3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
6 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
11 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
12 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
15 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
17 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
19 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
21 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
23 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
27 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
29 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
30 users to the appropriate place to report them.
32 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
34 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
35 generated, are removed.
37 All the generated headers are self-contained.
39 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
41 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
42 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
43 For instance the header generated from
45 %define api.prefix "calc"
46 %defines "lib/parse.h"
48 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
50 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
52 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
55 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
56 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
57 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
61 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
63 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
64 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
67 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
71 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
72 suite have been fixed.
74 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
76 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
77 invalid C++. This is fixed.
79 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
81 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
83 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
85 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
89 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
90 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
91 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
93 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
97 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
101 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
103 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
105 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
107 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
108 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
111 ** Type names in actions
113 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
114 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
116 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
118 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
119 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
121 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
125 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
126 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
130 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
131 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
134 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
136 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
139 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
140 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
142 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
145 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
147 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
148 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
149 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
150 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
153 ** Generated Parser Headers
155 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
157 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
158 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
163 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
165 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
167 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
168 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
170 int bar_parse (void);
174 #define yyparse bar_parse
177 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
178 single compilation unit.
180 *** Exported symbols in C++
182 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
183 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
184 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
188 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
191 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
193 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
194 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
195 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
196 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
197 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
198 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
199 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
201 The following examples compares both:
203 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
204 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
205 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
211 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
212 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
214 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
215 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
216 > # if defined YYDEBUG
218 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
220 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
223 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
227 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
228 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
231 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
232 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
233 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
234 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
239 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
240 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
241 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
244 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
245 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
248 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
250 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
252 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
254 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
258 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
260 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
262 ** glr.c improvements:
264 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
266 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
267 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
269 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
271 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
272 when -std is passed to GCC).
274 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
276 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
277 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
281 *** C++11 compatibility:
283 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
288 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
289 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
291 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
292 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
294 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
296 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
297 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
298 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
300 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
302 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
303 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
305 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
309 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
310 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
311 documentation were fixed.
313 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
315 ** Changes in the manual:
317 *** %printer is documented
319 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
320 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
322 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
323 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
325 *** Several improvements have been made:
327 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
328 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
329 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
330 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
334 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
336 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
337 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
339 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
341 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
343 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
344 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
346 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
348 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
349 halts in the middle of its course.
351 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
353 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
355 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
356 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
357 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
358 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
359 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
363 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
364 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
367 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
368 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
371 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
372 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
374 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
376 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
377 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
379 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
380 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
381 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
383 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
384 will help to stabilize them.
386 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
388 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
389 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
390 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
391 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
392 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
393 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
394 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
395 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
396 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
398 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
399 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
400 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
401 file with these directives:
405 %define lr.type canonical-lr
407 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
408 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
409 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
412 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
415 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
417 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
418 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
419 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
420 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
421 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
422 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
423 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
424 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
425 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
426 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
429 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
430 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
431 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
432 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
435 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
436 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
437 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
438 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
439 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
440 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
441 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
442 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
445 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
446 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
448 %define parse.lac full
450 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
451 details including a few caveats.
453 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
456 ** %define improvements:
458 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
460 Each of these command-line options
463 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
466 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
468 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
470 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
472 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
473 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
474 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
475 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
477 *** Variables renamed:
479 The following %define variables
482 lr.keep_unreachable_states
487 lr.keep-unreachable-states
489 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
490 for backward compatibility.
492 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
494 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
495 within quotations marks. For example,
497 %define api.push-pull "push"
501 %define api.push-pull push
503 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
505 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
507 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
509 ** Character literals not of length one:
511 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
512 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
513 the following grammar to be the same token:
519 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
520 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
522 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
524 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
525 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
526 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
527 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
529 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
531 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
532 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
533 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
534 and "last" members, instead of
536 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
540 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
541 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
545 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
551 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
555 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
556 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
560 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
564 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
566 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
567 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
568 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
569 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
571 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
573 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
574 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
575 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
576 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
577 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
578 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
579 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
580 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
582 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
584 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
585 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
586 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
587 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
589 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
593 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
595 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
596 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
597 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
598 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
599 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
600 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
601 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
603 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
605 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
606 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
607 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
608 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
609 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
611 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
612 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
613 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
614 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
615 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
616 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
617 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
618 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
619 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
620 shifted or discarded.
622 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
623 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
624 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
625 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
627 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
628 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
629 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
630 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
631 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
632 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
633 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
634 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
635 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
636 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
637 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
638 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
641 ** Java skeleton fixes:
643 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
645 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
646 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
648 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
650 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
652 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
654 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
655 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
657 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
659 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
661 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
662 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
663 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
664 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
667 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
668 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
669 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
670 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
672 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
673 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
674 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
675 then have no effect on the conflict report.
677 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
679 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
680 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
682 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
684 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
686 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
687 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
688 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
689 suppress all warnings:
693 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
695 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
696 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
697 produced an assertion failure. For example:
701 This bug has been fixed.
703 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
705 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
706 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
708 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
711 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
713 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
716 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
717 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
718 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
719 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
721 ** Minor documentation fixes.
723 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
725 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
726 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
727 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
728 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
731 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
733 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
734 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
735 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
736 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
737 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
738 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
739 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
740 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
741 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
743 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
745 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
746 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
749 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
751 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
755 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
756 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
759 %code requires {CODE}
760 %code provides {CODE}
763 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
764 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
765 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
766 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
767 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
769 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
770 is still considered experimental.
772 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
774 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
775 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
776 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
777 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
778 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
781 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
782 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
783 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
784 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
785 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
786 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
787 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
789 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
791 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
792 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
793 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
794 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
795 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
796 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
797 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
798 be removed altogether.
800 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
801 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
802 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
803 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
804 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
805 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
806 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
807 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
808 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
809 2.4.2 is not necessary.
811 ** Internationalization.
813 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
814 message translations were not installed although supported by the
817 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
819 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
820 declarations have been fixed.
822 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
824 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
825 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
827 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
831 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
833 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
834 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
835 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
836 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
837 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
840 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
842 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
844 ** %language is an experimental feature.
846 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
847 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
848 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
849 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
852 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
854 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
857 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
859 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
864 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
868 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
869 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
873 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
874 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
875 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
876 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
877 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
879 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
880 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
882 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
884 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
885 feedback will help to stabilize it.
887 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
888 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
889 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
893 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
894 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
895 %skeleton to select it.
897 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
899 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
900 feedback will help to stabilize it.
904 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
905 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
906 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
907 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
909 ** XML Automaton Report
911 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
912 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
913 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
915 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
916 %defines. For example:
920 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
921 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
922 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
925 ** Unreachable State Removal
927 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
928 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
929 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
931 1. Removes unreachable states.
933 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
934 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
935 directives in existing grammar files.
937 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
938 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
940 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
942 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
944 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
945 for further discussion.
947 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
949 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
950 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
951 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
952 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
953 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
954 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
955 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
958 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
961 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
964 %file-prefix "parser"
968 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
970 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
971 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
972 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
973 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
976 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
977 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
978 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
979 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
981 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
982 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
983 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
984 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
986 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
987 determine whether they should become permanent features.
989 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
991 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
992 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
995 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
997 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
998 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1000 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1002 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1003 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1004 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1006 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1007 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1009 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1011 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1014 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1015 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1016 declared semantic type tags.
1018 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1019 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1022 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1023 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1024 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1025 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1027 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1028 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1031 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1034 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1035 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1036 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1038 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1039 completely removed from Bison.
1041 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1043 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1044 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1045 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1046 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1047 and is required by POSIX.
1049 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1050 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1052 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1056 %union { char *string; }
1057 %token <string> STRING1
1058 %token <string> STRING2
1059 %type <string> string1
1060 %type <string> string2
1061 %union { char character; }
1062 %token <character> CHR
1063 %type <character> chr
1064 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1065 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1066 %destructor { } <character>
1068 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1069 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1070 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1071 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1072 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1074 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1075 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1078 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1079 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1080 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1081 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1082 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1084 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1085 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1087 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1088 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1089 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1090 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1091 declared after the first %union.
1093 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1094 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1095 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1096 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1097 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1098 after the token definitions.
1100 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1101 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1103 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1104 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1107 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1108 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1109 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1113 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1114 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1115 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1116 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1117 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1120 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1121 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1122 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1123 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1126 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1127 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1128 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1131 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1132 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1133 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1134 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1138 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1139 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1140 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1141 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1142 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1145 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1146 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1148 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1149 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1151 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1152 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1153 in a future release.
1155 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1157 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1158 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1160 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1161 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1163 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1165 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1166 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1167 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1169 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1171 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1173 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1174 their contents together.
1176 ** New warning: unused values
1177 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1178 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1180 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1184 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1185 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1186 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1188 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1189 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1191 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1194 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1195 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1196 values are used, e.g.:
1198 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1199 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1202 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1203 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1205 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1207 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1208 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1210 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1211 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1212 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1213 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1215 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1216 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1217 instead of warnings.
1219 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1220 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1221 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1223 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1225 ** %require "VERSION"
1226 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1227 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1229 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1230 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1231 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1232 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1233 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1235 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1236 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1237 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1238 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1240 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1241 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1243 ** DJGPP support added.
1245 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1247 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1249 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1250 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1251 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1252 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1253 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1254 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1256 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1257 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1258 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1259 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1261 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1262 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1263 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1265 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1266 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1267 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1268 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1269 unexpected "number"'.
1271 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1273 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1275 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1276 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1277 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1278 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1279 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1281 - Error token location.
1282 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1283 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1284 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1285 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1287 - Semicolon changes:
1288 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1289 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1291 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1292 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1293 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1294 forget a closing quote.
1296 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1300 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1302 - New directive: %initial-action.
1303 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1304 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1306 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1307 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1309 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1310 This is a GNU extension.
1312 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1313 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1315 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1317 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1318 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1322 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1323 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1324 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1325 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1326 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1327 these violations will become errors again.
1329 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1330 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1332 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1334 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1336 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1337 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1339 ** syntax error processing
1341 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1342 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1345 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1346 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1349 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1351 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1352 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1354 ** POSIX conformance
1356 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1357 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1358 compatibility with Yacc.
1360 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1361 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1362 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1363 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1366 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1367 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1369 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1370 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1372 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1373 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1375 - Yacc command and library now available
1376 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1377 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1378 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1379 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1381 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1383 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1384 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1385 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1387 ** Other compatibility issues
1389 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1390 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1391 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1392 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1393 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1394 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1396 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1397 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1399 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1400 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1402 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1403 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1404 withdrawn in a future release.
1409 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1412 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1413 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1415 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1416 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1417 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1420 - a single argument only can be added,
1421 - their types are weak (void *),
1422 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1423 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1425 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1428 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1429 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1430 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1432 results in the following signatures:
1434 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1435 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1437 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1439 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1440 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1442 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1443 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1444 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1446 ** #line in output files
1447 - --no-line works properly.
1449 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1450 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1451 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1452 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1454 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1456 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1458 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1461 Fix spurious parse errors.
1464 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1465 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1468 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1469 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1473 but the converse remains an error:
1477 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1480 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1482 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1483 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1485 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1490 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1491 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1492 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1493 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1495 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1496 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1499 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1500 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1501 now creates "bar.c".
1504 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1505 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1507 ** Unknown token numbers
1508 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1512 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1513 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1514 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1515 will be mapped onto another number.
1517 ** Verbose error messages
1518 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1519 error recovery is possible.
1522 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1524 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1525 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1526 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1527 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1528 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1529 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1530 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1531 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1532 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1535 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1538 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1539 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1540 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1541 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1543 ** Explicit initial rule
1544 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1545 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1549 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1550 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1552 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1553 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1555 ** Rules never reduced
1556 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1559 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1560 On a grammar such as
1562 %token useless useful
1564 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1566 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1567 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1569 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1570 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1572 ** Default locations
1573 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1574 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1575 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1576 the computation of @$.
1578 ** Token end-of-file
1579 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1580 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1581 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1585 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1588 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1591 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1592 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1594 ** Incorrect token definitions
1597 bison used to output
1600 ** Token definitions as enums
1601 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1602 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1603 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1606 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1607 produces additional information:
1609 complete the core item sets with their closure
1610 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1611 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1613 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1614 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1615 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1618 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1619 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1627 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1629 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1632 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1633 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1634 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1636 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1637 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1638 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1639 kludge will be disabled.
1641 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1644 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1646 ** File name clashes are detected
1647 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1648 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1650 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1651 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1652 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1653 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1654 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1655 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1657 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1658 many portability hassles.
1660 ** DJGPP support added.
1662 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1664 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1667 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1668 under some conditions.
1673 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1675 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1677 ** Portability fixes
1679 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1681 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1685 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1686 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1687 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1688 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1689 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1691 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1692 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1693 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1695 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1698 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1700 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1701 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1704 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1705 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1706 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1708 ** Better C++ compliance
1709 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1710 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1713 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1716 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1719 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1722 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1725 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1727 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1729 ** Swedish translation
1732 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1733 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1734 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1736 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1737 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1738 previous allocations were not freed.
1740 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1741 Some newlines were missing.
1742 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1744 ** Fixed conflict report.
1745 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1749 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1751 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1753 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1755 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1757 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1758 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1760 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1762 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1766 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1768 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1770 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1771 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1774 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1777 ** Portability fixes.
1779 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1781 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1782 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1783 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1784 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1786 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1788 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1790 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1792 ** Russian translation added.
1794 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1796 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1798 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1800 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1802 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1804 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1805 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1808 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1809 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1812 Automatic location tracking.
1814 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1816 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1820 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1822 ** There is now a FAQ.
1824 * Changes in version 1.27:
1826 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1827 some systems has been fixed.
1829 * Changes in version 1.26:
1831 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1833 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1835 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1837 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1839 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1841 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1843 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1844 not provide alloca().
1846 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1848 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1849 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1851 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1852 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1853 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1855 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1856 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1857 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1860 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1861 directives in the parser file.
1863 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1864 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1866 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1867 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1868 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1869 a switch statement body.
1871 * Changes in version 1.23:
1873 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1874 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1875 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1876 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1878 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1880 * Changes in version 1.22:
1882 --help option added.
1884 * Changes in version 1.20:
1886 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1890 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1892 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1894 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1895 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1896 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1897 (at your option) any later version.
1899 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1900 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1901 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1902 GNU General Public License for more details.
1904 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1905 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1907 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1908 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1909 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1910 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1911 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1912 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1913 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1914 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1915 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1916 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1917 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1918 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1919 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1920 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1921 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1922 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1923 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1924 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval