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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Bug fixes
6
7 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
8
9 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
10 users to the appropriate place to report them.
11
12 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
13
14 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
15 generated, are removed.
16
17 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
18
19 ** Bug fixes
20
21 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
22 suite have been fixed.
23
24 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
25
26 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
27 invalid C++. This is fixed.
28
29 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
30
31 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
32
33 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
34
35 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
36
37 ** Future Changes
38
39 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
40 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
41 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
42
43 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
44
45 write:
46
47 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
48
49 ** Bug fixes
50
51 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
52
53 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
54
55 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
56
57 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
58 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
59 now does.
60
61 ** Type names in actions
62
63 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
64 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
65
66 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
67
68 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
69 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
70
71 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
72
73 ** Future Changes
74
75 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
76 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
77
78 *** K&R C parsers
79
80 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
81 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
82 compilers.
83
84 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
85
86 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
87 YYLTYPE.
88
89 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
90 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
91
92 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
93 %error-verbose.
94
95 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
96
97 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
98 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
99 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
100 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
101 it.
102
103 ** Generated Parser Headers
104
105 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
106
107 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
108 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
109
110 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
111 # define YY_FOO_H
112 ...
113 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
114
115 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
116
117 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
118 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
119
120 int bar_parse (void);
121
122 rather than
123
124 #define yyparse bar_parse
125 int yyparse (void);
126
127 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
128 single compilation unit.
129
130 *** Exported symbols in C++
131
132 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
133 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
134 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
135
136 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
137
138 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
139 longer defined.
140
141 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
142
143 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
144 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
145 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
146 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
147 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
148 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
149 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
150
151 The following examples compares both:
152
153 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
154 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
155 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
156 %% %%
157 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
158
159 bison generates:
160
161 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
162 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
163
164 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
165 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
166 > # if defined YYDEBUG
167 > # if YYDEBUG
168 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
169 > # else
170 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
171 > # endif
172 > # else
173 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
174 > # endif
175 # endif | # endif
176
177 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
178 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
179 # endif # endif
180
181 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
182 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
183 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
184 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
185 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
186 }; };
187 # endif # endif
188
189 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
190 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
191 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
192 { {
193 int ival; int ival;
194 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
195 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
196 #endif #endif
197
198 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
199
200 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
201
202 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
203
204 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
205
206 ** Future changes:
207
208 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
209
210 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
211
212 ** glr.c improvements:
213
214 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
215
216 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
217 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
218
219 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
220
221 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
222 when -std is passed to GCC).
223
224 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
225
226 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
227 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
228
229 ** Changes for C++:
230
231 *** C++11 compatibility:
232
233 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
234 or higher.
235
236 *** Header guards
237
238 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
239 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
240
241 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
242 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
243 ...
244 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
245
246 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
247 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
248 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
249
250 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
251
252 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
253 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
254 ...
255 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
256
257 *** C++ locations:
258
259 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
260 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
261 documentation were fixed.
262
263 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
264
265 ** Changes in the manual:
266
267 *** %printer is documented
268
269 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
270 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
271
272 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
273 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
274
275 *** Several improvements have been made:
276
277 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
278 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
279 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
280 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
281
282 ** Building bison:
283
284 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
285
286 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
287 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
288
289 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
290
291 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
292
293 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
294 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
295
296 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
297
298 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
299 halts in the middle of its course.
300
301 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
302
303 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
304
305 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
306 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
307 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
308 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
309 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
310
311 ** Named references:
312
313 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
314 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
315 actions code.
316
317 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
318 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
319 as named references:
320
321 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
322 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
323
324 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
325
326 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
327 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
328
329 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
330 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
331 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
332
333 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
334 will help to stabilize them.
335
336 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
337
338 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
339 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
340 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
341 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
342 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
343 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
344 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
345 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
346 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
347
348 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
349 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
350 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
351 file with these directives:
352
353 %define lr.type lalr
354 %define lr.type ielr
355 %define lr.type canonical-lr
356
357 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
358 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
359 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
360 manual.
361
362 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
363 stabilize them.
364
365 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
366
367 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
368 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
369 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
370 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
371 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
372 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
373 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
374 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
375 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
376 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
377 tokens.
378
379 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
380 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
381 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
382 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
383 inconsistent states.
384
385 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
386 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
387 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
388 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
389 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
390 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
391 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
392 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
393 power.
394
395 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
396 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
397
398 %define parse.lac full
399
400 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
401 details including a few caveats.
402
403 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
404 stabilize it.
