3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
7 Bison will stop adding a semicolon at the end of the actions (as announced
10 foo.y:2.22: warning: a ';' might be needed at the end of action code
11 exp: "num" { $$ = $1 }
13 foo.y:2.22: future versions of Bison will not add the ';'
15 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
16 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
17 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
19 ** Backward incompatible changes
23 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
25 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
26 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
28 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
29 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
33 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
35 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
36 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
37 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
38 preprocessor expansion:
40 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
42 This is has been fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
43 identifiers for user-provided variables.
45 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
47 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
48 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
50 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
52 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
57 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
58 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
59 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
61 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
62 the caret information only. For instance on:
69 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
70 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
74 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
75 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
79 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
81 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
82 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
84 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
86 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
87 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
88 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
90 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
91 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
92 errors (and only those):
94 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
96 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
97 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
99 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
101 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
103 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
104 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
106 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
107 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
108 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
110 *** The display of warnings is now richer
112 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
114 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
116 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
117 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
118 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
120 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
123 bison: warnings being treated as errors
124 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
128 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
130 *** Deprecated constructs
132 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
133 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
134 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
136 *** Useless semantic types
138 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
139 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
140 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
141 types that trigger the warning:
145 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
146 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
148 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
150 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
151 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
153 *** Undefined but unused symbols
155 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
156 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
159 %destructor {} symbol2
164 *** Useless destructors or printers
166 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
167 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
168 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
169 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
171 %token <type1> token1
175 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
176 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
180 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
181 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
185 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
187 compare the previous version of bison:
190 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
191 $ bison -Werror foo.y
192 bison: warnings being treated as errors
193 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
195 with the new behavior:
198 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
199 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
200 $ bison -Werror foo.y
201 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
202 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
204 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
209 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
214 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
215 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
216 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
221 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
222 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
224 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
226 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
227 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
228 or more arguments. Instead of
230 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
231 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
232 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
233 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
237 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
239 ** Variable api.token.prefix
241 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
242 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
243 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
245 %token FILE for ERROR
246 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
248 start: FILE for ERROR;
250 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
251 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
252 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
253 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
255 ** Variable parse.error
257 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
258 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
261 ** Renamed %define variables
263 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
264 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
266 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
267 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
268 namespace -> api.namespace
269 stype -> api.value.type
271 ** Semantic predicates
273 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
275 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
276 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
277 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
278 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
279 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
282 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
284 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
285 reduce/reduce conflicts.
287 ** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
289 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
290 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
291 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
293 ** Useless precedence and associativity
295 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
297 When developping and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
298 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
299 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
300 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
301 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
302 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
303 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
305 *** Precedence warning category
307 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
308 useless precedence and associativity directives.
310 *** Useless associativity
312 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
313 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
314 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
315 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
329 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
333 *** Useless precedence
335 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
336 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
337 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
338 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
342 exp: "var" '=' "num";
346 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
350 *** Useless precedence and associativity
352 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
357 exp: "var" '=' "num";
361 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
367 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
369 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
370 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
371 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
372 %empty. On the following grammar:
382 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
385 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
389 ** Java skeleton improvements
391 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
393 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
394 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
395 and "%define init_throws".
397 ** C++ skeletons improvements
399 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
401 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
402 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
403 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
405 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
407 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
409 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
411 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
412 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
413 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
414 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
415 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
416 factory invoked by the user actions).
418 *** %define api.value.type variant
420 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
421 from Théophile Ranquet.
423 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
426 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
429 %type <::std::string> item;
430 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
433 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
437 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
438 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
442 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
443 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
446 *** %define api.token.constructor
448 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
449 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
450 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
452 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
454 parser::location_type loc = ...;
456 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
458 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
460 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
464 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
468 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
470 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
472 ** Diagnostics are improved
474 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
476 *** Changes in the format of error messages
478 This used to be the format of many error reports:
480 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
481 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
485 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
486 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
488 *** New format for error reports: carets
490 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
492 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
495 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
501 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
502 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
504 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
505 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
507 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
508 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
510 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
511 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
514 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
515 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
516 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
519 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
521 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
522 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
523 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
524 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
525 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
528 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
529 "%define api.pure full".
531 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
533 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
534 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
535 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
536 then responsible to define her type.
538 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
539 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
542 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
543 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
546 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
547 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
550 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
552 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
553 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
554 before re-throwing the exception.
556 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
559 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
561 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
563 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
564 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
565 numbered and left-justified.
567 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
568 diamond shaped nodes.
570 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
571 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
573 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
575 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
576 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
580 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
581 have been fixed and extended.
583 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
584 were not properly documented.
586 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
588 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
590 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
591 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
592 reporting them to us.
596 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
597 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
600 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
602 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
604 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
605 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
607 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
609 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
611 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
615 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
617 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
618 users to the appropriate place to report them.
620 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
622 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
623 generated, are removed.
625 All the generated headers are self-contained.
627 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
629 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
630 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
631 For instance the header generated from
633 %define api.prefix "calc"
634 %defines "lib/parse.h"
636 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
638 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
640 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
643 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
644 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
645 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
649 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
651 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
652 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
655 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
659 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
660 suite have been fixed.
662 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
664 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
665 invalid C++. This is fixed.
667 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
669 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
671 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
673 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
677 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
678 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
679 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
681 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
685 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
689 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
691 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
693 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
695 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
696 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
699 ** Type names in actions
701 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
702 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
704 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
706 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
707 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
709 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
713 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
714 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
718 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
719 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
722 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
724 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
727 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
728 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
730 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
733 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
735 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
736 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
737 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
738 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
741 ** Generated Parser Headers
743 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
745 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
746 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
751 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
753 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
755 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
756 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
758 int bar_parse (void);
762 #define yyparse bar_parse
765 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
766 single compilation unit.
768 *** Exported symbols in C++
770 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
771 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
772 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
776 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
779 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
781 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
782 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
783 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
784 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
785 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
786 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
787 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
789 The following examples compares both:
791 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
792 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
793 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
799 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
800 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
802 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
803 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
804 > # if defined YYDEBUG
806 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
808 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
811 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
815 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
816 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
819 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
820 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
821 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
822 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
827 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
828 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
829 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
832 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
833 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
836 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
838 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
840 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
842 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
846 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
848 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
850 ** glr.c improvements:
852 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
854 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
855 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
857 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
859 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
860 when -std is passed to GCC).
862 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
864 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
865 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
869 *** C++11 compatibility:
871 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
876 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
877 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
879 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
880 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
882 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
884 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
885 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
886 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
888 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
890 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
891 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
893 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
897 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
898 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
899 documentation were fixed.
901 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
903 ** Changes in the manual:
905 *** %printer is documented
907 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
908 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
910 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
911 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
913 *** Several improvements have been made:
915 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
916 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
917 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
918 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
922 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
924 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
925 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
927 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
929 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
931 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
932 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
934 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
936 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
937 halts in the middle of its course.
939 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
941 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
943 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
944 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
945 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
946 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
947 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
951 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
952 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
955 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
956 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
959 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
960 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
962 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
964 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
965 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
967 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
968 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
969 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
971 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
972 will help to stabilize them.
973 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
975 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
977 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
978 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
979 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
980 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
981 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
982 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
983 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
984 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
985 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
987 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
988 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
989 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
990 file with these directives:
994 %define lr.type canonical-lr
996 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
997 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
998 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
1001 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1004 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1006 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1008 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1009 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1010 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1011 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1012 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1013 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1014 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1015 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1016 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1017 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1020 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1021 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1022 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1023 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1024 inconsistent states.
1026 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1027 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1028 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1029 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1030 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1031 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1032 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1033 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1036 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1037 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1039 %define parse.lac full
1041 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1042 details including a few caveats.
1044 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1047 ** %define improvements:
1049 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1051 Each of these command-line options
1054 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1057 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1059 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1061 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1063 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1064 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1065 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1066 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1068 *** Variables renamed:
1070 The following %define variables
1073 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1075 have been renamed to
1078 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1080 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1081 for backward compatibility.
1083 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1085 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1086 within quotations marks. For example,
1088 %define api.push-pull "push"
1092 %define api.push-pull push
1094 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1096 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1098 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1100 ** Character literals not of length one:
1102 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1103 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1104 the following grammar to be the same token:
1110 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1111 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1113 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1115 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1116 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1117 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1118 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1120 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1122 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1123 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1124 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1125 and "last" members, instead of
1127 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1131 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1132 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1136 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1142 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1146 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1147 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1151 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1155 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1157 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1158 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1159 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1160 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1162 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1164 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1165 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1166 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1167 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1168 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1169 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1170 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1171 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1173 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1175 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1176 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1177 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1178 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1180 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1184 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1186 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1187 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1188 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1189 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1190 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1191 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1192 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1194 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1196 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1197 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1198 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1199 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1200 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1202 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1203 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1204 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1205 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1206 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1207 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1208 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1209 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1210 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1211 shifted or discarded.
1213 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1214 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1215 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1216 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1218 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1219 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1220 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1221 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1222 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1223 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1224 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1225 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1226 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1227 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1228 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1229 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1232 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1234 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1236 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1237 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1239 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1241 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1243 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1245 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1246 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1248 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1250 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1252 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1253 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1254 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1255 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1258 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1259 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1260 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1261 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1263 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1264 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1265 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1266 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1268 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1270 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1271 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1273 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1275 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1277 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1278 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1279 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1280 suppress all warnings:
1284 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1286 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1287 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1288 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1292 This bug has been fixed.
1294 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1296 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1297 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1299 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1302 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1304 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1307 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1308 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1309 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1310 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1312 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1314 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1316 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1317 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1318 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1319 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1322 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1324 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1325 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1326 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1327 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1328 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1329 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1330 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1331 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1332 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1334 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1336 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1337 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1340 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1342 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1346 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1347 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1350 %code requires {CODE}
1351 %code provides {CODE}
1354 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1355 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1356 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1357 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1358 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1360 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1361 is still considered experimental.
1363 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1365 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1366 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1367 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1368 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1369 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1372 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1373 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1374 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1375 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1376 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1377 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1378 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1380 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1382 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1383 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1384 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1385 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1386 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1387 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1388 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1389 be removed altogether.
1391 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1392 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1393 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1394 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1395 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1396 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1397 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1398 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1399 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1400 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1402 ** Internationalization.
1404 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1405 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1408 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1410 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1411 declarations have been fixed.
1413 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1415 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1416 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1418 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1422 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1424 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1425 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1426 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1427 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1428 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1431 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1433 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1435 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1437 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1438 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1439 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1440 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1443 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1445 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1448 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1450 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1453 %define NAME "VALUE"
1455 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1459 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1460 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1464 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1465 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1466 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1467 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1468 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1470 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1471 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1473 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1475 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1476 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1478 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1479 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1480 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1484 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1485 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1486 %skeleton to select it.
1488 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1490 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1491 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1492 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1496 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1497 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1498 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1499 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1501 ** XML Automaton Report
1503 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1504 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1505 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1506 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1508 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1509 %defines. For example:
1513 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1514 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1515 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1516 instead of "unused".
1518 ** Unreachable State Removal
1520 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1521 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1522 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1524 1. Removes unreachable states.
1526 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1527 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1528 directives in existing grammar files.
1530 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1531 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1533 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1535 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1537 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1538 for further discussion.
