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