405
406 ** %define improvements:
407
408 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
409
410 Each of these command-line options
411
412 -D NAME[=VALUE]
413 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
414
415 -F NAME[=VALUE]
416 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
417
418 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
419
420 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
421
422 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
423 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
424 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
425 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
426
427 *** Variables renamed:
428
429 The following %define variables
430
431 api.push_pull
432 lr.keep_unreachable_states
433
434 have been renamed to
435
436 api.push-pull
437 lr.keep-unreachable-states
438
439 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
440 for backward compatibility.
441
442 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
443
444 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
445 within quotations marks. For example,
446
447 %define api.push-pull "push"
448
449 can be rewritten as
450
451 %define api.push-pull push
452
453 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
454
455 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
456
457 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
458
459 ** Character literals not of length one:
460
461 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
462 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
463 the following grammar to be the same token:
464
465 exp: exp '++'
466 | exp '+' exp
467 ;
468
469 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
470 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
471
472 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
473
474 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
475 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
476 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
477 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
478
479 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
480
481 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
482 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
483 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
484 and "last" members, instead of
485
486 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
487 do \
488 if (N) \
489 { \
490 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
491 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
492 } \
493 else \
494 { \
495 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
496 } \
497 while (false)
498
499 use:
500
501 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
502 do \
503 if (N) \
504 { \
505 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
506 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
507 } \
508 else \
509 { \
510 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
511 } \
512 while (false)
513
514 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
515
516 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
517 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
518 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
519 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
520
521 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
522
523 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
524 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
525 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
526 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
527 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
528 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
529 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
530 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
531
532 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
533
534 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
535 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
536 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
537 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
538
539 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
540
541 instead of
542
543 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
544
545 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
546 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
547 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
548 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
549 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
550 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
551 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
552
553 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
554
555 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
556 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
557 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
558 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
559 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
560
561 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
562 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
563 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
564 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
565 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
566 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
567 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
568 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
569 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
570 shifted or discarded.
571
572 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
573 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
574 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
575 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
576
577 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
578 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
579 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
580 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
581 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
582 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
583 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
584 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
585 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
586 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
587 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
588 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
589 by default.
590
591 ** Java skeleton fixes:
592
593 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
594
595 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
596 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
597
598 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
599
600 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
601
602 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
603
604 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
605 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
606
607 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
608
609 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
610
611 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
612 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
613 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
614 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
615 example:
616
617 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
618 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
619 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
620 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
621
622 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
623 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
624 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
625 then have no effect on the conflict report.
626
627 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
628
629 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
630 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
631
632 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
633
634 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
635
636 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
637 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
638 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
639 suppress all warnings:
640
641 bison -Wnone gram.y
642
643 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
644
645 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
646 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
647 produced an assertion failure. For example:
648
649 %left END 0
650
651 This bug has been fixed.
652
653 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
654
655 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
656 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
657
658 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
659 been fixed.
660
661 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
662
663 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
664 been fixed.
665
666 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
667 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
668 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
669 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
670
671 ** Minor documentation fixes.
672
673 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
674
675 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
676 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
677 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
678 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
679 affected platforms.
680
681 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
682
683 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
684 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
685 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
686 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
687 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
688 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
689 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
690 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
691 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
692
693 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
694
695 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
696 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
697 avoided.
698
699 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
700
701 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
702
703 %{CODE%}
704
705 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
706 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
707
708 %code {CODE}
709 %code requires {CODE}
710 %code provides {CODE}
711 %code top {CODE}
712
713 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
714 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
715 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
716 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
717 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
718
719 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
720 is still considered experimental.
721
722 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
723
724 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
725 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
726 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
727 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
728 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
729 specified by POSIX.
730
731 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
732 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
733 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
734 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
735 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
736 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
737 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
738
739 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
740
741 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
742 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
743 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
744 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
745 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
746 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
747 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
748 be removed altogether.
749
750 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
751 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
752 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
753 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
754 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
755 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
756 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
757 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
758 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
759 2.4.2 is not necessary.
760
761 ** Internationalization.
762
763 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
764 message translations were not installed although supported by the
765 host system.
766
767 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
768
769 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
770 declarations have been fixed.
771
772 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
773
774 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
775 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
776
777 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
778
779 instead of
780
781 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
782
783 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
784 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
785 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
786 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
787 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
788 feature.
789
790 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
791
792 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
793
794 ** %language is an experimental feature.
795
796 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
797 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
798 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
799 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
800 in future releases.
801
802 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
803
804 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
805 fixed.
