.c"
543
544 ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
545
546 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
547 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
548 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
549 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
550 it:
551
552 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
553 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
554 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
555 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
556
557 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
558 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
559 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
560 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
561
562 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
563 determine whether they should become permanent features.
564
565 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
566
567 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
568 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
569 about unused $2 in:
570
571 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
572
573 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
574 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
575
576 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
577
578 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
579 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
580 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
581
582 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
583 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
584
585 ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
586
587 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
588 %printer's:
589
590 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
591 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
592 declared semantic type tags.
593
594 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
595 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
596 type tags.
597
598 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
599 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
600 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
601 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
602
603 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
604 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
605 features.
606
607 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
608 details.
609
610 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
611 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
612 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
613
614 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
615 completely removed from Bison.
616
617 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
618
619 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
620 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
621 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
622 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
623 and is required by POSIX.
624
625 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
626 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
627
628 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
629
630 For example:
631
632 %union { char *string; }
633 %token <string> STRING1
634 %token <string> STRING2
635 %type <string> string1
636 %type <string> string2
637 %union { char character; }
638 %token <character> CHR
639 %type <character> chr
640 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
641 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
642 %destructor { } <character>
643
644 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
645 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
646 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
647 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
648 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
649
650 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
651 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
652 future versions.]
653
654 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
655 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
656 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
657 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
658 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
659
660 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
661 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
662
663 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
664 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
665 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
666 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
667 declared after the first %union.
668
669 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
670 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
671 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
672 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
673 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
674 after the token definitions.
675
676 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
677 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
678
679 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
680 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
681 %after-header.
682
683 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
684 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
685 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
686 convenient for you:
687
688 %before-header {
689 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
690 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
691 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
692 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
693 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
694 }
695 %start-header {
696 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
697 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
698 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
699 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
700 }
701 %union {
702 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
703 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
704 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
705 }
706 %end-header {
707 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
708 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
709 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
710 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
711 * definitions. */
712 }
713 %after-header {
714 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
715 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
716 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
717 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
718 * Bison-generated definitions. */
719 }
720
721 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
722 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
723
724 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
725 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
726
727 ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
728 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
729 in a future release.
730
731 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
732
733 ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
734 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
735
736 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
737 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
738
739 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
740
741 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
742 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
743 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
744
745 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
746
747 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
748
749 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
750 their contents together.
751
752 ** New warning: unused values
753 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
754 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
755
756 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
757 | exp "+" exp
758 ;
759
760 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
761 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
762 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
763
764 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
765 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
766 | exp "+" exp
767 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
768 ;
769
770 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
771 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
772 values are used, e.g.:
773
774 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
775 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
776 ;
777
778 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
779 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
780
781 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
782
783 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
784 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
785
786 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
787 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
788 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
789 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
790
791 ** %expect, %expect-rr
792 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
793 instead of warnings.
794
795 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
796 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
797 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
798
799 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
800
801 ** %require "VERSION"
802 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
803 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
804
805 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
806 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
807 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
808 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
809 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
810
811 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
812 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
813 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
814 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
815
816 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
817 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
818
819 ** DJGPP support added.
820 \f
821 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
822
823 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
824
825 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
826 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
827 language is still English. For details, please see the new
828 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
829 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
830 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
831
832 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
833 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
834 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
835 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
836
837 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
838 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
839 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
840
841 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
842 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
843 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
844 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
845 unexpected "number"'.
846 \f
847 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
848
849 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
850
851 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
852 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
853 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
854 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
855 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
856
857 - Error token location.
858 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
859 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
860 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
861 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
862
863 - Semicolon changes:
864 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
865 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
866
867 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
868 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
869 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
870 forget a closing quote.
871
872 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
873
874 ** New features
875
876 - GLR grammars now support locations.
877
878 - New directive: %initial-action.
879 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
880 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
881
882 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
883 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
884
885 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
886 This is a GNU extension.
887
888 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
889 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
890
891 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
892
893 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
894 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
895
896 ** Bug fixes
897
898 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
899 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
900 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
901 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
902 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
903 these violations will become errors again.
904
905 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
906 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
907
908 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
909 \f
910 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
911
912 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
913 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
914
915 ** syntax error processing
916
917 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
918 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
919
920 - %destructor
921 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
922 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
923
924 - %error-verbose
925 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
926
927 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
928 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
929
930 ** POSIX conformance
931
932 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
933 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
934 compatibility with Yacc.
935
936 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
937 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
938 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
939 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
940 be consistent.
941
942 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
943 declared before use. C99 requires this.
944
945 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
946 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
947
948 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
949 output as "foo\\bar.y".
950
951 - Yacc command and library now available
952 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
953 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
954 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
955 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
956
957 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
958
959 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
960 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
961 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
962
963 ** Other compatibility issues
964
965 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
966 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
967 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
968 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
969 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
970 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
971
972 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
973 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
974
975 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
976 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
977
978 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
979 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
980 withdrawn in a future release.
981
982 ** GLR parser notes
983
984 - GLR and inline
985 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
986 C keyword `inline'.
987
988 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
989 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
990
991 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
992 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
993 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
994
995 ** #line in output files
996 - --no-line works properly.
997
998 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
999 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1000 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1001 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1002 \f
1003 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1004
1005 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1006
1007 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1008
1009 ** GLR parsers
1010 Fix spurious parse errors.
1011
1012 ** Pure parsers
1013 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1014 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1015
1016 ** Type Clashes
1017 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1018 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1019
1020 untyped: ... typed;
1021
1022 but the converse remains an error:
1023
1024 typed: ... untyped;
1025
1026 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1027 The following code:
1028
1029 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1030
1031 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1032 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1033 \f
1034 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1035
1036 ** GLR parsing
1037 The declaration
1038 %glr-parser
1039 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1040 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1041 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1042 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1043
1044 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1045 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1046
1047 ** Output Directory
1048 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1049 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
1050 now creates `bar.c'.
1051
1052 ** Undefined token
1053 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1054 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1055
1056 ** Unknown token numbers
1057 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1058 no longer the case.
1059
1060 ** Error token
1061 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1062 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1063 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1064 will be mapped onto another number.
1065
1066 ** Verbose error messages
1067 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1068 error recovery is possible.
1069
1070 ** End token
1071 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1072
1073 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1074 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1075 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1076 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1077 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1078 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1079 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1080 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1081 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1082
1083 ** Traces
1084 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1085
1086 ** Larger grammars
1087 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1088 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1089 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1090 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1091
1092 ** Explicit initial rule
1093 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1094 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1095 graphs as rule 0.
1096
1097 ** Useless rules
1098 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1099 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1100
1101 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1102 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1103
1104 ** Rules never reduced
1105 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1106 reported.
1107
1108 ** Incorrect `Token not used'
1109 On a grammar such as
1110
1111 %token useless useful
1112 %%
1113 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1114
1115 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1116 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1117
1118 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1119 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1120
1121 ** Default locations
1122 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1123 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1124 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1125 the computation of @$.
1126
1127 ** Token end-of-file
1128 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1129 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1130 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1131 For instance
1132 %token MYEOF 0
1133 or
1134 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1135
1136 ** Semantic parser
1137 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1138
1139 ** New translations
1140 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1141 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1142
1143 ** Incorrect token definitions
1144 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1145
1146 ** Token definitions as enums
1147 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1148 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1149 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1150
1151 ** Reports
1152 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1153 produces additional information:
1154 - itemset
1155 complete the core item sets with their closure
1156 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1157 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1158 - solved
1159 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1160 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1161 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1162
1163 ** Type clashes
1164 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1165 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1166
1167 %type <foo> bar
1168 %%
1169 bar: '0' {} '0';
1170
1171 This is fixed.
1172
1173 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1174 \f
1175 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1176
1177 ** C Skeleton
1178 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1179 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1180 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1181
1182 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1183 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1184 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1185 kludge will be disabled.
1186
1187 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1188 extended.
1189 \f
1190 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1191
1192 ** File name clashes are detected
1193 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1194 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1195
1196 ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1197 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1198 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1199 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1200 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1201 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1202
1203 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1204 many portability hassles.
1205
1206 ** DJGPP support added.
1207
1208 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1209 \f
1210 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1211
1212 ** Fix C++ issues
1213 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1214 under some conditions.
1215
1216 ** Catch invalid @n
1217 As is done with $n.
1218 \f
1219 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1220
1221 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1222
1223 ** Portability fixes
1224
1225 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1226 \f
1227 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1228
1229 ** Many Bug Fixes
1230
1231 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1232 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1233 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1234 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1235 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1236
1237 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1238 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1239 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1240
1241 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1242 problems as on AIX.
1243
1244 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1245
1246 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1247 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1248
1249 ** User Actions
1250 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1251 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1252 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1253
1254 ** Better C++ compliance
1255 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1256 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1257
1258 ** Reduced Grammars
1259 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1260
1261 ** 64 bit hosts
1262 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1263
1264 ** Error messages
1265 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1266
1267 ** %expect
1268 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1269 any warning.
1270
1271 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1272
1273 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1274
1275 ** Swedish translation
1276
1277 ** Parse errors
1278 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1279 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1280 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1281
1282 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1283 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1284 previous allocations were not freed.
1285
1286 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1287 Some newlines were missing.
1288 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1289
1290 ** Fixed conflict report.
1291 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1292
1293 ** %expect
1294 Was not used.
1295 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1296
1297 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1298
1299 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1300
1301 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1302
1303 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1304 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1305
1306 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1307
1308 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1309 New.
1310
1311 ** --output
1312 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1313 \f
1314 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1315
1316 ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1317 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1318 argument.
1319
1320 ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1321 experiment.
1322
1323 ** Portability fixes.
1324 \f
1325 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1326
1327 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1328 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1329 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1330 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1331
1332 ** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1333
1334 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1335
1336 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1337
1338 ** Russian translation added.
1339
1340 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1341
1342 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1343
1344 ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1345
1346 ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1347
1348 ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1349
1350 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1351 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1352
1353 ** New directives.
1354 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1355 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1356
1357 ** @$
1358 Automatic location tracking.
1359 \f
1360 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1361
1362 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1363
1364 ** Added NLS.
1365
1366 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1367
1368 ** There is now a FAQ.
1369 \f
1370 * Changes in version 1.27:
1371
1372 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1373 some systems has been fixed.
1374 \f
1375 * Changes in version 1.26:
1376
1377 ** Bison now uses automake.
1378
1379 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1380
1381 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1382
1383 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1384
1385 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1386
1387 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1388
1389 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1390 not provide alloca().
1391 \f
1392 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1393
1394 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1395 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1396
1397 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1398 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1399 of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1400
1401 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1402 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1403 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1404 purposes.
1405
1406 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1407 directives in the parser file.
1408
1409 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1410 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1411
1412 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1413 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1414 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1415 a switch statement body.
1416 \f
1417 * Changes in version 1.23:
1418
1419 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1420 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1421 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1422 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1423
1424 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1425 \f
1426 * Changes in version 1.22:
1427
1428 --help option added.
1429 \f
1430 * Changes in version 1.20:
1431
1432 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1433
1434 Local Variables:
1435 mode: outline
1436 End:
1437
1438 -----
1439
1440 Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003,
1441 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation,
1442 Inc.
1443
1444 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1445
1446 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1447 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1448 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1449 (at your option) any later version.
1450
1451 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1452 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1453 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1454 GNU General Public License for more details.
1455
1456 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1457 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.