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1 Bison News
2 ----------
3
4 * Changes in version 2.5.1_rc1 (2012-05-14):
5
6 ** Future changes:
7
8 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
9
10 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
11
12 ** glr.c improvements:
13
14 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
15
16 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
17 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
18
19 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
20
21 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
22 when -std is passed to GCC).
23
24 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
25
26 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
27 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
28
29 ** C++11 compatibility:
30
31 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
32 or higher.
33
34 ** C++ locations:
35
36 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
37 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
38 documentation were fixed.
39
40 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
41
42 ** Changes in the manual:
43
44 *** %printer is documented
45
46 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
47 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
48
49 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
50 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
51
52 *** Several improvements have been made:
53
54 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
55 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
56 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
57 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
58
59 ** Building bison:
60
61 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
62
63 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
64 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
65
66 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
67
68 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
69
70 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
71 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
72
73 *** The install-pdf target work properly:
74
75 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
76 halts in the middle of its course.
77
78 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
79
80 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
81
82 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
83 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
84 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
85 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
86 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
87
88 ** Named references:
89
90 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
91 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
92 actions code.
93
94 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
95 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
96 as named references:
97
98 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
99 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
100
101 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
102
103 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
104 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
105
106 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
107 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
108 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
109
110 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
111 will help to stabilize them.
112
113 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
114
115 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
116 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
117 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
118 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
119 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
120 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
121 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
122 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
123 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
124
125 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
126 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
127 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
128 file with these directives:
129
130 %define lr.type lalr
131 %define lr.type ielr
132 %define lr.type canonical-lr
133
134 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
135 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
136 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
137 manual.
138
139 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
140 stabilize them.
141
142 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
143
144 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
145 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
146 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
147 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
148 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
149 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
150 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
151 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
152 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
153 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
154 tokens.
155
156 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
157 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
158 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
159 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
160 inconsistent states.
161
162 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
163 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
164 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
165 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
166 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
167 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
168 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
169 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
170 power.
171
172 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
173 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
174
175 %define parse.lac full
176
177 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
178 details including a few caveats.
179
180 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
181 stabilize it.
182
183 ** %define improvements:
184
185 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
186
187 Each of these command-line options
188
189 -D NAME[=VALUE]
190 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
191
192 -F NAME[=VALUE]
193 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
194
195 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
196
197 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
198
199 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
200 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
201 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
202 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
203
204 *** Variables renamed:
205
206 The following %define variables
207
208 api.push_pull
209 lr.keep_unreachable_states
210
211 have been renamed to
212
213 api.push-pull
214 lr.keep-unreachable-states
215
216 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
217 for backward compatibility.
218
219 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
220
221 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
222 within quotations marks. For example,
223
224 %define api.push-pull "push"
225
226 can be rewritten as
227
228 %define api.push-pull push
229
230 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
231
232 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
233
234 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
235
236 ** Character literals not of length one:
237
238 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
239 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
240 the following grammar to be the same token:
241
242 exp: exp '++'
243 | exp '+' exp
244 ;
245
246 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
247 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
248
249 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
250
251 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
252 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
253 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
254 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
255
256 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
257
258 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
259 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
260 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
261 and "last" members, instead of
262
263 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
264 do \
265 if (N) \
266 { \
267 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
268 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
269 } \
270 else \
271 { \
272 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
273 } \
274 while (false)
275
276 use:
277
278 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
279 do \
280 if (N) \
281 { \
282 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
283 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
284 } \
285 else \
286 { \
287 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
288 } \
289 while (false)
290
291 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
292
293 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
294 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
295 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
296 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
297
298 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
299
300 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
301 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
302 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
303 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
304 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
305 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
306 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
307 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
308
309 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
310
311 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
312 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
313 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
314 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
315
316 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
317
318 instead of
319
320 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
321
322 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
323 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
324 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
325 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
326 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
327 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
328 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
329
330 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
331
332 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
333 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
334 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
335 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
336 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
337
338 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
339 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
340 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
341 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
342 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
343 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
344 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
345 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
346 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
347 shifted or discarded.