806
807 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
808
809 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
810 are now deprecated:
811
812 %define NAME "VALUE"
813
814 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
815
816 %define api.pure
817
818 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
819 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
820
821 ** Push Parsing
822
823 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
824 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
825 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
826 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
827 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
828
829 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
830 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
831
832 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
833
834 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
835 feedback will help to stabilize it.
836
837 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
838 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
839 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
840
841 ** Java
842
843 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
844 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
845 %skeleton to select it.
846
847 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
848
849 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
850 feedback will help to stabilize it.
851
852 ** %language
853
854 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
855 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
856 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
857 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
858
859 ** XML Automaton Report
860
861 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
862 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
863 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
864
865 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
866 %defines. For example:
867
868 %defines "parser.h"
869
870 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
871 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
872 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
873 instead of "unused".
874
875 ** Unreachable State Removal
876
877 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
878 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
879 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
880
881 1. Removes unreachable states.
882
883 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
884 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
885 directives in existing grammar files.
886
887 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
888 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
889
890 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
891
892 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
893
894 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
895 for further discussion.
896
897 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
898
899 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
900 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
901 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
902 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
903 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
904 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
905 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
906 code.
907
908 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
909 name.
910
911 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
912 deprecated:
913
914 %file-prefix "parser"
915 %name-prefix "c_"
916 %output "parser.c"
917
918 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
919
920 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
921 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
922 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
923 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
924 it:
925
926 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
927 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
928 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
929 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
930
931 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
932 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
933 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
934 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
935
936 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
937 determine whether they should become permanent features.
938
939 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
940
941 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
942 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
943 about unused $2 in:
944
945 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
946
947 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
948 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
949
950 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
951
952 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
953 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
954 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
955
956 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
957 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
958
959 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
960
961 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
962 %printer's:
963
964 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
965 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
966 declared semantic type tags.
967
968 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
969 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
970 type tags.
971
972 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
973 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
974 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
975 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
976
977 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
978 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
979 features.
980
981 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
982 details.
983
984 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
985 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
986 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
987
988 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
989 completely removed from Bison.
990
991 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
992
993 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
994 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
995 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
996 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
997 and is required by POSIX.
998
999 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1000 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1001
1002 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1003
1004 For example:
1005
1006 %union { char *string; }
1007 %token <string> STRING1
1008 %token <string> STRING2
1009 %type <string> string1
1010 %type <string> string2
1011 %union { char character; }
1012 %token <character> CHR
1013 %type <character> chr
1014 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1015 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1016 %destructor { } <character>
1017
1018 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1019 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1020 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1021 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1022 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1023
1024 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1025 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1026 future versions.]
1027
1028 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1029 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1030 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1031 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1032 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1033
1034 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1035 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1036
1037 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1038 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1039 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1040 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1041 declared after the first %union.
1042
1043 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1044 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1045 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1046 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1047 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1048 after the token definitions.
1049
1050 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1051 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1052
1053 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1054 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1055 %after-header.
1056
1057 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1058 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1059 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1060 convenient for you:
1061
1062 %before-header {
1063 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1064 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1065 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1066 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1067 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1068 }
1069 %start-header {
1070 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1071 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1072 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1073 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1074 }
1075 %union {
1076 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1077 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1078 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1079 }
1080 %end-header {
1081 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1082 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1083 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1084 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1085 * definitions. */
1086 }
1087 %after-header {
1088 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1089 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1090 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1091 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1092 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1093 }
1094
1095 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1096 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1097
1098 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1099 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1100
1101 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1102 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1103 in a future release.
1104
1105 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1106
1107 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1108 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1109
1110 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1111 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1112
1113 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1114
1115 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1116 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1117 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1118
1119 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1120
1121 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1122
1123 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1124 their contents together.
1125
1126 ** New warning: unused values
1127 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1128 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1129
1130 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1131 | exp "+" exp
1132 ;
1133
1134 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1135 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1136 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1137
1138 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1139 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1140 | exp "+" exp
1141 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1142 ;
1143
1144 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1145 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1146 values are used, e.g.:
1147
1148 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1149 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1150 ;
1151
1152 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1153 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1154
1155 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1156
1157 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1158 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1159
1160 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1161 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1162 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1163 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1164
1165 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1166 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1167 instead of warnings.
1168
1169 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1170 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1171 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1172
1173 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1174
1175 ** %require "VERSION"
1176 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1177 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1178
1179 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1180 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1181 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1182 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1183 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1184
1185 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1186 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1187 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1188 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1189
1190 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1191 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1192
1193 ** DJGPP support added.
1194 \f
1195 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1196
1197 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1198
1199 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1200 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1201 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1202 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1203 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1204 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1205
1206 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1207 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1208 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1209 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1210
1211 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1212 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1213 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1214
1215 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1216 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1217 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1218 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1219 unexpected "number"'.
1220 \f
1221 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1222
1223 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1224
1225 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1226 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1227 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1228 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1229 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1230
1231 - Error token location.
1232 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1233 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1234 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1235 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1236
1237 - Semicolon changes:
1238 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1239 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1240
1241 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1242 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1243 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1244 forget a closing quote.
1245
1246 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1247
1248 ** New features
1249
1250 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1251
1252 - New directive: %initial-action.
1253 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1254 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1255
1256 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1257 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1258
1259 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1260 This is a GNU extension.
1261
1262 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1263 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1264
1265 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1266
1267 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1268 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1269
1270 ** Bug fixes
1271
1272 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1273 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1274 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1275 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1276 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1277 these violations will become errors again.
1278
1279 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1280 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1281
1282 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1283 \f
1284 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1285
1286 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1287 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1288
1289 ** syntax error processing
1290
1291 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1292 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1293
1294 - %destructor
1295 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1296 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1297
1298 - %error-verbose
1299 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1300
1301 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1302 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1303
1304 ** POSIX conformance
1305
1306 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1307 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1308 compatibility with Yacc.
1309
1310 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1311 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1312 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1313 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1314 be consistent.
1315
1316 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1317 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1318
1319 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1320 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1321
1322 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1323 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1324
1325 - Yacc command and library now available
1326 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1327 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1328 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1329 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1330
1331 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1332
1333 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1334 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1335 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1336
1337 ** Other compatibility issues
1338
1339 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1340 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1341 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1342 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1343 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1344 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1345
1346 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1347 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1348
1349 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1350 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1351
1352 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1353 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1354 withdrawn in a future release.
1355
1356 ** GLR parser notes
1357
1358 - GLR and inline
1359 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1360 C keyword "inline".
1361
1362 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1363 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1364
1365 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1366 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1367 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1368 shortcomings:
1369
1370 - a single argument only can be added,
1371 - their types are weak (void *),
1372 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1373 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1374
1375 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1376 For instance:
1377
1378 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1379 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1380 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1381
1382 results in the following signatures:
1383
1384 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1385 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1386
1387 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1388
1389 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1390 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1391
1392 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1393 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1394 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1395
1396 ** #line in output files
1397 - --no-line works properly.
1398
1399 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1400 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1401 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1402 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1403 \f
1404 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1405
1406 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1407
1408 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1409
1410 ** GLR parsers
1411 Fix spurious parse errors.
1412
1413 ** Pure parsers
1414 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1415 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1416
1417 ** Type Clashes
1418 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1419 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1420
1421 untyped: ... typed;
1422
1423 but the converse remains an error:
1424
1425 typed: ... untyped;
1426
1427 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1428 The following code:
1429
1430 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1431
1432 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1433 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1434 \f
1435 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1436
1437 ** GLR parsing
1438 The declaration
1439 %glr-parser
1440 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1441 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1442 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1443 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1444
1445 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1446 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1447
1448 ** Output Directory
1449 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1450 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1451 now creates "bar.c".
1452
1453 ** Undefined token
1454 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1455 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1456
1457 ** Unknown token numbers
1458 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1459 no longer the case.
1460
1461 ** Error token
1462 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1463 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1464 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1465 will be mapped onto another number.
1466
1467 ** Verbose error messages
1468 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1469 error recovery is possible.
1470
1471 ** End token
1472 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1473
1474 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1475 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1476 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1477 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1478 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1479 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1480 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1481 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1482 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1483
1484 ** Traces
1485 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1486
1487 ** Larger grammars
1488 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1489 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1490 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1491 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1492
1493 ** Explicit initial rule
1494 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1495 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1496 graphs as rule 0.
1497
1498 ** Useless rules
1499 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1500 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1501
1502 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1503 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1504
1505 ** Rules never reduced
1506 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1507 reported.
1508
1509 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1510 On a grammar such as
1511
1512 %token useless useful
1513 %%
1514 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1515
1516 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1517 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1518
1519 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1520 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1521
1522 ** Default locations
1523 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1524 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1525 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1526 the computation of @$.
1527
1528 ** Token end-of-file
1529 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1530 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1531 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1532 For instance
1533 %token MYEOF 0
1534 or
1535 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1536
1537 ** Semantic parser
1538 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1539
1540 ** New translations
1541 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1542 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1543
1544 ** Incorrect token definitions
1545 When given
1546 %token 'a' "A"
1547 bison used to output
1548 #define 'a' 65
1549
1550 ** Token definitions as enums
1551 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1552 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1553 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1554
1555 ** Reports
1556 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1557 produces additional information:
1558 - itemset
1559 complete the core item sets with their closure
1560 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1561 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1562 - solved
1563 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1564 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1565 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1566
1567 ** Type clashes
1568 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1569 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1570
1571 %type <foo> bar
1572 %%
1573 bar: '0' {} '0';
1574
1575 This is fixed.
1576
1577 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1578 \f
1579 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1580
1581 ** C Skeleton
1582 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1583 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1584 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1585
1586 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1587 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1588 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1589 kludge will be disabled.
1590
1591 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1592 extended.
1593 \f
1594 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1595
1596 ** File name clashes are detected
1597 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1598 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1599
1600 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1601 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1602 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1603 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1604 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1605 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1606
1607 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1608 many portability hassles.
1609
1610 ** DJGPP support added.
1611
1612 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1613 \f
1614 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1615
1616 ** Fix C++ issues
1617 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1618 under some conditions.
1619
1620 ** Catch invalid @n
1621 As is done with $n.
1622 \f
1623 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1624
1625 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1626
1627 ** Portability fixes
1628
1629 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1630 \f
1631 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1632
1633 ** Many Bug Fixes
1634
1635 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1636 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1637 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1638 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1639 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1640
1641 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1642 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1643 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1644
1645 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1646 problems as on AIX.
1647
1648 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1649
1650 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1651 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1652
1653 ** User Actions
1654 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1655 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1656 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1657
1658 ** Better C++ compliance
1659 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1660 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1661
1662 ** Reduced Grammars
1663 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1664
1665 ** 64 bit hosts
1666 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1667
1668 ** Error messages
1669 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1670
1671 ** %expect
1672 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1673 any warning.
1674
1675 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1676
1677 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1678
1679 ** Swedish translation
1680
1681 ** Parse errors
1682 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1683 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1684 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1685
1686 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1687 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1688 previous allocations were not freed.
1689
1690 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1691 Some newlines were missing.
1692 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1693
1694 ** Fixed conflict report.
1695 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1696
1697 ** %expect
1698 Was not used.
1699 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1700
1701 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1702
1703 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1704
1705 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1706
1707 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1708 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1709
1710 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1711
1712 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1713 New.
1714
1715 ** --output
1716 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1717 \f
1718 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1719
1720 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1721 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1722 argument.
1723
1724 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1725 experiment.
1726
1727 ** Portability fixes.
1728 \f
1729 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1730
1731 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1732 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1733 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1734 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1735
1736 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1737
1738 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1739
1740 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1741
1742 ** Russian translation added.
1743
1744 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1745
1746 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1747
1748 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1749
1750 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1751
1752 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1753
1754 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1755 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1756
1757 ** New directives.
1758 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1759 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1760
1761 ** @$
1762 Automatic location tracking.
1763 \f
1764 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1765
1766 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1767
1768 ** Added NLS.
1769
1770 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1771
1772 ** There is now a FAQ.
1773 \f
1774 * Changes in version 1.27:
1775
1776 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1777 some systems has been fixed.
1778 \f
1779 * Changes in version 1.26:
1780
1781 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1782
1783 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1784
1785 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1786
1787 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1788
1789 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1790
1791 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1792
1793 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1794 not provide alloca().
1795 \f
1796 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1797
1798 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1799 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1800
1801 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1802 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1803 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1804
1805 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1806 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1807 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1808 purposes.
1809
1810 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1811 directives in the parser file.
1812
1813 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1814 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1815
1816 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1817 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1818 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1819 a switch statement body.
1820 \f
1821 * Changes in version 1.23:
1822
1823 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1824 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1825 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1826 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1827
1828 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1829 \f
1830 * Changes in version 1.22:
1831
1832 --help option added.
1833 \f
1834 * Changes in version 1.20:
1835
1836 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1837
1838 -----
1839
1840 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1841
1842 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1843
1844 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1845 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1846 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1847 (at your option) any later version.
1848
1849 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1850 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1851 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1852 GNU General Public License for more details.
1853
1854 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1855 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1856
1857 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1858 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1859 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1860 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1861 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1862 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1863 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1864 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1865 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1866 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1867 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1868 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1869 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1870 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1871 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1872 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1873 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1874 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp
1875
1876 Local Variables:
1877 mode: outline
1878 fill-column: 76
1879 End: