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 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explictly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what gcc 4.7 does.
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatiblities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
42 *** The display of warnings is now richer
44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
49 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
50 to gcc, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
62 *** Deprecated constructs
64 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
65 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
66 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
68 *** Useless semantic types
70 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
71 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
72 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
73 types that trigger the warning:
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
82 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
83 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
85 *** Undefined but unused symbols
87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
91 %destructor {} symbol2
96 *** Useless destructors or printers
98 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
99 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
100 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
101 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
103 %token <type1> token1
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
112 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
113 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
119 compare the previous version of bison:
122 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
123 $ bison -Werror foo.y
124 bison: warnings being treated as errors
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
127 with the new behavior:
130 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
131 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 $ bison -Werror foo.y
133 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
146 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
147 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
148 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
156 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
158 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
159 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
160 or more arguments. Instead of
162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
171 ** Java skeleton improvements
173 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
174 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
175 and "%define init_throws".
177 ** C++ skeletons improvements
179 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
181 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
182 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
183 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
185 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
189 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
191 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
192 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
193 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
194 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
195 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
196 factory invoked by the user actions).
198 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
200 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
201 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
202 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
209 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
210 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
211 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
212 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
214 ** Variable api.namespace
216 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
219 ** Variable parse.error
221 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
222 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
225 ** Semantic predicates
227 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
228 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
229 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
230 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
231 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
234 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
236 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
237 reduce/reduce conflicts.
239 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
243 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
245 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
246 users to the appropriate place to report them.
248 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
250 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
251 generated, are removed.
253 All the generated headers are self-contained.
255 ** Changes in the format of error messages
257 This used to be the format of many error reports:
259 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
260 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
264 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
265 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
267 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
269 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
270 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
271 For instance the header generated from
273 %define api.prefix "calc"
274 %defines "lib/parse.h"
276 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
278 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
280 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
281 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
282 before rethrowing the exception.
284 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
287 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
289 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
292 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
293 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
294 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
298 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
300 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
301 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
304 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
308 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
309 suite have been fixed.
311 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
313 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
314 invalid C++. This is fixed.
316 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
318 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
320 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
322 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
326 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
327 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
328 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
330 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
334 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
338 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
340 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
342 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
344 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
345 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
348 ** Type names in actions
350 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
351 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
353 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
355 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
356 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
358 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
362 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
363 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
367 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
368 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
371 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
373 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
376 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
377 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
379 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
382 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
384 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
385 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
386 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
387 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
390 ** Generated Parser Headers
392 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
394 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
395 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
400 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
402 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
404 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
405 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
407 int bar_parse (void);
411 #define yyparse bar_parse
414 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
415 single compilation unit.
417 *** Exported symbols in C++
419 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
420 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
421 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
425 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
428 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
430 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
431 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
432 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
433 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
434 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
435 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
436 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
438 The following examples compares both:
440 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
441 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
442 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
448 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
449 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
451 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
452 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
453 > # if defined YYDEBUG
455 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
457 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
460 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
464 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
465 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
468 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
469 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
470 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
471 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
476 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
477 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
478 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
481 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
482 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
485 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
487 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
489 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
491 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
495 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
497 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
499 ** glr.c improvements:
501 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
503 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
504 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
506 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
508 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
509 when -std is passed to GCC).
511 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
513 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
514 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
518 *** C++11 compatibility:
520 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
525 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
526 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
528 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
529 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
531 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
533 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
534 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
535 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
537 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
539 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
540 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
542 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
546 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
547 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
548 documentation were fixed.
550 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
552 ** Changes in the manual:
554 *** %printer is documented
556 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
557 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
559 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
560 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
562 *** Several improvements have been made:
564 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
565 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
566 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
567 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
571 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
573 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
574 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
576 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
578 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
580 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
581 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
583 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
585 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
586 halts in the middle of its course.
588 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
590 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
592 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
593 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
594 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
595 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
596 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
600 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
601 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
604 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
605 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
608 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
609 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
611 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
613 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
614 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
616 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
617 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
618 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
620 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
621 will help to stabilize them.
623 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
625 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
626 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
627 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
628 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
629 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
630 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
631 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
632 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
633 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
635 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
636 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
637 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
638 file with these directives:
642 %define lr.type canonical-lr
644 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
645 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
646 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
649 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
652 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
654 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
655 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
656 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
657 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
658 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
659 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
660 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
661 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
662 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
663 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
666 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
667 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
668 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
669 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
672 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
673 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
674 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
675 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
676 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
677 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
678 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
679 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
682 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
683 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
685 %define parse.lac full
687 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
688 details including a few caveats.
690 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
693 ** %define improvements:
695 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
697 Each of these command-line options
700 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
703 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
705 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
707 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
709 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
710 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
711 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
712 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
714 *** Variables renamed:
716 The following %define variables
719 lr.keep_unreachable_states
724 lr.keep-unreachable-states
726 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
727 for backward compatibility.
729 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
731 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
732 within quotations marks. For example,
734 %define api.push-pull "push"
738 %define api.push-pull push
740 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
742 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
744 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
746 ** Character literals not of length one:
748 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
749 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
750 the following grammar to be the same token:
756 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
757 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
759 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
761 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
762 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
763 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
764 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
766 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
768 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
769 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
770 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
771 and "last" members, instead of
773 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
777 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
778 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
782 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
788 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
792 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
793 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
797 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
801 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
803 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
804 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
805 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
806 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
808 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
810 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
811 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
812 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
813 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
814 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
815 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
816 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
817 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
819 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
821 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
822 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
823 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
824 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
826 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
830 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
832 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
833 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
834 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
835 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
836 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
837 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
838 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
840 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
842 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
843 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
844 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
845 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
846 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
848 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
849 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
850 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
851 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
852 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
853 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
854 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
855 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
856 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
857 shifted or discarded.
859 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
860 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
861 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
862 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
864 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
865 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
866 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
867 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
868 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
869 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
870 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
871 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
872 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
873 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
874 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
875 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
878 ** Java skeleton fixes:
880 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
882 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
883 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
885 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
887 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
889 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
891 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
892 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
894 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
896 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
898 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
899 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
900 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
901 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
904 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
905 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
906 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
907 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
909 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
910 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
911 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
912 then have no effect on the conflict report.
914 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
916 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
917 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
919 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
921 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
923 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
924 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
925 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
926 suppress all warnings:
930 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
932 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
933 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
934 produced an assertion failure. For example:
938 This bug has been fixed.
940 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
942 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
943 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
945 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
948 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
950 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
953 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
954 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
955 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
956 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
958 ** Minor documentation fixes.
960 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
962 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
963 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
964 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
965 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
968 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
970 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
971 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
972 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
973 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
974 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
975 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
976 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
977 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
978 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
980 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
982 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
983 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
986 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
988 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
992 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
993 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
996 %code requires {CODE}
997 %code provides {CODE}
1000 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1001 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1002 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1003 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1004 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1006 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1007 is still considered experimental.
1009 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1011 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1012 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1013 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1014 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1015 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1018 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1019 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1020 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1021 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1022 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1023 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1024 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1026 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1028 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1029 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1030 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1031 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1032 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1033 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1034 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1035 be removed altogether.
1037 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1038 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1039 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1040 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1041 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1042 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1043 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1044 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1045 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1046 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1048 ** Internationalization.
1050 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1051 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1054 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1056 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1057 declarations have been fixed.
1059 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1061 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1062 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1064 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1068 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1070 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1071 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1072 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1073 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1074 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1077 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1079 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1081 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1083 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1084 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1085 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1086 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1089 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1091 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1094 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1096 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1099 %define NAME "VALUE"
1101 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1105 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1106 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1110 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1111 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1112 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1113 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1114 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1116 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1117 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1119 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1121 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1122 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1124 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1125 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1126 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1130 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1131 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1132 %skeleton to select it.
1134 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1136 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1137 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1141 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1142 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1143 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1144 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1146 ** XML Automaton Report
1148 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1149 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1150 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1152 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1153 %defines. For example:
1157 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1158 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1159 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1160 instead of "unused".
1162 ** Unreachable State Removal
1164 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1165 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1166 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1168 1. Removes unreachable states.
1170 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1171 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1172 directives in existing grammar files.
1174 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1175 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1177 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1179 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1181 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1182 for further discussion.
1184 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1186 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1187 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1188 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1189 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1190 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1191 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1192 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1195 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1198 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1201 %file-prefix "parser"
1205 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1207 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1208 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1209 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1210 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1213 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1214 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1215 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1216 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1218 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1219 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1220 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1221 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1223 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1224 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1226 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1228 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1229 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1232 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1234 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1235 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1237 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1239 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1240 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1241 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1243 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1244 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1246 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1248 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1251 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1252 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1253 declared semantic type tags.
1255 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1256 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1259 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1260 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1261 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1262 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1264 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1265 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1268 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1271 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1272 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1273 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1275 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1276 completely removed from Bison.
1278 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1280 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1281 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1282 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1283 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1284 and is required by POSIX.
1286 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1287 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1289 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1293 %union { char *string; }
1294 %token <string> STRING1
1295 %token <string> STRING2
1296 %type <string> string1
1297 %type <string> string2
1298 %union { char character; }
1299 %token <character> CHR
1300 %type <character> chr
1301 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1302 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1303 %destructor { } <character>
1305 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1306 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1307 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1308 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1309 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1311 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1312 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1315 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1316 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1317 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1318 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1319 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1321 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1322 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1324 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1325 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1326 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1327 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1328 declared after the first %union.
1330 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1331 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1332 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1333 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1334 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1335 after the token definitions.
1337 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1338 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1340 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1341 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1344 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1345 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1346 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1350 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1351 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1352 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1353 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1354 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1357 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1358 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1359 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1360 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1363 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1364 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1365 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1368 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1369 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1370 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1371 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1375 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1376 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1377 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1378 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1379 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1382 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1383 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1385 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1386 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1388 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1389 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1390 in a future release.
1392 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1394 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1395 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1397 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1398 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1400 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1402 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1403 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1404 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1406 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1408 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1410 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1411 their contents together.
1413 ** New warning: unused values
1414 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1415 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1417 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1421 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1422 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1423 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1425 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1426 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1428 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1431 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1432 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1433 values are used, e.g.:
1435 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1436 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1439 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1440 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1442 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1444 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1445 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1447 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1448 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1449 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1450 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1452 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1453 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1454 instead of warnings.
1456 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1457 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1458 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1460 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1462 ** %require "VERSION"
1463 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1464 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1466 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1467 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1468 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1469 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1470 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1472 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1473 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1474 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1475 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1477 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1478 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1480 ** DJGPP support added.
1482 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1484 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1486 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1487 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1488 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1489 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1490 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1491 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1493 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1494 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1495 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1496 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1498 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1499 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1500 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1502 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1503 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1504 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1505 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1506 unexpected "number"'.
1508 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1510 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1512 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1513 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1514 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1515 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1516 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1518 - Error token location.
1519 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1520 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1521 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1522 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1524 - Semicolon changes:
1525 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1526 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1528 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1529 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1530 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1531 forget a closing quote.
1533 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1537 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1539 - New directive: %initial-action.
1540 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1541 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1543 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1544 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1546 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1547 This is a GNU extension.
1549 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1550 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1552 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1554 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1555 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1559 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1560 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1561 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1562 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1563 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1564 these violations will become errors again.
1566 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1567 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1569 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1571 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1573 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1574 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1576 ** syntax error processing
1578 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1579 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1582 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1583 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1586 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1588 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1589 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1591 ** POSIX conformance
1593 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1594 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1595 compatibility with Yacc.
1597 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1598 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1599 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1600 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1603 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1604 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1606 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1607 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1609 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1610 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1612 - Yacc command and library now available
1613 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1614 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1615 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1616 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1618 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1620 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1621 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1622 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1624 ** Other compatibility issues
1626 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1627 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1628 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1629 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1630 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1631 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1633 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1634 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1636 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1637 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1639 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1640 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1641 withdrawn in a future release.
1646 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1649 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1650 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1652 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1653 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1654 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1657 - a single argument only can be added,
1658 - their types are weak (void *),
1659 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1660 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1662 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1665 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1666 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1667 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1669 results in the following signatures:
1671 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1672 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1674 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1676 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1677 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1679 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1680 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1681 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1683 ** #line in output files
1684 - --no-line works properly.
1686 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1687 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1688 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1689 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1691 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1693 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1695 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1698 Fix spurious parse errors.
1701 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1702 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1705 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1706 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1710 but the converse remains an error:
1714 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1717 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1719 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1720 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1722 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1727 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1728 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1729 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1730 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1732 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1733 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1736 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1737 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1738 now creates "bar.c".
1741 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1742 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1744 ** Unknown token numbers
1745 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1749 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1750 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1751 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1752 will be mapped onto another number.
1754 ** Verbose error messages
1755 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1756 error recovery is possible.
1759 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1761 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1762 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1763 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1764 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1765 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1766 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1767 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1768 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1769 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1772 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1775 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1776 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1777 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1778 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1780 ** Explicit initial rule
1781 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1782 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1786 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1787 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1789 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1790 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1792 ** Rules never reduced
1793 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1796 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1797 On a grammar such as
1799 %token useless useful
1801 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1803 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1804 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1806 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1807 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1809 ** Default locations
1810 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1811 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1812 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1813 the computation of @$.
1815 ** Token end-of-file
1816 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1817 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1818 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1822 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1825 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1828 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1829 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1831 ** Incorrect token definitions
1834 bison used to output
1837 ** Token definitions as enums
1838 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1839 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1840 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1843 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1844 produces additional information:
1846 complete the core item sets with their closure
1847 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1848 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1850 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1851 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1852 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1855 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1856 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1864 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1866 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1869 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1870 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1871 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1873 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1874 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1875 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1876 kludge will be disabled.
1878 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1881 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1883 ** File name clashes are detected
1884 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1885 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1887 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1888 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1889 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1890 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1891 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1892 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1894 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1895 many portability hassles.
1897 ** DJGPP support added.
1899 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1901 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1904 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1905 under some conditions.
1910 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1912 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1914 ** Portability fixes
1916 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1918 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1922 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1923 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1924 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1925 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1926 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1928 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1929 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1930 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1932 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1935 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1937 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1938 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1941 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1942 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1943 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1945 ** Better C++ compliance
1946 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1947 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1950 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1953 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1956 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1959 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1962 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1964 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1966 ** Swedish translation
1969 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1970 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1971 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1973 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1974 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1975 previous allocations were not freed.
1977 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1978 Some newlines were missing.
1979 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1981 ** Fixed conflict report.
1982 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1986 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1988 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1990 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1992 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1994 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1995 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1997 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1999 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2003 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2005 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2007 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2008 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2011 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2014 ** Portability fixes.
2016 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2018 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2019 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2020 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2021 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2023 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2025 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2027 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2029 ** Russian translation added.
2031 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2033 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2035 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2037 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2039 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2041 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2042 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2045 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2046 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2049 Automatic location tracking.
2051 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2053 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2057 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2059 ** There is now a FAQ.
2061 * Changes in version 1.27:
2063 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2064 some systems has been fixed.
2066 * Changes in version 1.26:
2068 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2070 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2072 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2074 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2076 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2078 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2080 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2081 not provide alloca().
2083 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2085 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2086 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2088 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2089 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2090 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2092 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2093 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2094 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2097 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2098 directives in the parser file.
2100 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2101 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2103 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2104 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2105 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2106 a switch statement body.
2108 * Changes in version 1.23:
2110 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2111 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2112 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2113 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2115 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2117 * Changes in version 1.22:
2119 --help option added.
2121 * Changes in version 1.20:
2123 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2127 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2129 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2131 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2132 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2133 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2134 (at your option) any later version.
2136 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2137 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2138 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2139 GNU General Public License for more details.
2141 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2142 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2144 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2145 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2146 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2147 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2148 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2149 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2150 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2151 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2152 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2153 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2154 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2155 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2156 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2157 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2158 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2159 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2160 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2161 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2162 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval