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