3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Warning categories are now displayed
20 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
22 *** Useless semantic types
24 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
25 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
26 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
27 types that trigger the warning:
31 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
32 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
34 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
36 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
37 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
39 *** Undefined but unused symbols
41 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
42 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
45 %destructor {} symbol2
50 *** Useless destructors or printers
52 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
53 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
54 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
55 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
61 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
62 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
64 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
66 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
67 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
68 or more arguments. Instead of
70 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
71 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
72 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
73 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
77 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
79 ** Java skeleton improvements
81 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
82 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
83 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
85 ** C++ skeletons improvements
87 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
89 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
90 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
91 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
93 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
95 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
97 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
99 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
100 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
101 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
102 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
103 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
104 factory invoked by the user actions).
106 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
108 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
109 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
110 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
112 %token FILE for ERROR
113 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
115 start: FILE for ERROR;
117 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
118 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
119 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
120 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
122 ** Variable api.namespace
124 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
125 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
127 ** Variable parse.error
129 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
130 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
131 %define parse.error "verbose".
133 ** Semantic predicates
135 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
136 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
137 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
138 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
139 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
140 run-time expressions.
142 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
145 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
149 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
150 suite have been fixed.
152 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
154 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
155 invalid C++. This is fixed.
157 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
159 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
161 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
163 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
167 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
168 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
169 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
171 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
175 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
179 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
181 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
183 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
185 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
186 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
189 ** Type names in actions
191 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
192 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
194 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
196 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
197 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
199 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
203 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
204 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
208 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
209 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
212 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
214 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
217 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
218 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
220 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
223 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
225 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
226 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
227 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
228 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
231 ** Generated Parser Headers
233 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
235 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
236 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
241 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
243 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
245 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
246 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
248 int bar_parse (void);
252 #define yyparse bar_parse
255 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
256 single compilation unit.
258 *** Exported symbols in C++
260 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
261 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
262 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
266 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
269 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
271 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
272 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
273 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
274 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
275 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
276 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
277 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
279 The following examples compares both:
281 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
282 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
283 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
289 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
290 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
292 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
293 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
294 > # if defined YYDEBUG
296 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
298 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
301 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
305 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
306 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
309 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
310 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
311 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
312 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
317 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
318 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
319 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
322 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
323 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
326 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
328 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
330 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
332 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
336 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
338 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
340 ** glr.c improvements:
342 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
344 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
345 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
347 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
349 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
350 when -std is passed to GCC).
352 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
354 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
355 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
359 *** C++11 compatibility:
361 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
366 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
367 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
369 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
370 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
372 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
374 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
375 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
376 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
378 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
380 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
381 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
383 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
387 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
388 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
389 documentation were fixed.
391 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
393 ** Changes in the manual:
395 *** %printer is documented
397 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
398 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
400 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
401 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
403 *** Several improvements have been made:
405 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
406 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
407 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
408 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
412 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
414 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
415 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
417 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
419 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
421 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
422 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
424 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
426 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
427 halts in the middle of its course.
429 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
431 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
433 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
434 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
435 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
436 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
437 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
441 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
442 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
445 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
446 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
449 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
450 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
452 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
454 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
455 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
457 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
458 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
459 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
461 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
462 will help to stabilize them.
464 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
466 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
467 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
468 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
469 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
470 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
471 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
472 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
473 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
474 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
476 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
477 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
478 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
479 file with these directives:
483 %define lr.type canonical-lr
485 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
486 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
487 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
490 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
493 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
495 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
496 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
497 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
498 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
499 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
500 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
501 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
502 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
503 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
504 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
507 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
508 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
509 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
510 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
513 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
514 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
515 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
516 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
517 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
518 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
519 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
520 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
523 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
524 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
526 %define parse.lac full
528 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
529 details including a few caveats.
