3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
7 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The --language
8 option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
10 ** New format for error reports: carets
12 Caret errors have been added to Bison, for example (taken from the
15 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
16 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $2; };
19 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless explictly
20 asked with -fall of -fcaret. However, in a later release, it will be made the
21 default behavior (but may still be deactivated with -fno-caret).
23 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
25 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
26 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser resulted
27 in an yyerror function that did not take a location as a parameter. With this
28 new value, the user may request a better pure parser, where yyerror does take
29 a location as a parameter (in location-tracking parsers).
31 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
32 "%define api.pure full".
34 ** Changes in the format of error messages
36 This used to be the format of many error reports:
38 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
39 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
43 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
44 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
46 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
48 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
49 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
50 before re-throwing the exception.
52 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
55 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
57 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
58 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
59 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
60 then responsible to define her type.
62 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
63 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
66 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
67 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
70 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
71 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
74 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
76 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
77 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
78 numbered and left-justified.
80 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
83 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
84 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
86 Two nodes were added to the documentation: Xml and Graphviz.
88 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
92 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
96 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
97 have been fixed and extended.
99 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
101 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
102 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
103 reporting them to us.
107 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
108 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
111 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
113 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
115 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
116 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
118 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
120 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
122 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
126 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
128 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
129 users to the appropriate place to report them.
131 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
133 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
134 generated, are removed.
136 All the generated headers are self-contained.
138 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
140 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
141 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
142 For instance the header generated from
144 %define api.prefix "calc"
145 %defines "lib/parse.h"
147 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
149 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
151 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
154 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
155 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
156 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
160 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
162 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
163 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
166 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
170 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
171 suite have been fixed.
173 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
175 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
176 invalid C++. This is fixed.
178 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
180 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
182 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
184 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
188 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
189 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
190 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
192 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
196 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
200 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
202 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
204 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
206 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
207 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
210 ** Type names in actions
212 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
213 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
215 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
217 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
218 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
220 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
224 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
225 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
229 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
230 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
233 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
235 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
238 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
239 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
241 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
244 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
246 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
247 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
248 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
249 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
252 ** Generated Parser Headers
254 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
256 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
257 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
262 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
264 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
266 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
267 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
269 int bar_parse (void);
273 #define yyparse bar_parse
276 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
277 single compilation unit.
279 *** Exported symbols in C++
281 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
282 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
283 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
287 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
290 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
292 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
293 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
294 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
295 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
296 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
297 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
298 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
300 The following examples compares both:
302 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
303 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
304 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
310 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
311 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
313 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
314 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
315 > # if defined YYDEBUG
317 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
319 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
322 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
326 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
327 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
330 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
331 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
332 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
333 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
338 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
339 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
340 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
343 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
344 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
347 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
349 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
351 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
353 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
357 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
359 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
361 ** glr.c improvements:
363 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
365 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
366 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
368 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
370 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
371 when -std is passed to GCC).
373 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
375 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
376 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
380 *** C++11 compatibility:
382 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
387 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
388 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
390 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
391 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
393 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
395 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
396 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
397 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
399 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
401 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
402 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
404 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
408 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
409 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
410 documentation were fixed.
412 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
414 ** Changes in the manual:
416 *** %printer is documented
418 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
419 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
421 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
422 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
424 *** Several improvements have been made:
426 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
427 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
428 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
429 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
433 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
435 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
436 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
438 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
440 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
442 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
443 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
445 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
447 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
448 halts in the middle of its course.
450 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
452 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
454 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
455 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
456 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
457 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
458 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
462 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
463 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
466 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
467 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
470 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
471 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
473 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
475 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
476 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
478 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
479 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
480 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
482 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
483 will help to stabilize them.
485 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
487 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
488 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
489 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
490 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
491 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
492 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
493 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
494 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
495 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
497 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
498 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
499 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
500 file with these directives:
504 %define lr.type canonical-lr
506 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
507 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
508 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
511 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
514 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
516 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
517 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
518 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
519 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
520 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
521 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
522 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
523 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
524 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
525 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
528 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
529 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
530 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
531 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
534 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
535 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
536 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
537 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
538 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
539 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
540 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
541 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
544 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
545 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
547 %define parse.lac full
549 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
550 details including a few caveats.
552 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
555 ** %define improvements:
557 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
559 Each of these command-line options
562 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
565 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
567 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
569 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
571 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
572 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
573 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
574 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
576 *** Variables renamed:
578 The following %define variables
581 lr.keep_unreachable_states
586 lr.keep-unreachable-states
588 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
589 for backward compatibility.
591 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
593 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
594 within quotations marks. For example,
596 %define api.push-pull "push"
600 %define api.push-pull push
602 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
604 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
606 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
608 ** Character literals not of length one:
610 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
611 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
612 the following grammar to be the same token:
618 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
619 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
621 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
623 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
624 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
625 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
626 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
628 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
630 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
631 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
632 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
633 and "last" members, instead of
635 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
639 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
640 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
644 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
650 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
654 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
655 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
659 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
663 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
665 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
666 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
667 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
668 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
670 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
672 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
673 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
674 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
675 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
676 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
677 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
678 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
679 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
681 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
683 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
684 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
685 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
686 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
688 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
692 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
694 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
695 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
696 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
697 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
698 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
699 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
700 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
702 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
704 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
705 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
706 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
707 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
708 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
710 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
711 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
712 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
713 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
714 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
715 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
716 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
717 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
718 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
719 shifted or discarded.
721 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
722 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
723 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
724 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
726 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
727 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
728 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
729 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
730 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
731 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
732 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
733 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
734 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
735 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
736 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
737 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
740 ** Java skeleton fixes:
742 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
744 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
745 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
747 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
749 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
751 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
753 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
754 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
756 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
758 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
760 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
761 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
762 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
763 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
766 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
767 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
768 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
769 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
771 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
772 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
773 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
774 then have no effect on the conflict report.
776 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
778 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
779 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
781 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
783 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
785 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
786 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
787 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
788 suppress all warnings:
792 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
794 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
795 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
796 produced an assertion failure. For example:
800 This bug has been fixed.
802 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
804 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
805 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
807 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
810 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
812 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
815 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
816 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
817 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
818 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
820 ** Minor documentation fixes.
822 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
824 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
825 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
826 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
827 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
830 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
832 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
833 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
834 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
835 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
836 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
837 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
838 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
839 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
840 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
842 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
844 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
845 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
848 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
850 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
854 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
855 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
858 %code requires {CODE}
859 %code provides {CODE}
862 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
863 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
864 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
865 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
866 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
868 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
869 is still considered experimental.
871 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
873 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
874 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
875 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
876 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
877 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
880 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
881 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
882 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
883 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
884 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
885 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
886 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
888 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
890 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
891 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
892 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
893 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
894 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
895 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
896 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
897 be removed altogether.
899 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
900 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
901 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
902 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
903 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
904 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
905 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
906 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
907 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
908 2.4.2 is not necessary.
910 ** Internationalization.
912 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
913 message translations were not installed although supported by the
916 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
918 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
919 declarations have been fixed.
921 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
923 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
924 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
926 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
930 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
932 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
933 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
934 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
935 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
936 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
939 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
941 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
943 ** %language is an experimental feature.
945 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
946 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
947 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
948 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
951 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
953 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
956 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
958 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
963 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
967 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
968 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
972 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
973 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
974 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
975 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
976 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
978 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
979 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
981 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
983 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
984 feedback will help to stabilize it.
986 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
987 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
988 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
992 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
993 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
994 %skeleton to select it.
996 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
998 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
999 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1003 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1004 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1005 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1006 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1008 ** XML Automaton Report
1010 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1011 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1012 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1014 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1015 %defines. For example:
1019 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1020 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1021 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1022 instead of "unused".
1024 ** Unreachable State Removal
1026 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1027 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1028 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1030 1. Removes unreachable states.
1032 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1033 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1034 directives in existing grammar files.
1036 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1037 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1039 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1041 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1043 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1044 for further discussion.
1046 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1048 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1049 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1050 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1051 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1052 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1053 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1054 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1057 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1060 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1063 %file-prefix "parser"
1067 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1069 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1070 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1071 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1072 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1075 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1076 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1077 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1078 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1080 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1081 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1082 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1083 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1085 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1086 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1088 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1090 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1091 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1094 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1096 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1097 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1099 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1101 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1102 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1103 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1105 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1106 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1108 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1110 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1113 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1114 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1115 declared semantic type tags.
1117 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1118 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1121 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1122 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1123 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1124 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1126 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1127 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1130 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1133 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1134 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1135 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1137 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1138 completely removed from Bison.
1140 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1142 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1143 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1144 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1145 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1146 and is required by POSIX.
1148 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1149 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1151 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1155 %union { char *string; }
1156 %token <string> STRING1
1157 %token <string> STRING2
1158 %type <string> string1
1159 %type <string> string2
1160 %union { char character; }
1161 %token <character> CHR
1162 %type <character> chr
1163 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1164 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1165 %destructor { } <character>
1167 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1168 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1169 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1170 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1171 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1173 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1174 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1177 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1178 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1179 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1180 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1181 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1183 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1184 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1186 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1187 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1188 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1189 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1190 declared after the first %union.
1192 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1193 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1194 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1195 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1196 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1197 after the token definitions.
1199 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1200 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1202 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1203 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1206 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1207 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1208 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1212 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1213 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1214 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1215 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1216 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1219 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1220 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1221 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1222 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1225 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1226 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1227 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1230 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1231 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1232 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1233 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1237 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1238 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1239 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1240 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1241 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1244 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1245 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1247 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1248 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1250 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1251 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1252 in a future release.
1254 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1256 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1257 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1259 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1260 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1262 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1264 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1265 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1266 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1268 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1270 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1272 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1273 their contents together.
1275 ** New warning: unused values
1276 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1277 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1279 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1283 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1284 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1285 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1287 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1288 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1290 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1293 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1294 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1295 values are used, e.g.:
1297 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1298 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1301 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1302 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1304 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1306 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1307 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1309 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1310 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1311 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1312 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1314 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1315 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1316 instead of warnings.
1318 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1319 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1320 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1322 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1324 ** %require "VERSION"
1325 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1326 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1328 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1329 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1330 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1331 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1332 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1334 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1335 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1336 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1337 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1339 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1340 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1342 ** DJGPP support added.
1344 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1346 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1348 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1349 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1350 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1351 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1352 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1353 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1355 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1356 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1357 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1358 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1360 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1361 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1362 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1364 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1365 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1366 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1367 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1368 unexpected "number"'.
1370 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1372 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1374 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1375 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1376 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1377 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1378 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1380 - Error token location.
1381 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1382 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1383 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1384 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1386 - Semicolon changes:
1387 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1388 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1390 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1391 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1392 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1393 forget a closing quote.
1395 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1399 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1401 - New directive: %initial-action.
1402 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1403 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1405 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1406 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1408 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1409 This is a GNU extension.
1411 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1412 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1414 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1416 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1417 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1421 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1422 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1423 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1424 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1425 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1426 these violations will become errors again.
1428 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1429 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1431 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1433 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1435 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1436 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1438 ** syntax error processing
1440 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1441 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1444 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1445 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1448 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1450 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1451 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1453 ** POSIX conformance
1455 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1456 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1457 compatibility with Yacc.
1459 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1460 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1461 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1462 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1465 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1466 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1468 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1469 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1471 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1472 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1474 - Yacc command and library now available
1475 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1476 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1477 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1478 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1480 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1482 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1483 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1484 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1486 ** Other compatibility issues
1488 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1489 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1490 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1491 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1492 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1493 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1495 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1496 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1498 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1499 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1501 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1502 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1503 withdrawn in a future release.
