3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
7 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
8 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser resulted
9 in an yyerror function that did not take a location as a parameter. With this
10 new value, the user may request a better pure parser, where yyerror does take
11 a location as a parameter (in location-tracking parsers).
13 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
14 "%define api.pure full".
16 ** Changes in the format of error messages
18 This used to be the format of many error reports:
20 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
21 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
25 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
26 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
28 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
30 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
31 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
32 before re-throwing the exception.
34 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
37 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
39 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
40 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
41 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
42 then responsible to define her type.
44 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
45 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
48 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
49 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
52 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
53 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
56 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
58 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
59 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
60 numbered and left-justified.
62 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
65 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
66 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
68 Two nodes were added to the documentation: Xml and Graphviz.
70 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
74 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
78 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
79 have been fixed and extended.
81 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
83 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
84 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
89 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
90 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
93 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
95 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
97 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
98 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
100 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
102 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
104 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
108 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
110 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
111 users to the appropriate place to report them.
113 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
115 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
116 generated, are removed.
118 All the generated headers are self-contained.
120 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
122 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
123 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
124 For instance the header generated from
126 %define api.prefix "calc"
127 %defines "lib/parse.h"
129 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
131 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
133 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
136 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
137 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
138 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
142 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
144 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
145 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
148 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
152 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
153 suite have been fixed.
155 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
157 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
158 invalid C++. This is fixed.
160 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
162 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
164 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
166 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
170 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
171 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
172 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
174 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
178 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
182 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
184 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
186 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
188 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
189 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
192 ** Type names in actions
194 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
195 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
197 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
199 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
200 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
202 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
206 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
207 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
211 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
212 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
215 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
217 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
220 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
221 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
223 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
226 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
228 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
229 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
230 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
231 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
234 ** Generated Parser Headers
236 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
238 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
239 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
244 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
246 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
248 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
249 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
251 int bar_parse (void);
255 #define yyparse bar_parse
258 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
259 single compilation unit.
261 *** Exported symbols in C++
263 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
264 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
265 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
269 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
272 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
274 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
275 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
276 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
277 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
278 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
279 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
280 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
282 The following examples compares both:
284 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
285 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
286 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
292 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
293 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
295 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
296 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
297 > # if defined YYDEBUG
299 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
301 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
304 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
308 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
309 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
312 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
313 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
314 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
315 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
320 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
321 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
322 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
325 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
326 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
329 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
331 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
333 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
335 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
339 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
341 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
343 ** glr.c improvements:
345 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
347 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
348 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
350 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
352 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
353 when -std is passed to GCC).
355 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
357 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
358 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
362 *** C++11 compatibility:
364 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
369 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
370 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
372 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
373 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
375 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
377 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
378 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
379 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
381 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
383 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
384 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
386 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
390 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
391 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
392 documentation were fixed.
394 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
396 ** Changes in the manual:
398 *** %printer is documented
400 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
401 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
403 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
404 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
406 *** Several improvements have been made:
408 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
409 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
410 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
411 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
415 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
417 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
418 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
420 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
422 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
424 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
425 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
427 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
429 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
430 halts in the middle of its course.
432 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
434 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
436 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
437 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
438 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
439 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
440 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
444 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
445 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
448 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
449 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
452 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
453 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
455 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
457 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
458 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
460 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
461 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
462 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
464 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
465 will help to stabilize them.
467 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
469 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
470 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
471 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
472 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
473 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
474 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
475 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
476 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
477 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
479 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
480 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
481 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
482 file with these directives:
486 %define lr.type canonical-lr
488 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
489 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
490 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
493 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
496 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
498 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
499 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
500 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
501 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
502 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
503 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
504 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
505 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
506 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
507 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
510 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
511 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
512 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
513 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
516 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
517 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
518 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
519 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
520 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
521 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
522 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
523 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
526 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
527 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
529 %define parse.lac full
531 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
532 details including a few caveats.
534 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
537 ** %define improvements:
539 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
541 Each of these command-line options
544 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
547 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
549 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
551 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
553 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
554 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
555 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
556 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
558 *** Variables renamed:
560 The following %define variables
563 lr.keep_unreachable_states
568 lr.keep-unreachable-states
570 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
571 for backward compatibility.
573 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
575 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
576 within quotations marks. For example,
578 %define api.push-pull "push"
582 %define api.push-pull push
584 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
586 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
588 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
590 ** Character literals not of length one:
592 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
593 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
594 the following grammar to be the same token:
600 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
601 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
603 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
605 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
606 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
607 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
608 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
610 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
612 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
613 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
614 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
615 and "last" members, instead of
617 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
621 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
622 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
626 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
632 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
636 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
637 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
641 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
645 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
647 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
648 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
649 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
650 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
652 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
654 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
655 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
656 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
657 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
658 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
659 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
660 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
661 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
663 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
665 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
666 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
667 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
668 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
670 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
674 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
676 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
677 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
678 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
679 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
680 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
681 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
682 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
684 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
686 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
687 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
688 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
689 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
690 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
692 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
693 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
694 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
695 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
696 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
697 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
698 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
699 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
700 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
701 shifted or discarded.
703 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
704 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
705 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
706 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
708 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
709 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
710 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
711 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
712 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
713 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
714 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
715 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
716 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
717 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
718 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
719 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
722 ** Java skeleton fixes:
724 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
726 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
727 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
729 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
731 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
733 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
735 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
736 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
738 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
740 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
742 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
743 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
744 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
745 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
748 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
749 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
750 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
751 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
753 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
754 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
755 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
756 then have no effect on the conflict report.
758 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
760 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
761 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
763 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
765 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
767 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
768 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
769 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
770 suppress all warnings:
774 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
776 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
777 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
778 produced an assertion failure. For example:
782 This bug has been fixed.
784 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
786 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
787 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
789 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
792 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
794 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
797 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
798 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
799 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
800 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
802 ** Minor documentation fixes.
804 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
806 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
807 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
808 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
809 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
812 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
814 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
815 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
816 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
817 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
818 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
819 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
820 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
821 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
822 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
824 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
826 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
827 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
830 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
832 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
836 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
837 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
840 %code requires {CODE}
841 %code provides {CODE}
844 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
845 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
846 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
847 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
848 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
850 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
851 is still considered experimental.
853 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
855 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
856 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
857 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
858 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
859 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
862 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
863 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
864 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
865 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
866 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
867 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
868 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
870 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
872 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
873 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
874 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
875 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
876 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
877 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
878 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
879 be removed altogether.
881 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
882 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
883 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
884 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
885 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
886 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
887 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
888 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
889 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
890 2.4.2 is not necessary.
892 ** Internationalization.
894 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
895 message translations were not installed although supported by the
898 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
900 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
901 declarations have been fixed.
903 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
905 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
906 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
908 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
912 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
914 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
915 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
916 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
917 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
918 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
921 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
923 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
925 ** %language is an experimental feature.
927 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
928 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
929 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
930 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
933 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
935 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
938 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
940 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
945 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
949 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
950 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
954 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
955 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
956 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
957 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
958 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
960 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
961 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
963 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
965 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
966 feedback will help to stabilize it.
968 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
969 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
970 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
974 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
975 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
976 %skeleton to select it.
978 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
980 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
981 feedback will help to stabilize it.
985 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
986 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
987 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
988 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
990 ** XML Automaton Report
992 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
993 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
994 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
996 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
997 %defines. For example:
1001 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1002 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1003 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1004 instead of "unused".
1006 ** Unreachable State Removal
1008 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1009 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1010 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1012 1. Removes unreachable states.
1014 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1015 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1016 directives in existing grammar files.
1018 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1019 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1021 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1023 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1025 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1026 for further discussion.
1028 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1030 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1031 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1032 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1033 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1034 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1035 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1036 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1039 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1042 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1045 %file-prefix "parser"
1049 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1051 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1052 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1053 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1054 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1057 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1058 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1059 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1060 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1062 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1063 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1064 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1065 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1067 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1068 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1070 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1072 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1073 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1076 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1078 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1079 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1081 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1083 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1084 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1085 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1087 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1088 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1090 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1092 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1095 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1096 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1097 declared semantic type tags.
1099 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1100 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1103 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1104 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1105 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1106 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1108 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1109 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1112 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1115 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1116 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1117 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1119 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1120 completely removed from Bison.
1122 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1124 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1125 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1126 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1127 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1128 and is required by POSIX.
1130 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1131 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1133 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1137 %union { char *string; }
1138 %token <string> STRING1
1139 %token <string> STRING2
1140 %type <string> string1
1141 %type <string> string2
1142 %union { char character; }
1143 %token <character> CHR
1144 %type <character> chr
1145 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1146 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1147 %destructor { } <character>
1149 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1150 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1151 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1152 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1153 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1155 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1156 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1159 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1160 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1161 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1162 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1163 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1165 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1166 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1168 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1169 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1170 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1171 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1172 declared after the first %union.
1174 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1175 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1176 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1177 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1178 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1179 after the token definitions.
1181 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1182 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1184 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1185 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1188 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1189 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1190 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1194 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1195 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1196 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1197 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1198 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1201 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1202 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1203 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1204 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1207 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1208 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1209 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1212 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1213 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1214 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1215 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1219 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1220 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1221 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1222 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1223 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1226 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1227 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1229 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1230 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1232 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1233 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1234 in a future release.
1236 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1238 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1239 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1241 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1242 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1244 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1246 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1247 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1248 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1250 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1252 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1254 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1255 their contents together.
1257 ** New warning: unused values
1258 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1259 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1261 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1265 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1266 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1267 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1269 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1270 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1272 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1275 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1276 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1277 values are used, e.g.:
1279 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1280 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1283 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1284 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1286 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1288 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1289 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1291 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1292 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1293 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1294 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1296 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1297 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1298 instead of warnings.
1300 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1301 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1302 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1304 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1306 ** %require "VERSION"
1307 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1308 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1310 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1311 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1312 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1313 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1314 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1316 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1317 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1318 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1319 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1321 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1322 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1324 ** DJGPP support added.
1326 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1328 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1330 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1331 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1332 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1333 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1334 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1335 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1337 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1338 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1339 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1340 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1342 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1343 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1344 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1346 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1347 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1348 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1349 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1350 unexpected "number"'.
1352 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1354 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1356 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1357 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1358 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1359 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1360 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1362 - Error token location.
1363 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1364 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1365 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1366 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1368 - Semicolon changes:
1369 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1370 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1372 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1373 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1374 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1375 forget a closing quote.
1377 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1381 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1383 - New directive: %initial-action.
1384 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1385 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1387 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1388 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1390 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1391 This is a GNU extension.
1393 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1394 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1396 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1398 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1399 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1403 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1404 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1405 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1406 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1407 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1408 these violations will become errors again.
1410 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1411 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1413 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1415 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1417 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1418 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1420 ** syntax error processing
1422 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1423 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1426 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1427 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1430 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1432 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1433 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1435 ** POSIX conformance
1437 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1438 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1439 compatibility with Yacc.
1441 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1442 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1443 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1444 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1447 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1448 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1450 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1451 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1453 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1454 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1456 - Yacc command and library now available
1457 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1458 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1459 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1460 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1462 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1464 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1465 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1466 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1468 ** Other compatibility issues
1470 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1471 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1472 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1473 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1474 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1475 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1477 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1478 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1480 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1481 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1483 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1484 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1485 withdrawn in a future release.
1490 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1493 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1494 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1496 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1497 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1498 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1501 - a single argument only can be added,
1502 - their types are weak (void *),
1503 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1504 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1506 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1509 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1510 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1511 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1513 results in the following signatures:
1515 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1516 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1518 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1520 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1521 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1523 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1524 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1525 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1527 ** #line in output files
1528 - --no-line works properly.
1530 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1531 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1532 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1533 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1535 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1537 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1539 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1542 Fix spurious parse errors.
1545 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1546 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1549 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1550 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1554 but the converse remains an error:
1558 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1561 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1563 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1564 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1566 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1571 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1572 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1573 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1574 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1576 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1577 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1580 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1581 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1582 now creates "bar.c".
1585 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1586 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1588 ** Unknown token numbers
1589 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1593 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1594 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1595 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1596 will be mapped onto another number.
1598 ** Verbose error messages
1599 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1600 error recovery is possible.
1603 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1605 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1606 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1607 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1608 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1609 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1610 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1611 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1612 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1613 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1616 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1619 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1620 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1621 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1622 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1624 ** Explicit initial rule
1625 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1626 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1630 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1631 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1633 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1634 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1636 ** Rules never reduced
1637 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1640 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1641 On a grammar such as
1643 %token useless useful
1645 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1647 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1648 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1650 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1651 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1653 ** Default locations
1654 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1655 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1656 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1657 the computation of @$.
1659 ** Token end-of-file
1660 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1661 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1662 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1666 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1669 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1672 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1673 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1675 ** Incorrect token definitions
1678 bison used to output
1681 ** Token definitions as enums
1682 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1683 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1684 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1687 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1688 produces additional information:
1690 complete the core item sets with their closure
1691 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1692 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1694 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1695 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1696 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1699 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1700 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1708 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1710 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1713 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1714 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1715 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1717 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1718 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1719 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1720 kludge will be disabled.
1722 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1725 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1727 ** File name clashes are detected
1728 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1729 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1731 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1732 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1733 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1734 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1735 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1736 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1738 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1739 many portability hassles.
1741 ** DJGPP support added.
1743 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1745 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1748 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1749 under some conditions.
1754 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1756 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1758 ** Portability fixes
1760 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1762 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1766 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1767 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1768 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1769 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1770 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1772 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1773 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1774 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1776 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1779 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1781 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1782 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1785 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1786 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1787 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1789 ** Better C++ compliance
1790 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1791 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1794 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1797 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1800 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1803 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1806 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1808 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1810 ** Swedish translation
1813 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1814 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1815 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1817 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1818 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1819 previous allocations were not freed.
1821 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1822 Some newlines were missing.
1823 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1825 ** Fixed conflict report.
1826 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1830 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1832 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1834 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1836 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1838 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1839 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1841 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1843 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1847 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1849 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1851 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1852 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1855 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1858 ** Portability fixes.
1860 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1862 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1863 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1864 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1865 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1867 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1869 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1871 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1873 ** Russian translation added.
1875 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1877 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1879 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1881 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1883 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1885 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1886 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1889 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1890 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1893 Automatic location tracking.
1895 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1897 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1901 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1903 ** There is now a FAQ.
1905 * Changes in version 1.27:
1907 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1908 some systems has been fixed.
1910 * Changes in version 1.26:
1912 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1914 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1916 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1918 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1920 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1922 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1924 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1925 not provide alloca().
1927 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1929 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1930 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1932 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1933 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1934 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1936 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1937 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1938 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1941 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1942 directives in the parser file.
1944 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1945 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1947 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1948 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1949 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1950 a switch statement body.
1952 * Changes in version 1.23:
1954 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1955 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1956 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1957 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1959 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1961 * Changes in version 1.22:
1963 --help option added.
1965 * Changes in version 1.20:
1967 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1971 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1973 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1975 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1976 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1977 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1978 (at your option) any later version.
1980 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1981 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1982 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1983 GNU General Public License for more details.
1985 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1986 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1988 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1989 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1990 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1991 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1992 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1993 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1994 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1995 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1996 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1997 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1998 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1999 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2000 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2001 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2002 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2003 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2004 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2005 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
2006 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's