531 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
534 ** %define improvements:
536 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
538 Each of these command-line options
541 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
544 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
546 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
548 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
550 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
551 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
552 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
553 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
555 *** Variables renamed:
557 The following %define variables
560 lr.keep_unreachable_states
565 lr.keep-unreachable-states
567 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
568 for backward compatibility.
570 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
572 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
573 within quotations marks. For example,
575 %define api.push-pull "push"
579 %define api.push-pull push
581 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
583 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
585 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
587 ** Character literals not of length one:
589 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
590 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
591 the following grammar to be the same token:
597 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
598 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
600 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
602 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
603 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
604 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
605 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
607 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
609 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
610 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
611 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
612 and "last" members, instead of
614 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
618 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
619 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
623 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
629 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
633 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
634 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
638 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
642 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
644 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
645 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
646 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
647 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
649 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
651 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
652 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
653 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
654 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
655 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
656 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
657 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
658 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
660 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
662 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
663 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
664 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
665 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
667 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
671 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
673 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
674 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
675 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
676 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
677 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
678 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
679 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
681 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
683 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
684 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
685 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
686 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
687 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
689 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
690 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
691 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
692 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
693 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
694 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
695 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
696 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
697 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
698 shifted or discarded.
700 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
701 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
702 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
703 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
705 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
706 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
707 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
708 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
709 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
710 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
711 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
712 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
713 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
714 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
715 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
716 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
719 ** Java skeleton fixes:
721 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
723 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
724 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
726 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
728 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
730 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
732 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
733 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
735 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
737 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
739 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
740 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
741 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
742 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
745 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
746 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
747 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
748 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
750 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
751 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
752 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
753 then have no effect on the conflict report.
755 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
757 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
758 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
760 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
762 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
764 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
765 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
766 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
767 suppress all warnings:
771 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
773 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
774 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
775 produced an assertion failure. For example:
779 This bug has been fixed.
781 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
783 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
784 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
786 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
789 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
791 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
794 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
795 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
796 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
797 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
799 ** Minor documentation fixes.
801 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
803 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
804 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
805 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
806 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
809 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
811 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
812 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
813 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
814 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
815 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
816 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
817 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
818 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
819 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
821 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
823 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
824 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
827 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
829 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
833 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
834 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
837 %code requires {CODE}
838 %code provides {CODE}
841 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
842 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
843 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
844 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
845 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
847 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
848 is still considered experimental.
850 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
852 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
853 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
854 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
855 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
856 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
859 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
860 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
861 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
862 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
863 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
864 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
865 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
867 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
869 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
870 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
871 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
872 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
873 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
874 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
875 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
876 be removed altogether.
878 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
879 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
880 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
881 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
882 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
883 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
884 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
885 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
886 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
887 2.4.2 is not necessary.
889 ** Internationalization.
891 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
892 message translations were not installed although supported by the
895 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
897 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
898 declarations have been fixed.
900 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
902 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
903 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
905 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
909 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
911 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
912 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
913 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
914 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
915 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
918 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
920 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
922 ** %language is an experimental feature.
924 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
925 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
926 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
927 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
930 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
932 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
935 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
937 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
942 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
946 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
947 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
951 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
952 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
953 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
954 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
955 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
957 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
958 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
960 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
962 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
963 feedback will help to stabilize it.
965 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
966 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
967 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
971 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
972 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
973 %skeleton to select it.
975 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
977 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
978 feedback will help to stabilize it.
982 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
983 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
984 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
985 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
987 ** XML Automaton Report
989 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
990 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
991 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
993 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
994 %defines. For example:
998 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
999 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1000 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1001 instead of "unused".
1003 ** Unreachable State Removal
1005 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1006 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1007 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1009 1. Removes unreachable states.
1011 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1012 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1013 directives in existing grammar files.
1015 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1016 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1018 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1020 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1022 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1023 for further discussion.
1025 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1027 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1028 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1029 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1030 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1031 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1032 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1033 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1036 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1039 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1042 %file-prefix "parser"
1046 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1048 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1049 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1050 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1051 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1054 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1055 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1056 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1057 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1059 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1060 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1061 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1062 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1064 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1065 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1067 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1069 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1070 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1073 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1075 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1076 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1078 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1080 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1081 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1082 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1084 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1085 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1087 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1089 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1092 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1093 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1094 declared semantic type tags.
1096 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1097 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1100 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1101 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1102 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1103 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1105 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1106 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1109 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1112 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1113 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1114 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1116 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1117 completely removed from Bison.
1119 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1121 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1122 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1123 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1124 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1125 and is required by POSIX.
1127 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1128 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1130 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1134 %union { char *string; }
1135 %token <string> STRING1
1136 %token <string> STRING2
1137 %type <string> string1
1138 %type <string> string2
1139 %union { char character; }
1140 %token <character> CHR
1141 %type <character> chr
1142 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1143 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1144 %destructor { } <character>
1146 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1147 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1148 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1149 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1150 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1152 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1153 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1156 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1157 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1158 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1159 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1160 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1162 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1163 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1165 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1166 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1167 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1168 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1169 declared after the first %union.
1171 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1172 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1173 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1174 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1175 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1176 after the token definitions.
1178 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1179 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1181 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1182 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1185 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1186 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1187 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1191 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1192 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1193 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1194 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1195 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1198 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1199 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1200 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1201 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1204 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1205 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1206 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1209 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1210 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1211 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1212 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1216 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1217 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1218 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1219 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1220 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1223 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1224 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1226 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1227 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1229 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1230 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1231 in a future release.
1233 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1235 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1236 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1238 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1239 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1241 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1243 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1244 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1245 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1247 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1249 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1251 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1252 their contents together.
1254 ** New warning: unused values
1255 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1256 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1258 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1262 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1263 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1264 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1266 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1267 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1269 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1272 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1273 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1274 values are used, e.g.:
1276 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1277 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1280 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1281 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1283 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1285 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1286 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1288 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1289 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1290 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1291 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1293 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1294 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1295 instead of warnings.
1297 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1298 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1299 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1301 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1303 ** %require "VERSION"
1304 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1305 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1307 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1308 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1309 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1310 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1311 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1313 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1314 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1315 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1316 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1318 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1319 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1321 ** DJGPP support added.
1323 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1325 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1327 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1328 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1329 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1330 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1331 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1332 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1334 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1335 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1336 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1337 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1339 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1340 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1341 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1343 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1344 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1345 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1346 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1347 unexpected "number"'.
1349 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1351 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1353 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1354 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1355 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1356 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1357 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1359 - Error token location.
1360 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1361 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1362 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1363 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1365 - Semicolon changes:
1366 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1367 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1369 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1370 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1371 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1372 forget a closing quote.
1374 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1378 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1380 - New directive: %initial-action.
1381 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1382 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1384 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1385 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1387 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1388 This is a GNU extension.
1390 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1391 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1393 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1395 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1396 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1400 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1401 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1402 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1403 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1404 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1405 these violations will become errors again.
1407 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1408 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1410 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1412 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1414 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1415 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1417 ** syntax error processing
1419 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1420 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1423 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1424 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1427 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1429 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1430 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1432 ** POSIX conformance
1434 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1435 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1436 compatibility with Yacc.
1438 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1439 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1440 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1441 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1444 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1445 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1447 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1448 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1450 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1451 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1453 - Yacc command and library now available
1454 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1455 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1456 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1457 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1459 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1461 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1462 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1463 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1465 ** Other compatibility issues
1467 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1468 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1469 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1470 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1471 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1472 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1474 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1475 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1477 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1478 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1480 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1481 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1482 withdrawn in a future release.
1487 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1490 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1491 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1493 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1494 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1495 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1498 - a single argument only can be added,
1499 - their types are weak (void *),
1500 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1501 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1503 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1506 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1507 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1508 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1510 results in the following signatures:
1512 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1513 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1515 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1517 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1518 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1520 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1521 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1522 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1524 ** #line in output files
1525 - --no-line works properly.
1527 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1528 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1529 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1530 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1532 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1534 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1536 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1539 Fix spurious parse errors.
1542 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1543 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1546 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1547 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1551 but the converse remains an error:
1555 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1558 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1560 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1561 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1563 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1568 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1569 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1570 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1571 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1573 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1574 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1577 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1578 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1579 now creates "bar.c".
1582 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1583 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1585 ** Unknown token numbers
1586 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1590 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1591 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1592 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1593 will be mapped onto another number.
1595 ** Verbose error messages
1596 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1597 error recovery is possible.
1600 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1602 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1603 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1604 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1605 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1606 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1607 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1608 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1609 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1610 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1613 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1616 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1617 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1618 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1619 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1621 ** Explicit initial rule
1622 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1623 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1627 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1628 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1630 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1631 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1633 ** Rules never reduced
1634 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1637 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1638 On a grammar such as
1640 %token useless useful
1642 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1644 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1645 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1647 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1648 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1650 ** Default locations
1651 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1652 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1653 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1654 the computation of @$.
1656 ** Token end-of-file
1657 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1658 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1659 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1663 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1666 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1669 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1670 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1672 ** Incorrect token definitions
1675 bison used to output
1678 ** Token definitions as enums
1679 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1680 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1681 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1684 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1685 produces additional information:
1687 complete the core item sets with their closure
1688 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1689 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1691 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1692 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1693 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1696 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1697 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1705 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1707 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1710 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1711 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1712 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1714 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1715 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1716 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1717 kludge will be disabled.
1719 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1722 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1724 ** File name clashes are detected
1725 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1726 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1728 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1729 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1730 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1731 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1732 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1733 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1735 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1736 many portability hassles.
1738 ** DJGPP support added.
1740 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1742 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1745 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1746 under some conditions.
1751 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1753 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1755 ** Portability fixes
1757 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1759 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1763 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1764 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1765 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1766 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1767 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1769 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1770 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1771 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1773 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1776 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1778 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1779 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1782 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1783 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1784 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1786 ** Better C++ compliance
1787 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1788 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1791 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1794 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1797 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1800 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1803 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1805 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1807 ** Swedish translation
1810 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1811 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1812 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1814 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1815 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1816 previous allocations were not freed.
1818 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1819 Some newlines were missing.
1820 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1822 ** Fixed conflict report.
1823 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1827 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1829 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1831 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1833 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1835 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1836 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1838 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1840 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1844 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1846 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1848 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1849 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1852 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1855 ** Portability fixes.
1857 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1859 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1860 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1861 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1862 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1864 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1866 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1868 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1870 ** Russian translation added.
1872 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1874 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1876 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1878 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1880 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1882 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1883 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1886 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1887 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1890 Automatic location tracking.
1892 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1894 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1898 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1900 ** There is now a FAQ.
1902 * Changes in version 1.27:
1904 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1905 some systems has been fixed.
1907 * Changes in version 1.26:
1909 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1911 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1913 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1915 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1917 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1919 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1921 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1922 not provide alloca().
1924 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1926 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1927 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1929 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1930 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1931 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1933 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1934 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1935 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1938 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1939 directives in the parser file.
1941 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1942 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1944 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1945 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1946 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1947 a switch statement body.
1949 * Changes in version 1.23:
1951 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1952 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1953 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1954 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1956 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1958 * Changes in version 1.22:
1960 --help option added.
1962 * Changes in version 1.20:
1964 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1968 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1970 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1972 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1973 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1974 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1975 (at your option) any later version.
1977 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1978 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1979 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1980 GNU General Public License for more details.
1982 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1983 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1985 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1986 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1987 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1988 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1989 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1990 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1991 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1992 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1993 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1994 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1995 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1996 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1997 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1998 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1999 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2000 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2001 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2002 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init