1508 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1511 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1512 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1514 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1515 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1516 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1519 - a single argument only can be added,
1520 - their types are weak (void *),
1521 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1522 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1524 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1527 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1528 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1529 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1531 results in the following signatures:
1533 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1534 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1536 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1538 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1539 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1541 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1542 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1543 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1545 ** #line in output files
1546 - --no-line works properly.
1548 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1549 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1550 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1551 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1553 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1555 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1557 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1560 Fix spurious parse errors.
1563 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1564 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1567 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1568 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1572 but the converse remains an error:
1576 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1579 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1581 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1582 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1584 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1589 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1590 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1591 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1592 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1594 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1595 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1598 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1599 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1600 now creates "bar.c".
1603 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1604 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1606 ** Unknown token numbers
1607 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1611 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1612 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1613 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1614 will be mapped onto another number.
1616 ** Verbose error messages
1617 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1618 error recovery is possible.
1621 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1623 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1624 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1625 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1626 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1627 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1628 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1629 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1630 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1631 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1634 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1637 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1638 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1639 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1640 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1642 ** Explicit initial rule
1643 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1644 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1648 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1649 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1651 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1652 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1654 ** Rules never reduced
1655 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1658 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1659 On a grammar such as
1661 %token useless useful
1663 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1665 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1666 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1668 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1669 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1671 ** Default locations
1672 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1673 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1674 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1675 the computation of @$.
1677 ** Token end-of-file
1678 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1679 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1680 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1684 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1687 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1690 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1691 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1693 ** Incorrect token definitions
1696 bison used to output
1699 ** Token definitions as enums
1700 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1701 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1702 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1705 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1706 produces additional information:
1708 complete the core item sets with their closure
1709 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1710 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1712 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1713 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1714 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1717 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1718 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1726 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1728 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1731 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1732 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1733 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1735 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1736 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1737 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1738 kludge will be disabled.
1740 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1743 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1745 ** File name clashes are detected
1746 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1747 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1749 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1750 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1751 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1752 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1753 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1754 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1756 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1757 many portability hassles.
1759 ** DJGPP support added.
1761 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1763 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1766 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1767 under some conditions.
1772 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1774 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1776 ** Portability fixes
1778 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1780 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1784 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1785 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1786 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1787 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1788 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1790 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1791 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1792 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1794 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1797 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1799 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1800 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1803 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1804 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1805 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1807 ** Better C++ compliance
1808 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1809 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1812 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1815 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1818 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1821 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1824 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1826 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1828 ** Swedish translation
1831 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1832 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1833 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1835 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1836 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1837 previous allocations were not freed.
1839 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1840 Some newlines were missing.
1841 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1843 ** Fixed conflict report.
1844 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1848 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1850 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1852 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1854 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1856 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1857 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1859 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1861 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1865 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1867 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1869 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1870 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1873 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1876 ** Portability fixes.
1878 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1880 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1881 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1882 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1883 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1885 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1887 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1889 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1891 ** Russian translation added.
1893 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1895 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1897 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1899 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1901 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1903 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1904 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1907 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1908 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1911 Automatic location tracking.
1913 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1915 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1919 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1921 ** There is now a FAQ.
1923 * Changes in version 1.27:
1925 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1926 some systems has been fixed.
1928 * Changes in version 1.26:
1930 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1932 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1934 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1936 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1938 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1940 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1942 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1943 not provide alloca().
1945 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1947 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1948 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1950 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1951 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1952 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1954 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1955 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1956 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1959 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1960 directives in the parser file.
1962 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1963 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1965 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1966 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1967 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1968 a switch statement body.
1970 * Changes in version 1.23:
1972 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1973 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1974 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1975 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1977 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1979 * Changes in version 1.22:
1981 --help option added.
1983 * Changes in version 1.20:
1985 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1989 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1991 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1993 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1994 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1995 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1996 (at your option) any later version.
1998 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1999 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2000 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2001 GNU General Public License for more details.
2003 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2004 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2006 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2007 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2008 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2009 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2010 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2011 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2012 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2013 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2014 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2015 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2016 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2017 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2018 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2019 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2020 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2021 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2022 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2023 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
2024 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's