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