1540 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1542 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1543 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1544 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1545 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1546 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1547 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1548 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1551 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1554 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1557 %file-prefix "parser"
1561 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1563 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1564 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1565 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1566 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1569 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1570 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1571 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1572 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1574 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1575 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1576 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1577 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1579 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1580 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1582 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1584 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1585 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1588 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1590 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1591 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1593 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1595 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1596 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1597 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1599 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1600 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1602 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1604 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1607 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1608 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1609 declared semantic type tags.
1611 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1612 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1615 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1616 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1617 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1618 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1620 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1621 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1624 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1627 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1628 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1629 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1631 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1632 completely removed from Bison.
1634 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1636 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1637 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1638 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1639 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1640 and is required by POSIX.
1642 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1643 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1645 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1649 %union { char *string; }
1650 %token <string> STRING1
1651 %token <string> STRING2
1652 %type <string> string1
1653 %type <string> string2
1654 %union { char character; }
1655 %token <character> CHR
1656 %type <character> chr
1657 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1658 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1659 %destructor { } <character>
1661 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1662 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1663 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1664 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1665 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1667 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1668 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1671 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1672 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1673 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1674 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1675 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1677 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1678 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1680 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1681 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1682 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1683 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1684 declared after the first %union.
1686 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1687 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1688 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1689 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1690 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1691 after the token definitions.
1693 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1694 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1696 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1697 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1700 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1701 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1702 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1706 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1707 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1708 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1709 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1710 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1713 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1714 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1715 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1716 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1719 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1720 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1721 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1724 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1725 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1726 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1727 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1731 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1732 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1733 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1734 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1735 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1738 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1739 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1741 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1742 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1744 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1745 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1746 in a future release.
1748 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1750 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1751 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1753 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1754 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1756 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1758 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1759 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1760 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1762 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1764 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1766 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1767 their contents together.
1769 ** New warning: unused values
1770 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1771 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1773 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1777 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1778 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1779 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1781 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1782 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1784 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1787 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1788 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1789 values are used, e.g.:
1791 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1792 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1795 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1796 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1798 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1800 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1801 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1803 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1804 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1805 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1806 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1808 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1809 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1810 instead of warnings.
1812 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1813 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1814 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1816 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1818 ** %require "VERSION"
1819 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1820 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1822 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1823 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1824 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1825 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1826 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1828 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1829 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1830 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1831 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1833 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1834 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1836 ** DJGPP support added.
1838 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1840 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1842 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1843 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1844 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1845 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1846 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1847 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1849 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1850 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1851 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1852 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1854 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1855 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1856 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1858 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1859 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1860 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1861 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1862 unexpected "number"'.
1864 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1866 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1868 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1869 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1870 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1871 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1872 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1874 - Error token location.
1875 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1876 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1877 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1878 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1880 - Semicolon changes:
1881 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1882 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1884 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1885 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1886 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1887 forget a closing quote.
1889 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1893 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1895 - New directive: %initial-action.
1896 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1897 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1899 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1900 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1902 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1903 This is a GNU extension.
1905 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1906 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1908 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1910 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1911 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1915 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1916 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1917 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1918 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1919 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1920 these violations will become errors again.
1922 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1923 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1925 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1927 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1929 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1930 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1932 ** syntax error processing
1934 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1935 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1938 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1939 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1942 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1944 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1945 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1947 ** POSIX conformance
1949 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1950 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1951 compatibility with Yacc.
1953 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1954 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1955 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1956 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1959 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1960 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1962 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1963 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1965 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1966 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1968 - Yacc command and library now available
1969 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1970 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1971 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1972 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1974 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1976 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1977 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1978 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1980 ** Other compatibility issues
1982 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1983 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1984 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1985 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1986 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1987 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1989 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1990 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1992 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1993 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1995 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1996 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1997 withdrawn in a future release.
2002 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
2005 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2006 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2008 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2009 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2010 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2013 - a single argument only can be added,
2014 - their types are weak (void *),
2015 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2016 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2018 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2021 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2022 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2023 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2025 results in the following signatures:
2027 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2028 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2030 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2032 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2033 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2035 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2036 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2037 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2039 ** #line in output files
2040 - --no-line works properly.
2042 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2043 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2044 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2045 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2047 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2049 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2051 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2054 Fix spurious parse errors.
2057 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2058 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2061 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2062 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2066 but the converse remains an error:
2070 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2073 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2075 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2076 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2078 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2083 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2084 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2085 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2086 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2088 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2089 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2092 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2093 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2094 now creates "bar.c".
2097 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2098 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2100 ** Unknown token numbers
2101 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2105 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2106 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2107 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2108 will be mapped onto another number.
2110 ** Verbose error messages
2111 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2112 error recovery is possible.
2115 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2117 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2118 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2119 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2120 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2121 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2122 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2123 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2124 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2125 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2128 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2131 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2132 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2133 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2134 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2136 ** Explicit initial rule
2137 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2138 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2142 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2143 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2145 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2146 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2148 ** Rules never reduced
2149 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2152 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2153 On a grammar such as
2155 %token useless useful
2157 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2159 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2160 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2162 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2163 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2165 ** Default locations
2166 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2167 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2168 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2169 the computation of @$.
2171 ** Token end-of-file
2172 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2173 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2174 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2178 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2181 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2184 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2185 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2187 ** Incorrect token definitions
2190 bison used to output
2193 ** Token definitions as enums
2194 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2195 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2196 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2199 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2200 produces additional information:
2202 complete the core item sets with their closure
2203 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2204 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2206 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2207 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2208 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2211 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2212 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2220 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2222 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2225 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2226 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2227 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2229 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2230 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2231 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2232 kludge will be disabled.
2234 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2237 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2239 ** File name clashes are detected
2240 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2241 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2243 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2244 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2245 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2246 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2247 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2248 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2250 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2251 many portability hassles.
2253 ** DJGPP support added.
2255 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2257 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2260 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2261 under some conditions.
2266 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2268 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2270 ** Portability fixes
2272 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2274 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2278 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2279 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2280 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2281 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2282 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2284 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2285 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2286 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2288 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2291 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2293 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2294 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2297 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2298 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2299 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2301 ** Better C++ compliance
2302 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2303 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2306 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2309 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2312 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2315 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2318 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2320 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2322 ** Swedish translation
2325 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2326 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2327 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2329 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2330 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2331 previous allocations were not freed.
2333 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2334 Some newlines were missing.
2335 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2337 ** Fixed conflict report.
2338 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2342 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2344 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2346 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2348 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2350 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2351 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2353 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2355 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2359 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2361 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2363 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2364 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2367 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2370 ** Portability fixes.
2372 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2374 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2375 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2376 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2377 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2379 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2381 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2383 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2385 ** Russian translation added.
2387 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2389 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2391 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2393 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2395 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2397 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2398 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2401 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2402 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2405 Automatic location tracking.
2407 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2409 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2413 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2415 ** There is now a FAQ.
2417 * Changes in version 1.27:
2419 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2420 some systems has been fixed.
2422 * Changes in version 1.26:
2424 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2426 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2428 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2430 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2432 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2434 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2436 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2437 not provide alloca().
2439 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2441 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2442 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2444 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2445 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2446 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2448 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2449 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2450 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2453 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2454 directives in the parser file.
2456 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2457 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2459 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2460 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2461 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2462 a switch statement body.
2464 * Changes in version 1.23:
2466 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2467 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2468 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2469 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2471 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2473 * Changes in version 1.22:
2475 --help option added.
2477 * Changes in version 1.20:
2479 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2483 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2485 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2487 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2488 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2489 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2490 (at your option) any later version.
2492 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2493 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2494 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2495 GNU General Public License for more details.
2497 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2498 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2500 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2501 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2502 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2503 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2504 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2505 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2506 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2507 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2508 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2509 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2510 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2511 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2512 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2513 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2514 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2515 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2516 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2517 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2518 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts