3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
8 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
12 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
13 generated for C supprt ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
16 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
18 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
21 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
22 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
24 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
27 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
29 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
30 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
31 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
32 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
37 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
39 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
40 parsers (lalr1.cc). For intance, with --defines=foo.h:
45 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
47 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
49 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
50 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
56 #define yyparse bar_parse
59 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
60 single compilation unit.
62 *** Exported symbols in C++
64 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
65 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
66 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
68 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
72 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
74 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
76 ** glr.c improvements:
78 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
80 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
81 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
83 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
85 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
86 when -std is passed to GCC).
88 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
90 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
91 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
95 *** C++11 compatibility:
97 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
102 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
103 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
105 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
106 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
108 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
110 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
111 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
112 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
114 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
116 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
117 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
119 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
123 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
124 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
125 documentation were fixed.
127 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
129 ** Changes in the manual:
131 *** %printer is documented
133 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
134 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
136 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
137 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
139 *** Several improvements have been made:
141 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
142 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
143 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
144 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
148 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
150 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
151 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
153 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
155 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
157 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
158 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
160 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
162 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
163 halts in the middle of its course.
165 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
167 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
169 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
170 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
171 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
172 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
173 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
177 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
178 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
181 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
182 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
185 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
186 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
188 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
190 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
191 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
193 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
194 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
195 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
197 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
198 will help to stabilize them.
200 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
202 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
203 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
204 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
205 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
206 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
207 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
208 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
209 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
210 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
212 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
213 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
214 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
215 file with these directives:
219 %define lr.type canonical-lr
221 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
222 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
223 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
226 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
229 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
231 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
232 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
233 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
234 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
235 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
236 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
237 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
238 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
239 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
240 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
243 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
244 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
245 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
246 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
249 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
250 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
251 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
252 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
253 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
254 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
255 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
256 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
259 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
260 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
262 %define parse.lac full
264 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
265 details including a few caveats.
267 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
270 ** %define improvements:
272 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
274 Each of these command-line options
277 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
280 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
282 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
284 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
286 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
287 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
288 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
289 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
291 *** Variables renamed:
293 The following %define variables
296 lr.keep_unreachable_states
301 lr.keep-unreachable-states
303 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
304 for backward compatibility.
306 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
308 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
309 within quotations marks. For example,
311 %define api.push-pull "push"
315 %define api.push-pull push
317 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
319 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
321 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
323 ** Character literals not of length one:
325 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
326 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
327 the following grammar to be the same token:
333 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
334 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
336 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
338 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
339 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
340 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
341 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
343 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
345 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
346 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
347 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
348 and "last" members, instead of
350 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
354 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
355 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
359 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
365 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
369 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
370 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
374 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
378 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
380 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
381 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
382 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
383 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
385 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
387 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
388 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
389 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
390 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
391 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
392 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
393 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
394 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
396 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
398 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
399 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
400 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
401 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
403 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
407 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
409 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
410 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
411 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
412 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
413 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
414 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
415 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
417 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
419 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
420 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
421 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
422 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
423 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
425 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
426 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
427 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
428 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
429 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
430 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
431 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
432 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
433 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
434 shifted or discarded.
436 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
437 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
438 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
439 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
441 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
442 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
443 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
444 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
445 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
446 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
447 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
448 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
449 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
450 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
451 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
452 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
455 ** Java skeleton fixes:
457 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
459 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
460 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
462 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
464 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
466 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
468 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
469 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
471 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
473 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
475 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
476 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
477 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
478 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
481 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
482 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
483 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
484 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
486 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
487 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
488 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
489 then have no effect on the conflict report.
491 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
493 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
494 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
496 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
498 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
500 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
501 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
502 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
503 suppress all warnings:
507 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
509 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
510 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
511 produced an assertion failure. For example:
515 This bug has been fixed.
517 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
519 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
520 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
522 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
525 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
527 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
530 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
531 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
532 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
533 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
535 ** Minor documentation fixes.
537 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
539 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
540 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
541 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
542 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
545 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
547 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
548 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
549 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
550 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
551 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
552 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
553 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
554 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
555 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
557 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
559 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
560 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
563 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
565 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
569 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
570 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
573 %code requires {CODE}
574 %code provides {CODE}
577 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
578 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
579 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
580 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
581 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
583 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
584 is still considered experimental.
586 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
588 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
589 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
590 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
591 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
592 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
595 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
596 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
597 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
598 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
599 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
600 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
601 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
603 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
605 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
606 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
607 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
608 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
609 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
610 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
611 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
612 be removed altogether.
614 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
615 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
616 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
617 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
618 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
619 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
620 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
621 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
622 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
623 2.4.2 is not necessary.
625 ** Internationalization.
627 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
628 message translations were not installed although supported by the
631 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
633 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
634 declarations have been fixed.
636 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
638 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
639 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
641 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
645 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
647 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
648 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
649 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
650 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
651 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
654 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
656 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
658 ** %language is an experimental feature.
660 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
661 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
662 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
663 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
666 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
668 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
671 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
673 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
678 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
682 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
683 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
687 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
688 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
689 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
690 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
691 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
693 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
694 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
696 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
698 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
699 feedback will help to stabilize it.
701 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
702 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
703 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
707 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
708 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
709 %skeleton to select it.
711 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
713 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
714 feedback will help to stabilize it.
718 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
719 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
720 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
721 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
723 ** XML Automaton Report
725 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
726 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
727 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
729 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
730 %defines. For example:
734 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
735 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
736 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
739 ** Unreachable State Removal
741 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
742 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
743 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
745 1. Removes unreachable states.
747 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
748 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
749 directives in existing grammar files.
751 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
752 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
754 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
756 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
758 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
759 for further discussion.
761 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
763 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
764 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
765 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
766 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
767 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
768 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
769 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
772 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
775 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
778 %file-prefix "parser"
782 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
784 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
785 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
786 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
787 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
790 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
791 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
792 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
793 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
795 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
796 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
797 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
798 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
800 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
801 determine whether they should become permanent features.
803 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
805 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
806 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
809 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
811 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
812 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
814 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
816 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
817 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
818 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
820 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
821 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
823 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
825 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
828 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
829 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
830 declared semantic type tags.
832 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
833 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
836 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
837 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
838 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
839 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
841 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
842 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
845 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
848 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
849 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
850 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
852 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
853 completely removed from Bison.
855 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
857 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
858 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
859 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
860 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
861 and is required by POSIX.
863 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
864 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
866 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
870 %union { char *string; }
871 %token <string> STRING1
872 %token <string> STRING2
873 %type <string> string1
874 %type <string> string2
875 %union { char character; }
876 %token <character> CHR
877 %type <character> chr
878 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
879 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
880 %destructor { } <character>
882 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
883 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
884 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
885 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
886 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
888 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
889 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
892 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
893 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
894 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
895 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
896 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
898 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
899 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
901 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
902 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
903 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
904 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
905 declared after the first %union.
907 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
908 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
909 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
910 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
911 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
912 after the token definitions.
914 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
915 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
917 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
918 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
921 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
922 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
923 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
927 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
928 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
929 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
930 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
931 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
934 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
935 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
936 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
937 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
940 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
941 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
942 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
945 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
946 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
947 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
948 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
952 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
953 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
954 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
955 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
956 * Bison-generated definitions. */
959 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
960 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
962 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
963 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
965 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
966 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
969 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
971 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
972 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
974 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
975 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
977 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
979 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
980 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
981 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
983 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
985 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
987 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
988 their contents together.
990 ** New warning: unused values
991 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
992 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
994 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
998 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
999 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1000 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1002 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1003 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1005 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1008 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1009 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1010 values are used, e.g.:
1012 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1013 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1016 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1017 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1019 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1021 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1022 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1024 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1025 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1026 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1027 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1029 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1030 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1031 instead of warnings.
1033 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1034 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1035 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1037 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1039 ** %require "VERSION"
1040 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1041 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1043 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1044 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1045 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1046 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1047 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1049 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1050 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1051 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1052 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1054 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1055 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1057 ** DJGPP support added.
1059 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1061 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1063 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1064 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1065 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1066 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1067 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1068 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1070 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1071 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1072 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1073 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1075 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1076 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1077 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1079 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1080 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1081 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1082 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1083 unexpected "number"'.
1085 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1087 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1089 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1090 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1091 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1092 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1093 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1095 - Error token location.
1096 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1097 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1098 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1099 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1101 - Semicolon changes:
1102 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1103 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1105 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1106 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1107 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1108 forget a closing quote.
1110 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1114 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1116 - New directive: %initial-action.
1117 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1118 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1120 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1121 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1123 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1124 This is a GNU extension.
1126 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1127 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1129 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1131 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1132 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1136 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1137 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1138 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1139 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1140 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1141 these violations will become errors again.
1143 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1144 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1146 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1148 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1150 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1151 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1153 ** syntax error processing
1155 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1156 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1159 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1160 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1163 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1165 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1166 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1168 ** POSIX conformance
1170 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1171 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1172 compatibility with Yacc.
1174 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1175 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1176 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1177 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1180 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1181 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1183 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1184 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1186 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1187 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1189 - Yacc command and library now available
1190 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1191 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1192 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1193 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1195 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1197 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1198 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1199 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1201 ** Other compatibility issues
1203 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1204 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1205 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1206 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1207 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1208 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1210 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1211 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1213 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1214 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1216 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1217 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1218 withdrawn in a future release.
1223 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1226 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1227 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1229 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1230 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1231 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1234 - a single argument only can be added,
1235 - their types are weak (void *),
1236 - this context is not passed to anciliary functions such as yyerror,
1237 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1239 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1242 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1243 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1244 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1246 results in the following signatures:
1248 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1249 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1251 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1253 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1254 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1256 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1257 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1258 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1260 ** #line in output files
1261 - --no-line works properly.
1263 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1264 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1265 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1266 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1268 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1270 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1272 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1275 Fix spurious parse errors.
1278 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1279 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1282 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1283 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1287 but the converse remains an error:
1291 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1294 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1296 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1297 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1299 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1304 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1305 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1306 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1307 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1309 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1310 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1313 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1314 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1315 now creates "bar.c".
1318 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1319 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1321 ** Unknown token numbers
1322 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1326 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1327 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1328 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1329 will be mapped onto another number.
1331 ** Verbose error messages
1332 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1333 error recovery is possible.
1336 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1338 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1339 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1340 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1341 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1342 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1343 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1344 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1345 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1346 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1349 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1352 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1353 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1354 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1355 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1357 ** Explicit initial rule
1358 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1359 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1363 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1364 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1366 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1367 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1369 ** Rules never reduced
1370 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1373 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1374 On a grammar such as
1376 %token useless useful
1378 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1380 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1381 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1383 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1384 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1386 ** Default locations
1387 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1388 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1389 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1390 the computation of @$.
1392 ** Token end-of-file
1393 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1394 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1395 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1399 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1402 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1405 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1406 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1408 ** Incorrect token definitions
1411 bison used to output
1414 ** Token definitions as enums
1415 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1416 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1417 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1420 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1421 produces additional information:
1423 complete the core item sets with their closure
1424 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1425 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1427 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1428 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1429 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1432 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1433 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1441 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1443 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1446 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1447 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1448 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1450 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1451 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1452 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1453 kludge will be disabled.
1455 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1458 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1460 ** File name clashes are detected
1461 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1462 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1464 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1465 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1466 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1467 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1468 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1469 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1471 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1472 many portability hassles.
1474 ** DJGPP support added.
1476 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1478 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1481 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1482 under some conditions.
1487 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1489 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1491 ** Portability fixes
1493 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1495 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1499 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1500 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1501 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1502 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1503 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1505 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1506 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1507 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1509 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1512 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1514 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1515 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1518 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1519 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1520 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1522 ** Better C++ compliance
1523 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1524 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1527 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1530 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1533 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1536 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1539 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1541 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1543 ** Swedish translation
1546 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1547 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1548 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1550 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1551 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1552 previous allocations were not freed.
1554 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1555 Some newlines were missing.
1556 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1558 ** Fixed conflict report.
1559 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1563 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1565 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1567 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1569 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1571 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1572 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1574 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1576 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1580 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1582 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1584 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1585 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1588 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1591 ** Portability fixes.
1593 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1595 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1596 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1597 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1598 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1600 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1602 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1604 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1606 ** Russian translation added.
1608 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1610 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1612 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1614 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1616 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1618 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1619 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1622 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1623 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1626 Automatic location tracking.
1628 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1630 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1634 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1636 ** There is now a FAQ.
1638 * Changes in version 1.27:
1640 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1641 some systems has been fixed.
1643 * Changes in version 1.26:
1645 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1647 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1649 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1651 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1653 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1655 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1657 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1658 not provide alloca().
1660 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1662 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1663 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1665 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1666 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1667 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1669 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1670 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1671 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1674 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1675 directives in the parser file.
1677 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1678 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1680 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1681 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1682 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1683 a switch statement body.
1685 * Changes in version 1.23:
1687 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1688 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1689 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1690 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1692 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1694 * Changes in version 1.22:
1696 --help option added.
1698 * Changes in version 1.20:
1700 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1704 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1706 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1708 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1709 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1710 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1711 (at your option) any later version.
1713 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1714 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1715 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1716 GNU General Public License for more details.
1718 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1719 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1721 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1722 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1723 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1724 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1725 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1726 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1727 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1728 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1729 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1730 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1731 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1732 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1733 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1734 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1735 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1736 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