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skel: better aliasing of identifiers
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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Incompatible changes
6
7 *** Obsolete features
8
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
10
11 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
12 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
13
14 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
15 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
16
17 ** Warnings
18
19 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
20
21 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
22 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
23 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
24
25 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
26 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
27 errors (and only those):
28
29 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
30
31 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
32 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
33
34 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
35
36 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
37
38 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
39 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
40
41 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
42 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
43 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
44
45 *** The display of warnings is now richer
46
47 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
48
49 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
50
51 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
52 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
53 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
54
55 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
56 with failure):
57
58 bison: warnings being treated as errors
59 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
60
61 it now reports:
62
63 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
64
65 *** Deprecated constructs
66
67 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
68 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
69 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
70
71 *** Useless semantic types
72
73 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
74 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
75 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
76 types that trigger the warning:
77
78 %token <type1> term
79 %type <type2> nterm
80 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
81 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
82 %%
83 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
84
85 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
86 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
87
88 *** Undefined but unused symbols
89
90 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
91 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
92
93 %printer {} symbol1
94 %destructor {} symbol2
95 %type <type> symbol3
96 %%
97 exp: "a";
98
99 *** Useless destructors or printers
100
101 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
102 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
103 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
104 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
105
106 %token <type1> token1
107 <type2> token2
108 <type3> token3
109 <type4> token4
110 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
111 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
112
113 *** Conflicts
114
115 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
116 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
117
118 %glr-parser
119 %%
120 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
121
122 compare the previous version of bison:
123
124 $ bison foo.y
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
126 $ bison -Werror foo.y
127 bison: warnings being treated as errors
128 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
129
130 with the new behavior:
131
132 $ bison foo.y
133 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
135 $ bison -Werror foo.y
136 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
137 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
138
139 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
140
141 %expect 0
142 %glr-parser
143 %%
144 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
145
146 Former behavior:
147
148 $ bison bar.y
149 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
150 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
151 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
152
153 New one:
154
155 $ bison bar.y
156 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
157 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
158
159 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
160
161 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
162 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
163 or more arguments. Instead of
164
165 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
166 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
167 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
168 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
169
170 one may now declare
171
172 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
173
174 ** Java skeleton improvements
175
176 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
177 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
178 and "%define init_throws".
179
180 ** C++ skeletons improvements
181
182 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
183
184 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
185 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
186 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
187
188 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
189
190 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
191
192 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
193
194 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
195 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
196 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
197 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
198 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
199 factory invoked by the user actions).
200
201 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines
202
203 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
204 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
205 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
206 preprocessor expansion:
207
208 int yylex (yy::parser::semantic_type *yylval);
209
210 This is has been fixed: yylval, ynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
211 identifiers for user-provided variables.
212
213 ** Renamed %define variables
214
215 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
216 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
217
218 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
219 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
220 namespace -> api.namespace
221 stype -> api.value.type
222
223 ** Variable api.token.prefix
224
225 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
226 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
227 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
228
229 %token FILE for ERROR
230 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
231 %%
232 start: FILE for ERROR;
233
234 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
235 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
236 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
237 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
238
239
240
241 ** Variable parse.error
242
243 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
244 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
245 verbose".
246
247 ** Semantic predicates
248
249 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
250 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
251 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
252 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
253 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
254 expressions.
255
256 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
257
258 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
259 reduce/reduce conflicts.
260
261 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
262
263 ** Bug fixes
264
265 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
266
267 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
268
269 ** Diagnostics are improved
270
271 *** Changes in the format of error messages
272
273 This used to be the format of many error reports:
274
275 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
276 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
277
278 It is now:
279
280 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
281 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
282
283 *** New format for error reports: carets
284
285 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
286
287 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
288 %type <sval> exp
289 ^^^^^^
290 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
291 %type <ival> exp
292 ^^^^^^
293
294 or
295
296 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
297 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
298 ^^^^
299 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
300 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
301 ^^^
302 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
303 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
304 ^^^
305 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
306 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
307 ^^^
308
309 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
310 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
311 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
312 -fno-caret).
313
314 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
315
316 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
317 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
318 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
319 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
320 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
321 parsers).
322
323 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
324 "%define api.pure full".
325
326 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
327
328 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
329 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
330 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
331 then responsible to define her type.
332
333 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
334 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
335 them.
336
337 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
338 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
339 compatibility).
340
341 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
342 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
343 api.position.type.
344
345 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
346
347 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
348 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
349 before re-throwing the exception.
350
351 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
352 appreciated.
353
354 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
355
356 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
357 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
358 numbered and left-justified.
359
360 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
361 diamond shaped nodes.
362
363 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
364 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
365
366 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
367
368 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
369 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
370
371 ** Documentation
372
373 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
374 have been fixed and extended.
375
376 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
377 were not properly documented.
378
379 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
380
381 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
382
383 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
384 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
385 reporting them to us.
386
387 ** Bug fixes
388
389 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
390 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
391 3.2.
392
393 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
394
395 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
396
397 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
398 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
399
400 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
401
402 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
403
404 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
405
406 ** Bug fixes
407
408 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
409
410 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
411 users to the appropriate place to report them.
412
413 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
414
415 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
416 generated, are removed.
417
418 All the generated headers are self-contained.
419
420 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
421
422 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
423 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
424 For instance the header generated from
425
426 %define api.prefix "calc"
427 %defines "lib/parse.h"
428
429 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
430
431 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
432
433 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
434 warnings such as:
435
436 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
437 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
438 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
439 *++yyvsp = yylval;
440 ^
441
442 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
443
444 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
445 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
446 addressed.
447
448 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
449
450 ** Bug fixes
451
452 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
453 suite have been fixed.
454
455 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
456
457 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
458 invalid C++. This is fixed.
459
460 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
461
462 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
463
464 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
465
466 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
467
468 ** Future Changes
469
470 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
471 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
472 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
473
474 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
475
476 write:
477
478 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
479
480 ** Bug fixes
481
482 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
483
484 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
485
486 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
487
488 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
489 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
490 now does.
491
492 ** Type names in actions
493
494 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
495 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
496
497 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
498
499 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
500 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
501
502 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
503
504 ** Future changes
505
506 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
507 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
508
509 *** K&R C parsers
510
511 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
512 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
513 compilers.
514
515 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
516
517 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
518 YYLTYPE.
519
520 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
521 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
522
523 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
524 %error-verbose.
525
526 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
527
528 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
529 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
530 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
531 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
532 it.
533
534 ** Generated Parser Headers
535
536 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
537
538 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
539 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
540
541 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
542 # define YY_FOO_H
543 ...
544 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
545
546 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
547
548 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
549 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
550
551 int bar_parse (void);
552
553 rather than
554
555 #define yyparse bar_parse
556 int yyparse (void);
557
558 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
559 single compilation unit.
560
561 *** Exported symbols in C++
562
563 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
564 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
565 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
566
567 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
568
569 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
570 longer defined.
571
572 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
573
574 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
575 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
576 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
577 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
578 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
579 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
580 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
581
582 The following examples compares both:
583
584 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
585 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
586 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
587 %% %%
588 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
589
590 bison generates:
591
592 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
593 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
594
595 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
596 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
597 > # if defined YYDEBUG
598 > # if YYDEBUG
599 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
600 > # else
601 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
602 > # endif
603 > # else
604 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
605 > # endif
606 # endif | # endif
607
608 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
609 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
610 # endif # endif
611
612 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
613 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
614 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
615 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
616 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
617 }; };
618 # endif # endif
619
620 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
621 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
622 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
623 { {
624 int ival; int ival;
625 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
626 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
627 #endif #endif
628
629 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
630
631 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
632
633 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
634
635 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
636
637 ** Future changes:
638
639 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
640
641 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
642
643 ** glr.c improvements:
644
645 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
646
647 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
648 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
649
650 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
651
652 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
653 when -std is passed to GCC).
654
655 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
656
657 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
658 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
659
660 ** Changes for C++:
661
662 *** C++11 compatibility:
663
664 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
665 or higher.
666
667 *** Header guards
668
669 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
670 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
671
672 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
673 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
674 ...
675 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
676
677 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
678 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
679 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
680
681 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
682
683 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
684 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
685 ...
686 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
687
688 *** C++ locations:
689
690 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
691 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
692 documentation were fixed.
693
694 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
695
696 ** Changes in the manual:
697
698 *** %printer is documented
699
700 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
701 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
702
703 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
704 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
705
706 *** Several improvements have been made:
707
708 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
709 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
710 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
711 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
712
713 ** Building bison:
714
715 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
716
717 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
718 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
719
720 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
721
722 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
723
724 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
725 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
726
727 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
728
729 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
730 halts in the middle of its course.
731
732 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
733
734 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
735
736 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
737 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
738 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
739 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
740 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
741
742 ** Named references:
743
744 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
745 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
746 actions code.
747
748 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
749 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
750 as named references:
751
752 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
753 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
754
755 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
756
757 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
758 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
759
760 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
761 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
762 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
763
764 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
765 will help to stabilize them.
766 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
767
768 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
769
770 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
771 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
772 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
773 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
774 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
775 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
776 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
777 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
778 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
779
780 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
781 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
782 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
783 file with these directives:
784
785 %define lr.type lalr
786 %define lr.type ielr
787 %define lr.type canonical-lr
788
789 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
790 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
791 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
792 manual.
793
794 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
795 stabilize them.
796
797 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
798
799 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
800 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
801 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
802 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
803 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
804 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
805 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
806 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
807 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
808 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
809 tokens.
810
811 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
812 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
813 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
814 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
815 inconsistent states.
816
817 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
818 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
819 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
820 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
821 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
822 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
823 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
824 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
825 power.
826
827 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
828 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
829
830 %define parse.lac full
831
832 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
833 details including a few caveats.
834
835 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
836 stabilize it.
837
838 ** %define improvements:
839
840 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
841
842 Each of these command-line options
843
844 -D NAME[=VALUE]
845 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
846
847 -F NAME[=VALUE]
848 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
849
850 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
851
852 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
853
854 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
855 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
856 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
857 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
858
859 *** Variables renamed:
860
861 The following %define variables
862
863 api.push_pull
864 lr.keep_unreachable_states
865
866 have been renamed to
867
868 api.push-pull
869 lr.keep-unreachable-states
870
871 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
872 for backward compatibility.
873
874 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
875
876 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
877 within quotations marks. For example,
878
879 %define api.push-pull "push"
880
881 can be rewritten as
882
883 %define api.push-pull push
884
885 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
886
887 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
888
889 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
890
891 ** Character literals not of length one:
892
893 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
894 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
895 the following grammar to be the same token:
896
897 exp: exp '++'
898 | exp '+' exp
899 ;
900
901 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
902 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
903
904 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
905
906 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
907 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
908 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
909 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
910
911 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
912
913 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
914 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
915 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
916 and "last" members, instead of
917
918 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
919 do \
920 if (N) \
921 { \
922 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
923 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
924 } \
925 else \
926 { \
927 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
928 } \
929 while (false)
930
931 use:
932
933 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
934 do \
935 if (N) \
936 { \
937 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
938 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
939 } \
940 else \
941 { \
942 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
943 } \
944 while (false)
945
946 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
947
948 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
949 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
950 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
951 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
952
953 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
954
955 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
956 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
957 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
958 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
959 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
960 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
961 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
962 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
963
964 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
965
966 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
967 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
968 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
969 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
970
971 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
972
973 instead of
974
975 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
976
977 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
978 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
979 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
980 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
981 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
982 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
983 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
984
985 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
986
987 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
988 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
989 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
990 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
991 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
992
993 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
994 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
995 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
996 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
997 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
998 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
999 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1000 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1001 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1002 shifted or discarded.
1003
1004 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1005 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1006 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1007 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1008
1009 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1010 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1011 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1012 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1013 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1014 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1015 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1016 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1017 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1018 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1019 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1020 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1021 by default.
1022
1023 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1024
1025 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1026
1027 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1028 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1029
1030 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1031
1032 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1033
1034 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1035
1036 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1037 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1038
1039 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1040
1041 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1042
1043 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1044 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1045 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1046 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1047 example:
1048
1049 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1050 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1051 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1052 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1053
1054 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1055 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1056 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1057 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1058
1059 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1060
1061 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1062 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1063
1064 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1065
1066 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1067
1068 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1069 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1070 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1071 suppress all warnings:
1072
1073 bison -Wnone gram.y
1074
1075 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1076
1077 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1078 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1079 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1080
1081 %left END 0
1082
1083 This bug has been fixed.
1084
1085 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1086
1087 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1088 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1089
1090 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1091 been fixed.
1092
1093 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1094
1095 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1096 been fixed.
1097
1098 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1099 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1100 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1101 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1102
1103 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1104
1105 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1106
1107 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1108 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1109 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1110 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1111 affected platforms.
1112
1113 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1114
1115 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1116 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1117 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1118 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1119 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1120 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1121 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1122 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1123 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1124
1125 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1126
1127 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1128 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1129 avoided.
1130
1131 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1132
1133 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1134
1135 %{CODE%}
1136
1137 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1138 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1139
1140 %code {CODE}
1141 %code requires {CODE}
1142 %code provides {CODE}
1143 %code top {CODE}
1144
1145 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1146 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1147 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1148 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1149 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1150
1151 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1152 is still considered experimental.
1153
1154 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1155
1156 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1157 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1158 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1159 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1160 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1161 specified by POSIX.
1162
1163 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1164 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1165 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1166 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1167 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1168 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1169 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1170
1171 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1172
1173 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1174 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1175 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1176 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1177 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1178 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1179 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1180 be removed altogether.
1181
1182 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1183 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1184 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1185 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1186 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1187 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1188 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1189 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1190 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1191 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1192
1193 ** Internationalization.
1194
1195 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1196 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1197 host system.
1198
1199 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1200
1201 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1202 declarations have been fixed.
1203
1204 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1205
1206 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1207 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1208
1209 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1210
1211 instead of
1212
1213 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1214
1215 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1216 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1217 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1218 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1219 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1220 feature.
1221
1222 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1223
1224 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1225
1226 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1227
1228 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1229 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1230 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1231 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1232 in future releases.
1233
1234 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1235
1236 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1237 fixed.
1238
1239 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1240
1241 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1242 are now deprecated:
1243
1244 %define NAME "VALUE"
1245
1246 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1247
1248 %define api.pure
1249
1250 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1251 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1252
1253 ** Push Parsing
1254
1255 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1256 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1257 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1258 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1259 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1260
1261 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1262 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1263
1264 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1265
1266 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1267 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1268
1269 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1270 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1271 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1272
1273 ** Java
1274
1275 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1276 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1277 %skeleton to select it.
1278
1279 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1280
1281 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1282 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1283 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1284
1285 ** %language
1286
1287 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1288 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1289 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1290 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1291
1292 ** XML Automaton Report
1293
1294 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1295 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1296 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1297 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1298
1299 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1300 %defines. For example:
1301
1302 %defines "parser.h"
1303
1304 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1305 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1306 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1307 instead of "unused".
1308
1309 ** Unreachable State Removal
1310
1311 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1312 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1313 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1314
1315 1. Removes unreachable states.
1316
1317 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1318 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1319 directives in existing grammar files.
1320
1321 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1322 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1323
1324 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1325
1326 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1327
1328 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1329 for further discussion.
1330
1331 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1332
1333 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1334 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1335 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1336 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1337 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1338 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1339 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1340 code.
1341
1342 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1343 name.
1344
1345 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1346 deprecated:
1347
1348 %file-prefix "parser"
1349 %name-prefix "c_"
1350 %output "parser.c"
1351
1352 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1353
1354 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1355 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1356 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1357 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1358 it:
1359
1360 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1361 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1362 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1363 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1364
1365 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1366 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1367 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1368 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1369
1370 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1371 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1372
1373 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1374
1375 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1376 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1377 about unused $2 in:
1378
1379 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1380
1381 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1382 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1383
1384 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1385
1386 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1387 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1388 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1389
1390 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1391 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1392
1393 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1394
1395 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1396 %printer's:
1397
1398 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1399 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1400 declared semantic type tags.
1401
1402 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1403 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1404 type tags.
1405
1406 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1407 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1408 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1409 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1410
1411 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1412 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1413 features.
1414
1415 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1416 details.
1417
1418 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1419 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1420 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1421
1422 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1423 completely removed from Bison.
1424
1425 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1426
1427 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1428 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1429 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1430 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1431 and is required by POSIX.
1432
1433 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1434 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1435
1436 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1437
1438 For example:
1439
1440 %union { char *string; }
1441 %token <string> STRING1
1442 %token <string> STRING2
1443 %type <string> string1
1444 %type <string> string2
1445 %union { char character; }
1446 %token <character> CHR
1447 %type <character> chr
1448 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1449 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1450 %destructor { } <character>
1451
1452 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1453 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1454 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1455 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1456 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1457
1458 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1459 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1460 future versions.]
1461
1462 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1463 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1464 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1465 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1466 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1467
1468 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1469 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1470
1471 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1472 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1473 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1474 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1475 declared after the first %union.
1476
1477 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1478 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1479 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1480 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1481 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1482 after the token definitions.
1483
1484 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1485 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1486
1487 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1488 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1489 %after-header.
1490
1491 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1492 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1493 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1494 convenient for you:
1495
1496 %before-header {
1497 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1498 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1499 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1500 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1501 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1502 }
1503 %start-header {
1504 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1505 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1506 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1507 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1508 }
1509 %union {
1510 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1511 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1512 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1513 }
1514 %end-header {
1515 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1516 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1517 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1518 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1519 * definitions. */
1520 }
1521 %after-header {
1522 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1523 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1524 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1525 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1526 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1527 }
1528
1529 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1530 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1531
1532 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1533 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1534
1535 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1536 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1537 in a future release.
1538
1539 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1540
1541 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1542 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1543
1544 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1545 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1546
1547 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1548
1549 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1550 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1551 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1552
1553 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1554
1555 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1556
1557 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1558 their contents together.
1559
1560 ** New warning: unused values
1561 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1562 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1563
1564 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1565 | exp "+" exp
1566 ;
1567
1568 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1569 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1570 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1571
1572 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1573 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1574 | exp "+" exp
1575 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1576 ;
1577
1578 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1579 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1580 values are used, e.g.:
1581
1582 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1583 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1584 ;
1585
1586 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1587 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1588
1589 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1590
1591 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1592 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1593
1594 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1595 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1596 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1597 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1598
1599 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1600 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1601 instead of warnings.
1602
1603 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1604 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1605 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1606
1607 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1608
1609 ** %require "VERSION"
1610 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1611 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1612
1613 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1614 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1615 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1616 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1617 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1618
1619 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1620 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1621 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1622 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1623
1624 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1625 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1626
1627 ** DJGPP support added.
1628 \f
1629 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1630
1631 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1632
1633 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1634 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1635 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1636 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1637 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1638 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1639
1640 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1641 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1642 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1643 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1644
1645 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1646 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1647 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1648
1649 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1650 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1651 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1652 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1653 unexpected "number"'.
1654 \f
1655 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1656
1657 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1658
1659 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1660 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1661 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1662 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1663 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1664
1665 - Error token location.
1666 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1667 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1668 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1669 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1670
1671 - Semicolon changes:
1672 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1673 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1674
1675 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1676 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1677 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1678 forget a closing quote.
1679
1680 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1681
1682 ** New features
1683
1684 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1685
1686 - New directive: %initial-action.
1687 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1688 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1689
1690 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1691 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1692
1693 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1694 This is a GNU extension.
1695
1696 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1697 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1698
1699 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1700
1701 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1702 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1703
1704 ** Bug fixes
1705
1706 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1707 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1708 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1709 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1710 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1711 these violations will become errors again.
1712
1713 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1714 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1715
1716 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1717 \f
1718 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1719
1720 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1721 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1722
1723 ** syntax error processing
1724
1725 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1726 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1727
1728 - %destructor
1729 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1730 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1731
1732 - %error-verbose
1733 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1734
1735 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1736 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1737
1738 ** POSIX conformance
1739
1740 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1741 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1742 compatibility with Yacc.
1743
1744 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1745 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1746 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1747 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1748 be consistent.
1749
1750 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1751 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1752
1753 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1754 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1755
1756 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1757 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1758
1759 - Yacc command and library now available
1760 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1761 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1762 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1763 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1764
1765 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1766
1767 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1768 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1769 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1770
1771 ** Other compatibility issues
1772
1773 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1774 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1775 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1776 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1777 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1778 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1779
1780 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1781 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1782
1783 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1784 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1785
1786 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1787 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1788 withdrawn in a future release.
1789
1790 ** GLR parser notes
1791
1792 - GLR and inline
1793 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1794 C keyword "inline".
1795
1796 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1797 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1798
1799 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1800 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1801 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1802 shortcomings:
1803
1804 - a single argument only can be added,
1805 - their types are weak (void *),
1806 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1807 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1808
1809 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1810 For instance:
1811
1812 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1813 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1814 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1815
1816 results in the following signatures:
1817
1818 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1819 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1820
1821 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1822
1823 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1824 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1825
1826 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1827 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1828 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1829
1830 ** #line in output files
1831 - --no-line works properly.
1832
1833 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1834 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1835 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1836 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1837 \f
1838 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1839
1840 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1841
1842 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1843
1844 ** GLR parsers
1845 Fix spurious parse errors.
1846
1847 ** Pure parsers
1848 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1849 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1850
1851 ** Type Clashes
1852 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1853 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1854
1855 untyped: ... typed;
1856
1857 but the converse remains an error:
1858
1859 typed: ... untyped;
1860
1861 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1862 The following code:
1863
1864 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1865
1866 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1867 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1868 \f
1869 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1870
1871 ** GLR parsing
1872 The declaration
1873 %glr-parser
1874 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1875 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1876 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1877 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1878
1879 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1880 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1881
1882 ** Output Directory
1883 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1884 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1885 now creates "bar.c".
1886
1887 ** Undefined token
1888 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1889 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1890
1891 ** Unknown token numbers
1892 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1893 no longer the case.
1894
1895 ** Error token
1896 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1897 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1898 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1899 will be mapped onto another number.
1900
1901 ** Verbose error messages
1902 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1903 error recovery is possible.
1904
1905 ** End token
1906 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1907
1908 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1909 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1910 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1911 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1912 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1913 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1914 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1915 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1916 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1917
1918 ** Traces
1919 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1920
1921 ** Larger grammars
1922 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1923 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1924 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1925 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1926
1927 ** Explicit initial rule
1928 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1929 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1930 graphs as rule 0.
1931
1932 ** Useless rules
1933 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1934 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1935
1936 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1937 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1938
1939 ** Rules never reduced
1940 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1941 reported.
1942
1943 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1944 On a grammar such as
1945
1946 %token useless useful
1947 %%
1948 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1949
1950 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1951 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1952
1953 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1954 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1955
1956 ** Default locations
1957 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1958 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1959 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1960 the computation of @$.
1961
1962 ** Token end-of-file
1963 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1964 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1965 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1966 For instance
1967 %token MYEOF 0
1968 or
1969 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1970
1971 ** Semantic parser
1972 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1973
1974 ** New translations
1975 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1976 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1977
1978 ** Incorrect token definitions
1979 When given
1980 %token 'a' "A"
1981 bison used to output
1982 #define 'a' 65
1983
1984 ** Token definitions as enums
1985 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1986 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1987 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1988
1989 ** Reports
1990 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1991 produces additional information:
1992 - itemset
1993 complete the core item sets with their closure
1994 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1995 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1996 - solved
1997 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1998 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1999 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2000
2001 ** Type clashes
2002 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2003 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2004
2005 %type <foo> bar
2006 %%
2007 bar: '0' {} '0';
2008
2009 This is fixed.
2010
2011 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2012 \f
2013 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2014
2015 ** C Skeleton
2016 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2017 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2018 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2019
2020 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2021 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2022 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2023 kludge will be disabled.
2024
2025 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2026 extended.
2027 \f
2028 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2029
2030 ** File name clashes are detected
2031 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2032 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2033
2034 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2035 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2036 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2037 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2038 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2039 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2040
2041 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2042 many portability hassles.
2043
2044 ** DJGPP support added.
2045
2046 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2047 \f
2048 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2049
2050 ** Fix C++ issues
2051 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2052 under some conditions.
2053
2054 ** Catch invalid @n
2055 As is done with $n.
2056 \f
2057 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2058
2059 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2060
2061 ** Portability fixes
2062
2063 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2064 \f
2065 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2066
2067 ** Many Bug Fixes
2068
2069 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2070 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2071 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2072 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2073 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2074
2075 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2076 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2077 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2078
2079 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2080 problems as on AIX.
2081
2082 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2083
2084 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2085 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2086
2087 ** User Actions
2088 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2089 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2090 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2091
2092 ** Better C++ compliance
2093 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2094 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2095
2096 ** Reduced Grammars
2097 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2098
2099 ** 64 bit hosts
2100 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2101
2102 ** Error messages
2103 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2104
2105 ** %expect
2106 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2107 any warning.
2108
2109 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2110
2111 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2112
2113 ** Swedish translation
2114
2115 ** Parse errors
2116 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2117 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2118 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2119
2120 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2121 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2122 previous allocations were not freed.
2123
2124 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2125 Some newlines were missing.
2126 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2127
2128 ** Fixed conflict report.
2129 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2130
2131 ** %expect
2132 Was not used.
2133 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2134
2135 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2136
2137 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2138
2139 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2140
2141 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2142 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2143
2144 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2145
2146 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2147 New.
2148
2149 ** --output
2150 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2151 \f
2152 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2153
2154 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2155 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2156 argument.
2157
2158 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2159 experiment.
2160
2161 ** Portability fixes.
2162 \f
2163 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2164
2165 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2166 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2167 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2168 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2169
2170 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2171
2172 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2173
2174 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2175
2176 ** Russian translation added.
2177
2178 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2179
2180 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2181
2182 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2183
2184 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2185
2186 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2187
2188 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2189 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2190
2191 ** New directives.
2192 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2193 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2194
2195 ** @$
2196 Automatic location tracking.
2197 \f
2198 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2199
2200 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2201
2202 ** Added NLS.
2203
2204 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2205
2206 ** There is now a FAQ.
2207 \f
2208 * Changes in version 1.27:
2209
2210 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2211 some systems has been fixed.
2212 \f
2213 * Changes in version 1.26:
2214
2215 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2216
2217 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2218
2219 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2220
2221 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2222
2223 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2224
2225 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2226
2227 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2228 not provide alloca().
2229 \f
2230 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2231
2232 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2233 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2234
2235 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2236 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2237 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2238
2239 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2240 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2241 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2242 purposes.
2243
2244 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2245 directives in the parser file.
2246
2247 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2248 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2249
2250 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2251 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2252 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2253 a switch statement body.
2254 \f
2255 * Changes in version 1.23:
2256
2257 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2258 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2259 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2260 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2261
2262 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2263 \f
2264 * Changes in version 1.22:
2265
2266 --help option added.
2267 \f
2268 * Changes in version 1.20:
2269
2270 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2271
2272 -----
2273
2274 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2275
2276 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2277
2278 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2279 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2280 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2281 (at your option) any later version.
2282
2283 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2284 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2285 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2286 GNU General Public License for more details.
2287
2288 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2289 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2290
2291 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2292 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2293 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2294 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2295 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2296 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2297 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2298 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2299 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2300 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2301 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2302 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2303 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2304 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2305 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2306 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2307 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2308 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2309 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2310
2311 Local Variables:
2312 mode: outline
2313 fill-column: 76
2314 End: