]> git.saurik.com Git - bison.git/blob - NEWS
tests: please clang and use ".cc", not ".c", for C++ input
[bison.git] / NEWS
1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Future changes
6
7 Bison will stop adding a semicolon at the end of the actions:
8
9 foo.y:2.22: warning: a ';' might be needed at the end of action code
10 exp: "num" { $$ = $1 }
11 ^
12 foo.y:2.22: future versions of Bison will not add the ';'
13
14 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
15 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
16 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
17
18 ** Incompatible changes
19
20 *** Obsolete features
21
22 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
23
24 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
25 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
26
27 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
28 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
29
30 ** Bug fixes
31
32 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines
33
34 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
35 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
36 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
37 preprocessor expansion:
38
39 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
40
41 This is has been fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
42 identifiers for user-provided variables.
43
44 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
45
46 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
47 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
48
49 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
50
51 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
52 Santet.
53
54 *** Carets
55
56 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
57 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
58 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
59
60 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
61
62 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
63 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
64 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
65
66 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
67 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
68 errors (and only those):
69
70 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
71
72 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
73 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
74
75 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
76
77 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
78
79 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
80 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
81
82 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
83 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
84 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
85
86 *** The display of warnings is now richer
87
88 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
89
90 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
91
92 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
93 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
94 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
95
96 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
97 with failure):
98
99 bison: warnings being treated as errors
100 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
101
102 it now reports:
103
104 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
105
106 *** Deprecated constructs
107
108 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
109 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
110 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
111
112 *** Useless semantic types
113
114 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
115 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
116 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
117 types that trigger the warning:
118
119 %token <type1> term
120 %type <type2> nterm
121 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
122 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
123 %%
124 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
125
126 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
127 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
128
129 *** Undefined but unused symbols
130
131 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
132 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
133
134 %printer {} symbol1
135 %destructor {} symbol2
136 %type <type> symbol3
137 %%
138 exp: "a";
139
140 *** Useless destructors or printers
141
142 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
143 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
144 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
145 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
146
147 %token <type1> token1
148 <type2> token2
149 <type3> token3
150 <type4> token4
151 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
152 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
153
154 *** Conflicts
155
156 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
157 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
158
159 %glr-parser
160 %%
161 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
162
163 compare the previous version of bison:
164
165 $ bison foo.y
166 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
167 $ bison -Werror foo.y
168 bison: warnings being treated as errors
169 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
170
171 with the new behavior:
172
173 $ bison foo.y
174 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
175 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
176 $ bison -Werror foo.y
177 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
178 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
179
180 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
181
182 %expect 0
183 %glr-parser
184 %%
185 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
186
187 Former behavior:
188
189 $ bison bar.y
190 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
191 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
192 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
193
194 New one:
195
196 $ bison bar.y
197 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
198 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
199
200 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
201
202 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
203 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
204 or more arguments. Instead of
205
206 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
207 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
208 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
209 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
210
211 one may now declare
212
213 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
214
215 ** Java skeleton improvements
216
217 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
218
219 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
220 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
221 and "%define init_throws".
222
223 ** C++ skeletons improvements
224
225 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
226
227 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
228 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
229 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
230
231 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
232
233 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
234
235 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
236
237 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
238 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
239 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
240 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
241 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
242 factory invoked by the user actions).
243
244 ** Renamed %define variables
245
246 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
247 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
248
249 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
250 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
251 namespace -> api.namespace
252 stype -> api.value.type
253
254 ** Variable api.token.prefix
255
256 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
257 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
258 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
259
260 %token FILE for ERROR
261 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
262 %%
263 start: FILE for ERROR;
264
265 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
266 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
267 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
268 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
269
270 ** Variable parse.error
271
272 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
273 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
274 verbose".
275
276 ** Semantic predicates
277
278 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
279
280 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
281 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
282 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
283 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
284 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
285 expressions.
286
287 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
288
289 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
290 reduce/reduce conflicts.
291
292 ** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
293
294 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
295 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
296 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
297
298 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
299
300 ** Bug fixes
301
302 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
303
304 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
305
306 ** Diagnostics are improved
307
308 *** Changes in the format of error messages
309
310 This used to be the format of many error reports:
311
312 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
313 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
314
315 It is now:
316
317 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
318 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
319
320 *** New format for error reports: carets
321
322 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
323
324 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
325 %type <sval> exp
326 ^^^^^^
327 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
328 %type <ival> exp
329 ^^^^^^
330
331 or
332
333 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
334 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
335 ^^^^
336 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
337 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
338 ^^^
339 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
340 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
341 ^^^
342 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
343 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
344 ^^^
345
346 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
347 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
348 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
349 -fno-caret).
350
351 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
352
353 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
354 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
355 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
356 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
357 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
358 parsers).
359
360 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
361 "%define api.pure full".
362
363 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
364
365 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
366 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
367 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
368 then responsible to define her type.
369
370 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
371 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
372 them.
373
374 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
375 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
376 compatibility).
377
378 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
379 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
380 api.position.type.
381
382 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
383
384 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
385 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
386 before re-throwing the exception.
387
388 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
389 appreciated.
390
391 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
392
393 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
394 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
395 numbered and left-justified.
396
397 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
398 diamond shaped nodes.
399
400 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
401 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
402
403 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
404
405 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
406 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
407
408 ** Documentation
409
410 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
411 have been fixed and extended.
412
413 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
414 were not properly documented.
415
416 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
417
418 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
419
420 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
421 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
422 reporting them to us.
423
424 ** Bug fixes
425
426 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
427 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
428 3.2.
429
430 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
431
432 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
433
434 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
435 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
436
437 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
438
439 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
440
441 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
442
443 ** Bug fixes
444
445 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
446
447 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
448 users to the appropriate place to report them.
449
450 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
451
452 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
453 generated, are removed.
454
455 All the generated headers are self-contained.
456
457 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
458
459 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
460 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
461 For instance the header generated from
462
463 %define api.prefix "calc"
464 %defines "lib/parse.h"
465
466 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
467
468 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
469
470 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
471 warnings such as:
472
473 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
474 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
475 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
476 *++yyvsp = yylval;
477 ^
478
479 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
480
481 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
482 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
483 addressed.
484
485 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
486
487 ** Bug fixes
488
489 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
490 suite have been fixed.
491
492 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
493
494 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
495 invalid C++. This is fixed.
496
497 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
498
499 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
500
501 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
502
503 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
504
505 ** Future Changes
506
507 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
508 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
509 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
510
511 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
512
513 write:
514
515 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
516
517 ** Bug fixes
518
519 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
520
521 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
522
523 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
524
525 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
526 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
527 now does.
528
529 ** Type names in actions
530
531 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
532 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
533
534 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
535
536 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
537 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
538
539 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
540
541 ** Future changes
542
543 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
544 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
545
546 *** K&R C parsers
547
548 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
549 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
550 compilers.
551
552 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
553
554 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
555 YYLTYPE.
556
557 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
558 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
559
560 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
561 %error-verbose.
562
563 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
564
565 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
566 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
567 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
568 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
569 it.
570
571 ** Generated Parser Headers
572
573 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
574
575 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
576 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
577
578 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
579 # define YY_FOO_H
580 ...
581 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
582
583 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
584
585 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
586 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
587
588 int bar_parse (void);
589
590 rather than
591
592 #define yyparse bar_parse
593 int yyparse (void);
594
595 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
596 single compilation unit.
597
598 *** Exported symbols in C++
599
600 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
601 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
602 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
603
604 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
605
606 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
607 longer defined.
608
609 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
610
611 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
612 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
613 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
614 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
615 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
616 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
617 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
618
619 The following examples compares both:
620
621 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
622 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
623 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
624 %% %%
625 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
626
627 bison generates:
628
629 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
630 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
631
632 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
633 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
634 > # if defined YYDEBUG
635 > # if YYDEBUG
636 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
637 > # else
638 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
639 > # endif
640 > # else
641 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
642 > # endif
643 # endif | # endif
644
645 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
646 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
647 # endif # endif
648
649 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
650 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
651 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
652 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
653 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
654 }; };
655 # endif # endif
656
657 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
658 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
659 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
660 { {
661 int ival; int ival;
662 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
663 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
664 #endif #endif
665
666 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
667
668 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
669
670 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
671
672 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
673
674 ** Future changes:
675
676 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
677
678 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
679
680 ** glr.c improvements:
681
682 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
683
684 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
685 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
686
687 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
688
689 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
690 when -std is passed to GCC).
691
692 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
693
694 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
695 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
696
697 ** Changes for C++:
698
699 *** C++11 compatibility:
700
701 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
702 or higher.
703
704 *** Header guards
705
706 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
707 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
708
709 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
710 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
711 ...
712 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
713
714 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
715 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
716 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
717
718 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
719
720 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
721 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
722 ...
723 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
724
725 *** C++ locations:
726
727 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
728 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
729 documentation were fixed.
730
731 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
732
733 ** Changes in the manual:
734
735 *** %printer is documented
736
737 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
738 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
739
740 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
741 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
742
743 *** Several improvements have been made:
744
745 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
746 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
747 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
748 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
749
750 ** Building bison:
751
752 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
753
754 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
755 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
756
757 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
758
759 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
760
761 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
762 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
763
764 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
765
766 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
767 halts in the middle of its course.
768
769 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
770
771 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
772
773 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
774 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
775 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
776 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
777 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
778
779 ** Named references:
780
781 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
782 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
783 actions code.
784
785 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
786 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
787 as named references:
788
789 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
790 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
791
792 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
793
794 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
795 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
796
797 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
798 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
799 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
800
801 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
802 will help to stabilize them.
803 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
804
805 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
806
807 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
808 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
809 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
810 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
811 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
812 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
813 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
814 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
815 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
816
817 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
818 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
819 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
820 file with these directives:
821
822 %define lr.type lalr
823 %define lr.type ielr
824 %define lr.type canonical-lr
825
826 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
827 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
828 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
829 manual.
830
831 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
832 stabilize them.
833
834 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
835
836 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
837 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
838 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
839 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
840 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
841 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
842 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
843 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
844 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
845 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
846 tokens.
847
848 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
849 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
850 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
851 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
852 inconsistent states.
853
854 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
855 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
856 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
857 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
858 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
859 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
860 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
861 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
862 power.
863
864 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
865 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
866
867 %define parse.lac full
868
869 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
870 details including a few caveats.
871
872 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
873 stabilize it.
874
875 ** %define improvements:
876
877 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
878
879 Each of these command-line options
880
881 -D NAME[=VALUE]
882 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
883
884 -F NAME[=VALUE]
885 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
886
887 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
888
889 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
890
891 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
892 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
893 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
894 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
895
896 *** Variables renamed:
897
898 The following %define variables
899
900 api.push_pull
901 lr.keep_unreachable_states
902
903 have been renamed to
904
905 api.push-pull
906 lr.keep-unreachable-states
907
908 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
909 for backward compatibility.
910
911 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
912
913 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
914 within quotations marks. For example,
915
916 %define api.push-pull "push"
917
918 can be rewritten as
919
920 %define api.push-pull push
921
922 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
923
924 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
925
926 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
927
928 ** Character literals not of length one:
929
930 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
931 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
932 the following grammar to be the same token:
933
934 exp: exp '++'
935 | exp '+' exp
936 ;
937
938 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
939 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
940
941 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
942
943 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
944 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
945 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
946 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
947
948 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
949
950 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
951 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
952 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
953 and "last" members, instead of
954
955 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
956 do \
957 if (N) \
958 { \
959 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
960 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
961 } \
962 else \
963 { \
964 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
965 } \
966 while (false)
967
968 use:
969
970 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
971 do \
972 if (N) \
973 { \
974 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
975 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
976 } \
977 else \
978 { \
979 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
980 } \
981 while (false)
982
983 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
984
985 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
986 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
987 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
988 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
989
990 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
991
992 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
993 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
994 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
995 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
996 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
997 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
998 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
999 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1000
1001 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1002
1003 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1004 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1005 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1006 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1007
1008 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1009
1010 instead of
1011
1012 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1013
1014 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1015 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1016 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1017 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1018 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1019 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1020 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1021
1022 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1023
1024 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1025 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1026 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1027 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1028 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1029
1030 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1031 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1032 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1033 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1034 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1035 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1036 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1037 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1038 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1039 shifted or discarded.
1040
1041 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1042 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1043 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1044 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1045
1046 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1047 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1048 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1049 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1050 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1051 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1052 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1053 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1054 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1055 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1056 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1057 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1058 by default.
1059
1060 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1061
1062 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1063
1064 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1065 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1066
1067 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1068
1069 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1070
1071 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1072
1073 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1074 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1075
1076 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1077
1078 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1079
1080 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1081 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1082 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1083 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1084 example:
1085
1086 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1087 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1088 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1089 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1090
1091 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1092 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1093 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1094 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1095
1096 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1097
1098 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1099 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1100
1101 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1102
1103 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1104
1105 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1106 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1107 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1108 suppress all warnings:
1109
1110 bison -Wnone gram.y
1111
1112 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1113
1114 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1115 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1116 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1117
1118 %left END 0
1119
1120 This bug has been fixed.
1121
1122 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1123
1124 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1125 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1126
1127 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1128 been fixed.
1129
1130 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1131
1132 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1133 been fixed.
1134
1135 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1136 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1137 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1138 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1139
1140 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1141
1142 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1143
1144 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1145 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1146 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1147 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1148 affected platforms.
1149
1150 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1151
1152 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1153 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1154 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1155 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1156 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1157 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1158 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1159 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1160 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1161
1162 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1163
1164 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1165 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1166 avoided.
1167
1168 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1169
1170 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1171
1172 %{CODE%}
1173
1174 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1175 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1176
1177 %code {CODE}
1178 %code requires {CODE}
1179 %code provides {CODE}
1180 %code top {CODE}
1181
1182 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1183 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1184 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1185 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1186 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1187
1188 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1189 is still considered experimental.
1190
1191 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1192
1193 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1194 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1195 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1196 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1197 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1198 specified by POSIX.
1199
1200 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1201 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1202 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1203 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1204 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1205 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1206 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1207
1208 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1209
1210 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1211 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1212 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1213 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1214 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1215 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1216 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1217 be removed altogether.
1218
1219 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1220 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1221 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1222 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1223 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1224 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1225 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1226 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1227 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1228 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1229
1230 ** Internationalization.
1231
1232 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1233 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1234 host system.
1235
1236 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1237
1238 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1239 declarations have been fixed.
1240
1241 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1242
1243 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1244 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1245
1246 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1247
1248 instead of
1249
1250 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1251
1252 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1253 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1254 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1255 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1256 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1257 feature.
1258
1259 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1260
1261 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1262
1263 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1264
1265 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1266 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1267 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1268 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1269 in future releases.
1270
1271 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1272
1273 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1274 fixed.
1275
1276 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1277
1278 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1279 are now deprecated:
1280
1281 %define NAME "VALUE"
1282
1283 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1284
1285 %define api.pure
1286
1287 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1288 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1289
1290 ** Push Parsing
1291
1292 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1293 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1294 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1295 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1296 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1297
1298 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1299 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1300
1301 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1302
1303 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1304 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1305
1306 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1307 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1308 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1309
1310 ** Java
1311
1312 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1313 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1314 %skeleton to select it.
1315
1316 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1317
1318 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1319 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1320 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1321
1322 ** %language
1323
1324 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1325 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1326 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1327 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1328
1329 ** XML Automaton Report
1330
1331 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1332 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1333 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1334 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1335
1336 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1337 %defines. For example:
1338
1339 %defines "parser.h"
1340
1341 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1342 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1343 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1344 instead of "unused".
1345
1346 ** Unreachable State Removal
1347
1348 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1349 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1350 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1351
1352 1. Removes unreachable states.
1353
1354 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1355 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1356 directives in existing grammar files.
1357
1358 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1359 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1360
1361 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1362
1363 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1364
1365 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1366 for further discussion.
1367
1368 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1369
1370 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1371 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1372 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1373 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1374 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1375 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1376 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1377 code.
1378
1379 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1380 name.
1381
1382 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1383 deprecated:
1384
1385 %file-prefix "parser"
1386 %name-prefix "c_"
1387 %output "parser.c"
1388
1389 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1390
1391 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1392 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1393 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1394 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1395 it:
1396
1397 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1398 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1399 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1400 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1401
1402 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1403 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1404 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1405 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1406
1407 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1408 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1409
1410 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1411
1412 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1413 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1414 about unused $2 in:
1415
1416 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1417
1418 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1419 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1420
1421 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1422
1423 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1424 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1425 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1426
1427 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1428 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1429
1430 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1431
1432 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1433 %printer's:
1434
1435 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1436 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1437 declared semantic type tags.
1438
1439 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1440 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1441 type tags.
1442
1443 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1444 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1445 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1446 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1447
1448 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1449 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1450 features.
1451
1452 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1453 details.
1454
1455 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1456 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1457 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1458
1459 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1460 completely removed from Bison.
1461
1462 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1463
1464 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1465 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1466 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1467 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1468 and is required by POSIX.
1469
1470 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1471 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1472
1473 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1474
1475 For example:
1476
1477 %union { char *string; }
1478 %token <string> STRING1
1479 %token <string> STRING2
1480 %type <string> string1
1481 %type <string> string2
1482 %union { char character; }
1483 %token <character> CHR
1484 %type <character> chr
1485 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1486 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1487 %destructor { } <character>
1488
1489 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1490 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1491 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1492 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1493 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1494
1495 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1496 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1497 future versions.]
1498
1499 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1500 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1501 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1502 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1503 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1504
1505 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1506 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1507
1508 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1509 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1510 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1511 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1512 declared after the first %union.
1513
1514 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1515 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1516 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1517 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1518 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1519 after the token definitions.
1520
1521 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1522 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1523
1524 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1525 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1526 %after-header.
1527
1528 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1529 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1530 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1531 convenient for you:
1532
1533 %before-header {
1534 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1535 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1536 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1537 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1538 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1539 }
1540 %start-header {
1541 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1542 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1543 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1544 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1545 }
1546 %union {
1547 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1548 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1549 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1550 }
1551 %end-header {
1552 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1553 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1554 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1555 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1556 * definitions. */
1557 }
1558 %after-header {
1559 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1560 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1561 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1562 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1563 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1564 }
1565
1566 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1567 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1568
1569 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1570 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1571
1572 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1573 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1574 in a future release.
1575
1576 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1577
1578 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1579 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1580
1581 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1582 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1583
1584 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1585
1586 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1587 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1588 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1589
1590 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1591
1592 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1593
1594 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1595 their contents together.
1596
1597 ** New warning: unused values
1598 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1599 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1600
1601 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1602 | exp "+" exp
1603 ;
1604
1605 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1606 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1607 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1608
1609 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1610 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1611 | exp "+" exp
1612 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1613 ;
1614
1615 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1616 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1617 values are used, e.g.:
1618
1619 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1620 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1621 ;
1622
1623 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1624 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1625
1626 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1627
1628 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1629 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1630
1631 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1632 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1633 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1634 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1635
1636 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1637 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1638 instead of warnings.
1639
1640 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1641 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1642 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1643
1644 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1645
1646 ** %require "VERSION"
1647 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1648 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1649
1650 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1651 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1652 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1653 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1654 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1655
1656 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1657 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1658 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1659 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1660
1661 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1662 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1663
1664 ** DJGPP support added.
1665 \f
1666 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1667
1668 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1669
1670 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1671 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1672 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1673 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1674 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1675 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1676
1677 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1678 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1679 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1680 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1681
1682 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1683 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1684 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1685
1686 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1687 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1688 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1689 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1690 unexpected "number"'.
1691 \f
1692 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1693
1694 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1695
1696 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1697 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1698 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1699 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1700 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1701
1702 - Error token location.
1703 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1704 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1705 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1706 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1707
1708 - Semicolon changes:
1709 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1710 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1711
1712 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1713 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1714 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1715 forget a closing quote.
1716
1717 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1718
1719 ** New features
1720
1721 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1722
1723 - New directive: %initial-action.
1724 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1725 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1726
1727 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1728 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1729
1730 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1731 This is a GNU extension.
1732
1733 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1734 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1735
1736 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1737
1738 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1739 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1740
1741 ** Bug fixes
1742
1743 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1744 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1745 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1746 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1747 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1748 these violations will become errors again.
1749
1750 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1751 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1752
1753 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1754 \f
1755 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1756
1757 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1758 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1759
1760 ** syntax error processing
1761
1762 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1763 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1764
1765 - %destructor
1766 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1767 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1768
1769 - %error-verbose
1770 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1771
1772 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1773 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1774
1775 ** POSIX conformance
1776
1777 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1778 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1779 compatibility with Yacc.
1780
1781 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1782 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1783 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1784 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1785 be consistent.
1786
1787 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1788 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1789
1790 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1791 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1792
1793 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1794 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1795
1796 - Yacc command and library now available
1797 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1798 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1799 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1800 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1801
1802 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1803
1804 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1805 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1806 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1807
1808 ** Other compatibility issues
1809
1810 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1811 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1812 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1813 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1814 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1815 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1816
1817 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1818 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1819
1820 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1821 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1822
1823 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1824 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1825 withdrawn in a future release.
1826
1827 ** GLR parser notes
1828
1829 - GLR and inline
1830 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1831 C keyword "inline".
1832
1833 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1834 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1835
1836 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1837 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1838 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1839 shortcomings:
1840
1841 - a single argument only can be added,
1842 - their types are weak (void *),
1843 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1844 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1845
1846 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1847 For instance:
1848
1849 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1850 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1851 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1852
1853 results in the following signatures:
1854
1855 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1856 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1857
1858 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1859
1860 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1861 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1862
1863 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1864 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1865 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1866
1867 ** #line in output files
1868 - --no-line works properly.
1869
1870 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1871 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1872 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1873 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1874 \f
1875 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1876
1877 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1878
1879 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1880
1881 ** GLR parsers
1882 Fix spurious parse errors.
1883
1884 ** Pure parsers
1885 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1886 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1887
1888 ** Type Clashes
1889 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1890 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1891
1892 untyped: ... typed;
1893
1894 but the converse remains an error:
1895
1896 typed: ... untyped;
1897
1898 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1899 The following code:
1900
1901 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1902
1903 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1904 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1905 \f
1906 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1907
1908 ** GLR parsing
1909 The declaration
1910 %glr-parser
1911 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1912 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1913 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1914 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1915
1916 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1917 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1918
1919 ** Output Directory
1920 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1921 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1922 now creates "bar.c".
1923
1924 ** Undefined token
1925 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1926 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1927
1928 ** Unknown token numbers
1929 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1930 no longer the case.
1931
1932 ** Error token
1933 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1934 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1935 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1936 will be mapped onto another number.
1937
1938 ** Verbose error messages
1939 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1940 error recovery is possible.
1941
1942 ** End token
1943 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1944
1945 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1946 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1947 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1948 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1949 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1950 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1951 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1952 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1953 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1954
1955 ** Traces
1956 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1957
1958 ** Larger grammars
1959 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1960 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1961 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1962 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1963
1964 ** Explicit initial rule
1965 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1966 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1967 graphs as rule 0.
1968
1969 ** Useless rules
1970 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1971 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1972
1973 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1974 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1975
1976 ** Rules never reduced
1977 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1978 reported.
1979
1980 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1981 On a grammar such as
1982
1983 %token useless useful
1984 %%
1985 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1986
1987 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1988 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1989
1990 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1991 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1992
1993 ** Default locations
1994 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1995 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1996 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1997 the computation of @$.
1998
1999 ** Token end-of-file
2000 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2001 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2002 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2003 For instance
2004 %token MYEOF 0
2005 or
2006 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2007
2008 ** Semantic parser
2009 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2010
2011 ** New translations
2012 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2013 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2014
2015 ** Incorrect token definitions
2016 When given
2017 %token 'a' "A"
2018 bison used to output
2019 #define 'a' 65
2020
2021 ** Token definitions as enums
2022 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2023 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2024 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2025
2026 ** Reports
2027 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2028 produces additional information:
2029 - itemset
2030 complete the core item sets with their closure
2031 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2032 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2033 - solved
2034 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2035 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2036 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2037
2038 ** Type clashes
2039 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2040 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2041
2042 %type <foo> bar
2043 %%
2044 bar: '0' {} '0';
2045
2046 This is fixed.
2047
2048 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2049 \f
2050 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2051
2052 ** C Skeleton
2053 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2054 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2055 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2056
2057 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2058 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2059 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2060 kludge will be disabled.
2061
2062 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2063 extended.
2064 \f
2065 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2066
2067 ** File name clashes are detected
2068 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2069 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2070
2071 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2072 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2073 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2074 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2075 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2076 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2077
2078 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2079 many portability hassles.
2080
2081 ** DJGPP support added.
2082
2083 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2084 \f
2085 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2086
2087 ** Fix C++ issues
2088 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2089 under some conditions.
2090
2091 ** Catch invalid @n
2092 As is done with $n.
2093 \f
2094 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2095
2096 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2097
2098 ** Portability fixes
2099
2100 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2101 \f
2102 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2103
2104 ** Many Bug Fixes
2105
2106 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2107 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2108 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2109 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2110 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2111
2112 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2113 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2114 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2115
2116 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2117 problems as on AIX.
2118
2119 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2120
2121 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2122 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2123
2124 ** User Actions
2125 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2126 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2127 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2128
2129 ** Better C++ compliance
2130 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2131 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2132
2133 ** Reduced Grammars
2134 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2135
2136 ** 64 bit hosts
2137 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2138
2139 ** Error messages
2140 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2141
2142 ** %expect
2143 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2144 any warning.
2145
2146 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2147
2148 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2149
2150 ** Swedish translation
2151
2152 ** Parse errors
2153 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2154 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2155 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2156
2157 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2158 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2159 previous allocations were not freed.
2160
2161 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2162 Some newlines were missing.
2163 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2164
2165 ** Fixed conflict report.
2166 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2167
2168 ** %expect
2169 Was not used.
2170 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2171
2172 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2173
2174 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2175
2176 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2177
2178 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2179 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2180
2181 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2182
2183 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2184 New.
2185
2186 ** --output
2187 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2188 \f
2189 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2190
2191 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2192 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2193 argument.
2194
2195 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2196 experiment.
2197
2198 ** Portability fixes.
2199 \f
2200 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2201
2202 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2203 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2204 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2205 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2206
2207 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2208
2209 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2210
2211 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2212
2213 ** Russian translation added.
2214
2215 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2216
2217 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2218
2219 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2220
2221 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2222
2223 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2224
2225 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2226 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2227
2228 ** New directives.
2229 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2230 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2231
2232 ** @$
2233 Automatic location tracking.
2234 \f
2235 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2236
2237 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2238
2239 ** Added NLS.
2240
2241 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2242
2243 ** There is now a FAQ.
2244 \f
2245 * Changes in version 1.27:
2246
2247 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2248 some systems has been fixed.
2249 \f
2250 * Changes in version 1.26:
2251
2252 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2253
2254 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2255
2256 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2257
2258 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2259
2260 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2261
2262 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2263
2264 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2265 not provide alloca().
2266 \f
2267 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2268
2269 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2270 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2271
2272 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2273 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2274 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2275
2276 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2277 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2278 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2279 purposes.
2280
2281 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2282 directives in the parser file.
2283
2284 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2285 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2286
2287 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2288 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2289 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2290 a switch statement body.
2291 \f
2292 * Changes in version 1.23:
2293
2294 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2295 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2296 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2297 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2298
2299 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2300 \f
2301 * Changes in version 1.22:
2302
2303 --help option added.
2304 \f
2305 * Changes in version 1.20:
2306
2307 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2308
2309 -----
2310
2311 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2312
2313 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2314
2315 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2316 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2317 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2318 (at your option) any later version.
2319
2320 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2321 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2322 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2323 GNU General Public License for more details.
2324
2325 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2326 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2327
2328 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2329 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2330 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2331 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2332 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2333 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2334 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2335 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2336 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2337 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2338 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2339 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2340 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2341 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2342 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2343 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2344 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2345 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2346 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2347
2348 Local Variables:
2349 mode: outline
2350 fill-column: 76
2351 End: