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