348
349 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
350 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
351 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
352 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
353
354 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
355 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
356 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
357 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
358 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
359 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
360 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
361 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
362 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
363 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
364 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
365 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
366 by default.
367
368 ** Java skeleton fixes:
369
370 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
371
372 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
373 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
374
375 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
376
377 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
378
379 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
380
381 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
382 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
383
384 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
385
386 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
387
388 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
389 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
390 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
391 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
392 example:
393
394 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
395 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
396 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
397 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
398
399 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
400 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
401 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
402 then have no effect on the conflict report.
403
404 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
405
406 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
407 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
408
409 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
410
411 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
412
413 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
414 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
415 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
416 suppress all warnings:
417
418 bison -Wnone gram.y
419
420 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
421
422 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
423 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
424 produced an assertion failure. For example:
425
426 %left END 0
427
428 This bug has been fixed.
429
430 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
431
432 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
433 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
434
435 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
436 been fixed.
437
438 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
439
440 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
441 been fixed.
442
443 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
444 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
445 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
446 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
447
448 ** Minor documentation fixes.
449
450 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
451
452 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
453 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
454 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
455 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
456 affected platforms.
457
458 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
459
460 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
461 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
462 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
463 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
464 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
465 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
466 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
467 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
468 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
469
470 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
471
472 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
473 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
474 avoided.
475
476 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
477
478 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
479
480 %{CODE%}
481
482 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
483 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
484
485 %code {CODE}
486 %code requires {CODE}
487 %code provides {CODE}
488 %code top {CODE}
489
490 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
491 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
492 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
493 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
494 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
495
496 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
497 is still considered experimental.
498
499 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
500
501 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
502 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
503 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
504 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
505 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
506 specified by POSIX.
507
508 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
509 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
510 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
511 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
512 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
513 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
514 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
515
516 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
517
518 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
519 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
520 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
521 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
522 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
523 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
524 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
525 be removed altogether.
526
527 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
528 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
529 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
530 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
531 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
532 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
533 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
534 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
535 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
536 2.4.2 is not necessary.
537
538 ** Internationalization.
539
540 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
541 message translations were not installed although supported by the
542 host system.
543
544 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
545
546 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
547 declarations have been fixed.
548
549 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
550
551 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
552 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
553
554 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
555
556 instead of
557
558 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
559
560 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
561 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
562 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
563 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
564 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
565 feature.
566
567 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
568
569 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
570
571 ** %language is an experimental feature.
572
573 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
574 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
575 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
576 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
577 in future releases.
578
579 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
580
581 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
582 fixed.
583
584 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
585
586 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
587 are now deprecated:
588
589 %define NAME "VALUE"
590
591 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
592
593 %define api.pure
594
595 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
596 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
597
598 ** Push Parsing
599
600 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
601 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
602 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
603 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
604 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
605
606 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
607 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
608
609 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
610
611 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
612 feedback will help to stabilize it.
613
614 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
615 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
616 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
617
618 ** Java
619
620 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
621 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
622 %skeleton to select it.
623
624 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
625
626 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
627 feedback will help to stabilize it.
628
629 ** %language
630
631 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
632 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
633 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
634 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
635
636 ** XML Automaton Report
637
638 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
639 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
640 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
641
642 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
643 %defines. For example:
644
645 %defines "parser.h"
646
647 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
648 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
649 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
650 instead of "unused".
651
652 ** Unreachable State Removal
653
654 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
655 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
656 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
657
658 1. Removes unreachable states.
659
660 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
661 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
662 directives in existing grammar files.
663
664 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
665 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
666
667 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
668
669 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
670
671 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
672 for further discussion.
673
674 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
675
676 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
677 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
678 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
679 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
680 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
681 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
682 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
683 code.
684
685 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
686 name.
687
688 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
689 deprecated:
690
691 %file-prefix "parser"
692 %name-prefix "c_"
693 %output "parser.c"
694
695 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
696
697 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
698 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
699 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
700 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
701 it:
702
703 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
704 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
705 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
706 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
707
708 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
709 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
710 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
711 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
712
713 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
714 determine whether they should become permanent features.
715
716 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
717
718 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
719 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
720 about unused $2 in:
721
722 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
723
724 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
725 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
726
727 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
728
729 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
730 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
731 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
732
733 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
734 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
735
736 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
737
738 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
739 %printer's:
740
741 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
742 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
743 declared semantic type tags.
744
745 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
746 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
747 type tags.
748
749 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
750 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
751 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
752 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
753
754 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
755 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
756 features.
757
758 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
759 details.
760
761 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
762 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
763 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
764
765 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
766 completely removed from Bison.
767
768 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
769
770 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
771 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
772 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
773 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
774 and is required by POSIX.
775
776 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
777 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
778
779 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
780
781 For example:
782
783 %union { char *string; }
784 %token <string> STRING1
785 %token <string> STRING2
786 %type <string> string1
787 %type <string> string2
788 %union { char character; }
789 %token <character> CHR
790 %type <character> chr
791 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
792 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
793 %destructor { } <character>
794
795 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
796 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
797 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
798 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
799 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
800
801 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
802 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
803 future versions.]
804
805 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
806 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
807 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
808 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
809 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
810
811 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
812 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
813
814 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
815 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
816 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
817 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
818 declared after the first %union.
819
820 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
821 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
822 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
823 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
824 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
825 after the token definitions.
826
827 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
828 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
829
830 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
831 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
832 %after-header.
833
834 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
835 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
836 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
837 convenient for you:
838
839 %before-header {
840 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
841 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
842 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
843 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
844 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
845 }
846 %start-header {
847 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
848 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
849 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
850 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
851 }
852 %union {
853 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
854 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
855 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
856 }
857 %end-header {
858 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
859 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
860 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
861 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
862 * definitions. */
863 }
864 %after-header {
865 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
866 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
867 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
868 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
869 * Bison-generated definitions. */
870 }
871
872 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
873 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
874
875 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
876 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
877
878 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
879 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
880 in a future release.
881
882 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
883
884 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
885 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
886
887 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
888 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
889
890 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
891
892 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
893 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
894 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
895
896 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
897
898 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
899
900 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
901 their contents together.
902
903 ** New warning: unused values
904 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
905 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
906
907 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
908 | exp "+" exp
909 ;
910
911 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
912 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
913 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
914
915 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
916 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
917 | exp "+" exp
918 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
919 ;
920
921 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
922 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
923 values are used, e.g.:
924
925 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
926 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
927 ;
928
929 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
930 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
931
932 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
933
934 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
935 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
936
937 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
938 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
939 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
940 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
941
942 ** %expect, %expect-rr
943 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
944 instead of warnings.
945
946 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
947 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
948 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
949
950 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
951
952 ** %require "VERSION"
953 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
954 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
955
956 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
957 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
958 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
959 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
960 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
961
962 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
963 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
964 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
965 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
966
967 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
968 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
969
970 ** DJGPP support added.
971 \f
972 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
973
974 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
975
976 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
977 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
978 language is still English. For details, please see the new
979 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
980 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
981 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
982
983 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
984 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
985 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
986 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
987
988 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
989 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
990 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
991
992 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
993 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
994 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
995 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
996 unexpected "number"'.
997 \f
998 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
999
1000 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1001
1002 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1003 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1004 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1005 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1006 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1007
1008 - Error token location.
1009 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1010 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1011 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1012 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1013
1014 - Semicolon changes:
1015 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1016 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1017
1018 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1019 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1020 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1021 forget a closing quote.
1022
1023 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1024
1025 ** New features
1026
1027 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1028
1029 - New directive: %initial-action.
1030 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1031 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1032
1033 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1034 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1035
1036 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1037 This is a GNU extension.
1038
1039 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1040 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1041
1042 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1043
1044 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1045 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1046
1047 ** Bug fixes
1048
1049 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1050 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1051 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1052 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1053 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1054 these violations will become errors again.
1055
1056 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1057 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1058
1059 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1060 \f
1061 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1062
1063 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1064 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1065
1066 ** syntax error processing
1067
1068 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1069 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1070
1071 - %destructor
1072 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1073 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1074
1075 - %error-verbose
1076 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1077
1078 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1079 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1080
1081 ** POSIX conformance
1082
1083 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1084 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1085 compatibility with Yacc.
1086
1087 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1088 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1089 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1090 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1091 be consistent.
1092
1093 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1094 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1095
1096 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1097 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1098
1099 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1100 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1101
1102 - Yacc command and library now available
1103 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1104 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1105 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1106 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1107
1108 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1109
1110 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1111 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1112 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1113
1114 ** Other compatibility issues
1115
1116 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1117 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1118 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1119 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1120 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1121 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1122
1123 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1124 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1125
1126 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1127 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1128
1129 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1130 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1131 withdrawn in a future release.
1132
1133 ** GLR parser notes
1134
1135 - GLR and inline
1136 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1137 C keyword "inline".
1138
1139 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1140 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1141
1142 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1143 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1144 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1145
1146 ** #line in output files
1147 - --no-line works properly.
1148
1149 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1150 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1151 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1152 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1153 \f
1154 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1155
1156 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1157
1158 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1159
1160 ** GLR parsers
1161 Fix spurious parse errors.
1162
1163 ** Pure parsers
1164 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1165 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1166
1167 ** Type Clashes
1168 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1169 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1170
1171 untyped: ... typed;
1172
1173 but the converse remains an error:
1174
1175 typed: ... untyped;
1176
1177 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1178 The following code:
1179
1180 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1181
1182 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1183 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1184 \f
1185 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1186
1187 ** GLR parsing
1188 The declaration
1189 %glr-parser
1190 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1191 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1192 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1193 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1194
1195 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1196 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1197
1198 ** Output Directory
1199 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1200 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1201 now creates "bar.c".
1202
1203 ** Undefined token
1204 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1205 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1206
1207 ** Unknown token numbers
1208 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1209 no longer the case.
1210
1211 ** Error token
1212 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1213 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1214 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1215 will be mapped onto another number.
1216
1217 ** Verbose error messages
1218 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1219 error recovery is possible.
1220
1221 ** End token
1222 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1223
1224 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1225 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1226 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1227 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1228 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1229 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1230 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1231 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1232 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1233
1234 ** Traces
1235 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1236
1237 ** Larger grammars
1238 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1239 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1240 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1241 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1242
1243 ** Explicit initial rule
1244 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1245 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1246 graphs as rule 0.
1247
1248 ** Useless rules
1249 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1250 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1251
1252 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1253 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1254
1255 ** Rules never reduced
1256 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1257 reported.
1258
1259 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1260 On a grammar such as
1261
1262 %token useless useful
1263 %%
1264 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1265
1266 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1267 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1268
1269 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1270 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1271
1272 ** Default locations
1273 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1274 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1275 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1276 the computation of @$.
1277
1278 ** Token end-of-file
1279 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1280 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1281 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1282 For instance
1283 %token MYEOF 0
1284 or
1285 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1286
1287 ** Semantic parser
1288 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1289
1290 ** New translations
1291 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1292 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1293
1294 ** Incorrect token definitions
1295 When given
1296 %token 'a' "A"
1297 bison used to output
1298 #define 'a' 65
1299
1300 ** Token definitions as enums
1301 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1302 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1303 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1304
1305 ** Reports
1306 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1307 produces additional information:
1308 - itemset
1309 complete the core item sets with their closure
1310 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1311 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1312 - solved
1313 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1314 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1315 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1316
1317 ** Type clashes
1318 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1319 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1320
1321 %type <foo> bar
1322 %%
1323 bar: '0' {} '0';
1324
1325 This is fixed.
1326
1327 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1328 \f
1329 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1330
1331 ** C Skeleton
1332 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1333 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1334 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1335
1336 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1337 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1338 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1339 kludge will be disabled.
1340
1341 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1342 extended.
1343 \f
1344 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1345
1346 ** File name clashes are detected
1347 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1348 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1349
1350 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1351 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1352 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1353 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1354 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1355 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1356
1357 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1358 many portability hassles.
1359
1360 ** DJGPP support added.
1361
1362 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1363 \f
1364 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1365
1366 ** Fix C++ issues
1367 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1368 under some conditions.
1369
1370 ** Catch invalid @n
1371 As is done with $n.
1372 \f
1373 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1374
1375 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1376
1377 ** Portability fixes
1378
1379 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1380 \f
1381 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1382
1383 ** Many Bug Fixes
1384
1385 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1386 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1387 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1388 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1389 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1390
1391 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1392 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1393 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1394
1395 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1396 problems as on AIX.
1397
1398 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1399
1400 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1401 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1402
1403 ** User Actions
1404 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1405 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1406 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1407
1408 ** Better C++ compliance
1409 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1410 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1411
1412 ** Reduced Grammars
1413 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1414
1415 ** 64 bit hosts
1416 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1417
1418 ** Error messages
1419 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1420
1421 ** %expect
1422 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1423 any warning.
1424
1425 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1426
1427 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1428
1429 ** Swedish translation
1430
1431 ** Parse errors
1432 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1433 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1434 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1435
1436 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1437 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1438 previous allocations were not freed.
1439
1440 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1441 Some newlines were missing.
1442 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1443
1444 ** Fixed conflict report.
1445 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1446
1447 ** %expect
1448 Was not used.
1449 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1450
1451 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1452
1453 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1454
1455 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1456
1457 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1458 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1459
1460 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1461
1462 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1463 New.
1464
1465 ** --output
1466 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1467 \f
1468 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1469
1470 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1471 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1472 argument.
1473
1474 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1475 experiment.
1476
1477 ** Portability fixes.
1478 \f
1479 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1480
1481 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1482 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1483 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1484 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1485
1486 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1487
1488 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1489
1490 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1491
1492 ** Russian translation added.
1493
1494 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1495
1496 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1497
1498 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1499
1500 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1501
1502 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1503
1504 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1505 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1506
1507 ** New directives.
1508 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1509 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1510
1511 ** @$
1512 Automatic location tracking.
1513 \f
1514 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1515
1516 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1517
1518 ** Added NLS.
1519
1520 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1521
1522 ** There is now a FAQ.
1523 \f
1524 * Changes in version 1.27:
1525
1526 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1527 some systems has been fixed.
1528 \f
1529 * Changes in version 1.26:
1530
1531 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1532
1533 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1534
1535 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1536
1537 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1538
1539 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1540
1541 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1542
1543 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1544 not provide alloca().
1545 \f
1546 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1547
1548 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1549 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1550
1551 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1552 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1553 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1554
1555 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1556 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1557 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1558 purposes.
1559
1560 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1561 directives in the parser file.
1562
1563 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1564 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1565
1566 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1567 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1568 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1569 a switch statement body.
1570 \f
1571 * Changes in version 1.23:
1572
1573 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1574 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1575 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1576 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1577
1578 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1579 \f
1580 * Changes in version 1.22:
1581
1582 --help option added.
1583 \f
1584 * Changes in version 1.20:
1585
1586 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1587
1588 -----
1589
1590 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1591
1592 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1593
1594 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1595 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1596 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1597 (at your option) any later version.
1598
1599 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1600 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1601 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1602 GNU General Public License for more details.
1603
1604 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1605 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1606
1607 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1608 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1609 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1610 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1611 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1612 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1613 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1614 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1615 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1616 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1617 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1618 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1619 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1620 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1621 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1622 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ
1623
1624 Local Variables:
1625 mode: outline
1626 fill-column: 76
1627 End: