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