3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
6 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.1 (2013-11-12) [stable]
10 *** Errors in caret diagnostics
12 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
14 *** Fixes of the -Werror option
16 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
17 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
19 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
20 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
21 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
25 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
30 The yacc.1 man page is no longer installed if --disable-yacc was
33 *** Fixes in the test suite
35 Bugs and portability issues.
37 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
39 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
41 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
42 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
43 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
45 ** Backward incompatible changes
49 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
51 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
52 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
54 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
55 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
57 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
60 *** Use of YACC='bison -y'
62 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
65 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
66 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
67 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
69 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
70 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
71 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
72 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
73 warnings for Bison extensions.
75 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
76 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
77 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
78 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
82 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
84 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
85 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
86 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
87 preprocessor expansion:
89 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
91 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
92 identifiers for user-provided variables.
94 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
96 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
97 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
99 *** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
101 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
103 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
108 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
109 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
110 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
112 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
113 the caret information only. For instance on:
120 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
121 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
125 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
126 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
130 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
132 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
133 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
135 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
137 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
138 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
139 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
141 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
142 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
143 errors (and only those):
145 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
147 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
148 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
150 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
152 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
154 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
155 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
157 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
158 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
159 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
161 *** The display of warnings is now richer
163 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
165 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
167 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
168 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
169 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
171 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
174 bison: warnings being treated as errors
175 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
179 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
181 *** Deprecated constructs
183 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
184 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
185 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
187 *** Useless semantic types
189 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
190 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
191 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
192 types that trigger the warning:
196 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
197 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
199 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
201 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
202 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
204 *** Undefined but unused symbols
206 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
207 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
210 %destructor {} symbol2
215 *** Useless destructors or printers
217 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
218 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
219 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
220 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
222 %token <type1> token1
226 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
227 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
231 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
232 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
236 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
238 compare the previous version of bison:
241 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
242 $ bison -Werror foo.y
243 bison: warnings being treated as errors
244 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
246 with the new behavior:
249 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
250 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
251 $ bison -Werror foo.y
252 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
253 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
255 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
260 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
265 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
266 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
267 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
272 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
273 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
275 ** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
277 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
280 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
282 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
283 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
284 or more arguments. Instead of
286 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
287 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
288 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
289 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
293 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
295 ** Types of values for %define variables
297 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
298 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
299 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
302 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
306 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
308 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
310 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
312 ** Variable api.token.prefix
314 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
315 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
316 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
318 %token FILE for ERROR
319 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
321 start: FILE for ERROR;
323 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
324 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
325 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
326 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
328 ** Variable api.value.type
330 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
331 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
332 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
334 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
341 %token <ival> INT "integer"
342 %token <sval> STRING "string"
343 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
344 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
347 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
348 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
350 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
352 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
353 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
354 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
356 %define api.value.type union
357 %token <int> INT "integer"
358 %token <char *> STRING "string"
359 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
360 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
363 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
364 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
366 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
367 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
369 %define api.value.type variant
370 %token <int> INT "integer"
371 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
373 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
391 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
392 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
393 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
394 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
395 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
398 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
399 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
401 ** Variable parse.error
403 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
404 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
407 ** Renamed %define variables
409 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
410 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
412 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
413 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
414 namespace -> api.namespace
415 stype -> api.value.type
417 ** Semantic predicates
419 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
421 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
422 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
423 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
424 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
425 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
428 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
430 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
431 reduce/reduce conflicts.
433 ** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
435 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
437 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
438 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
439 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
440 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
442 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
443 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
444 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
448 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
449 input order is now preserved.
451 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
452 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
453 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
455 ** Useless precedence and associativity
457 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
459 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
460 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
461 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
462 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
463 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
464 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
465 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
467 *** Precedence warning category
469 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
470 useless precedence and associativity directives.
472 *** Useless associativity
474 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
475 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
476 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
477 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
491 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
495 *** Useless precedence
497 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
498 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
499 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
500 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
504 exp: "var" '=' "number";
508 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
512 *** Useless precedence and associativity
514 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
519 exp: "var" '=' "number";
523 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
529 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
531 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
532 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
533 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
534 %empty. On the following grammar:
544 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
547 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
551 ** Java skeleton improvements
553 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
554 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
555 and "%define init_throws".
556 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
558 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
559 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
561 ** C++ skeletons improvements
563 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
565 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
566 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
567 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
569 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
571 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
573 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
575 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
576 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
577 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
578 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
579 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
580 factory invoked by the user actions).
582 *** %define api.value.type variant
584 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
585 from Théophile Ranquet.
587 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
590 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
593 %type <::std::string> item;
594 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
597 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
601 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
602 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
606 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
607 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
610 *** %define api.token.constructor
612 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
613 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
614 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
616 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
618 parser::location_type loc = ...;
620 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
622 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
624 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
630 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
631 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
633 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
637 *** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
639 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
641 *** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
643 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
647 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
649 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
651 ** Diagnostics are improved
653 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
655 *** Changes in the format of error messages
657 This used to be the format of many error reports:
659 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
660 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
664 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
665 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
667 *** New format for error reports: carets
669 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
671 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
674 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
680 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
681 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
683 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
684 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
686 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
687 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
689 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
690 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
693 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
694 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
695 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
698 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
700 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
701 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
702 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
703 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
704 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
707 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
708 "%define api.pure full".
710 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
712 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
713 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
714 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
715 then responsible to define her type.
717 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
718 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
721 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
722 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
725 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
726 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
729 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
731 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
732 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
733 before re-throwing the exception.
735 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
738 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
740 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
742 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
743 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
744 numbered and left-justified.
746 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
747 diamond shaped nodes.
749 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
750 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
752 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
754 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
755 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
759 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
760 have been fixed and extended.
762 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
763 were not properly documented.
765 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
767 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
769 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
770 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
771 reporting them to us.
775 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
776 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
779 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
781 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
783 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
784 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
786 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
788 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
790 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
794 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
796 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
797 users to the appropriate place to report them.
799 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
801 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
802 generated, are removed.
804 All the generated headers are self-contained.
806 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
808 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
809 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
810 For instance the header generated from
812 %define api.prefix "calc"
813 %defines "lib/parse.h"
815 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
817 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
819 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
822 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
823 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
824 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
828 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
830 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
831 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
834 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
838 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
839 suite have been fixed.
841 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
843 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
844 invalid C++. This is fixed.
846 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
848 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
850 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
852 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
856 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
857 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
858 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
860 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
864 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
868 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
870 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
872 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
874 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
875 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
878 ** Type names in actions
880 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
881 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
883 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
885 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
886 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
888 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
892 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
893 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
897 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
898 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
901 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
903 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
906 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
907 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
909 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
912 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
914 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
915 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
916 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
917 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
920 ** Generated Parser Headers
922 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
924 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
925 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
930 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
932 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
934 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
935 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
937 int bar_parse (void);
941 #define yyparse bar_parse
944 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
945 single compilation unit.
947 *** Exported symbols in C++
949 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
950 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
951 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
955 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
958 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
960 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
961 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
962 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
963 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
964 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
965 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
966 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
968 The following examples compares both:
970 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
971 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
972 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
978 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
979 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
981 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
982 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
983 > # if defined YYDEBUG
985 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
987 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
990 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
994 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
995 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
998 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
999 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
1000 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
1001 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
1006 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
1007 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1008 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1011 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1012 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1015 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1017 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1019 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1021 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
1025 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
1027 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
1029 ** glr.c improvements:
1031 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
1033 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1034 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
1036 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
1038 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1039 when -std is passed to GCC).
1041 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
1043 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1044 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
1048 *** C++11 compatibility:
1050 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1055 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1056 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1058 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1059 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1061 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
1063 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1064 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1065 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1067 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1069 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1070 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1072 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1076 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1077 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1078 documentation were fixed.
1080 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1082 ** Changes in the manual:
1084 *** %printer is documented
1086 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1087 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
1089 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1090 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
1092 *** Several improvements have been made:
1094 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1095 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1096 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1097 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
1101 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
1103 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1104 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
1106 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1108 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
1110 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1111 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
1113 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
1115 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1116 halts in the middle of its course.
1118 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
1120 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1122 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1123 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1124 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1125 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1126 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1128 ** Named references:
1130 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1131 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1134 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1135 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1136 as named references:
1138 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
1139 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1141 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1143 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
1144 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1146 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
1147 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1148 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1150 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
1151 will help to stabilize them.
1152 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
1154 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
1156 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1157 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
1158 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
1159 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1160 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
1161 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1162 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1163 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1164 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1166 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1167 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1168 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1169 file with these directives:
1171 %define lr.type lalr
1172 %define lr.type ielr
1173 %define lr.type canonical-lr
1175 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
1176 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1177 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
1180 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1183 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1185 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1187 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1188 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1189 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1190 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1191 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1192 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1193 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1194 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1195 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1196 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1199 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1200 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1201 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1202 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1203 inconsistent states.
1205 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1206 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1207 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1208 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1209 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1210 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1211 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1212 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1215 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1216 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1218 %define parse.lac full
1220 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1221 details including a few caveats.
1223 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1226 ** %define improvements:
1228 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1230 Each of these command-line options
1233 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1236 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1238 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1240 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1242 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1243 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1244 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1245 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1247 *** Variables renamed:
1249 The following %define variables
1252 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1254 have been renamed to
1257 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1259 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1260 for backward compatibility.
1262 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1264 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1265 within quotations marks. For example,
1267 %define api.push-pull "push"
1271 %define api.push-pull push
1273 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1275 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1277 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1279 ** Character literals not of length one:
1281 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1282 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1283 the following grammar to be the same token:
1289 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1290 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1292 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1294 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1295 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1296 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1297 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1299 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1301 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1302 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1303 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1304 and "last" members, instead of
1306 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1310 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1311 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1315 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1321 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1325 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1326 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1330 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1334 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1336 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1337 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1338 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1339 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1341 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1343 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1344 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1345 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1346 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1347 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1348 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1349 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1350 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1352 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1354 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1355 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1356 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1357 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1359 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1363 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1365 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1366 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1367 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1368 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1369 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1370 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1371 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1373 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1375 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1376 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1377 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1378 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1379 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1381 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1382 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1383 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1384 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1385 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1386 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1387 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1388 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1389 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1390 shifted or discarded.
1392 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1393 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1394 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1395 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1397 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1398 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1399 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1400 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1401 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1402 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1403 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1404 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1405 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1406 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1407 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1408 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1411 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1413 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1415 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1416 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1418 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1420 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1422 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1424 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1425 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1427 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1429 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1431 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1432 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1433 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1434 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1437 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1438 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1439 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1440 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1442 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1443 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1444 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1445 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1447 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1449 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1450 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1452 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1454 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1456 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1457 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1458 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1459 suppress all warnings:
1463 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1465 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1466 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1467 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1471 This bug has been fixed.
1473 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1475 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1476 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1478 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1481 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1483 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1486 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1487 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1488 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1489 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1491 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1493 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1495 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1496 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1497 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1498 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1501 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1503 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1504 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1505 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1506 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1507 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1508 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1509 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1510 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1511 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1513 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1515 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1516 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1519 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1521 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1525 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1526 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1529 %code requires {CODE}
1530 %code provides {CODE}
1533 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1534 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1535 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1536 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1537 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1539 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1540 is still considered experimental.
1542 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1544 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1545 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1546 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1547 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1548 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1551 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1552 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1553 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1554 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1555 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1556 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1557 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1559 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1561 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1562 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1563 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1564 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1565 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1566 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1567 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1568 be removed altogether.
1570 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1571 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1572 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1573 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1574 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1575 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1576 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1577 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1578 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1579 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1581 ** Internationalization.
1583 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1584 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1587 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1589 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1590 declarations have been fixed.
1592 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1594 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1595 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1597 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1601 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1603 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1604 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1605 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1606 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1607 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1610 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1612 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1614 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1616 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1617 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1618 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1619 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1622 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1624 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1627 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1629 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1632 %define NAME "VALUE"
1634 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1638 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1639 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1643 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1644 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1645 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1646 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1647 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1649 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1650 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1652 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1654 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1655 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1657 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1658 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1659 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1663 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1664 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1665 %skeleton to select it.
1667 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1669 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1670 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1671 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1675 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1676 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1677 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1678 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1680 ** XML Automaton Report
1682 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1683 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1684 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1685 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1687 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1688 %defines. For example:
1692 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1693 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1694 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1695 instead of "unused".
1697 ** Unreachable State Removal
1699 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1700 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1701 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1703 1. Removes unreachable states.
1705 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1706 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1707 directives in existing grammar files.
1709 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1710 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1712 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1714 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1716 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1717 for further discussion.
1719 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1721 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1722 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1723 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1724 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1725 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1726 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1727 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1730 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1733 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1736 %file-prefix "parser"
1740 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1742 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1743 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1744 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1745 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1748 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1749 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1750 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1751 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1753 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1754 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1755 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1756 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1758 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1759 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1761 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1763 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1764 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1767 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1769 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1770 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1772 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1774 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1775 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1776 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1778 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1779 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1781 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1783 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1786 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1787 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1788 declared semantic type tags.
1790 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1791 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1794 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1795 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1796 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1797 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1799 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1800 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1803 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1806 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1807 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1808 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1810 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1811 completely removed from Bison.
1813 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1815 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1816 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1817 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1818 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1819 and is required by POSIX.
1821 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1822 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1824 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1828 %union { char *string; }
1829 %token <string> STRING1
1830 %token <string> STRING2
1831 %type <string> string1
1832 %type <string> string2
1833 %union { char character; }
1834 %token <character> CHR
1835 %type <character> chr
1836 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1837 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1838 %destructor { } <character>
1840 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1841 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1842 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1843 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1844 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1846 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1847 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1850 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1851 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1852 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1853 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1854 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1856 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1857 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1859 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1860 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1861 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1862 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1863 declared after the first %union.
1865 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1866 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1867 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1868 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1869 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1870 after the token definitions.
1872 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1873 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1875 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1876 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1879 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1880 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1881 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1885 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1886 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1887 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1888 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1889 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1892 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1893 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1894 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1895 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1898 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1899 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1900 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1903 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1904 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1905 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1906 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1910 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1911 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1912 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1913 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1914 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1917 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1918 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1920 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1921 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1923 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1924 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1925 in a future release.
1927 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1929 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1930 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1932 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1933 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1935 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1937 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1938 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1939 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1941 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1943 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1945 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1946 their contents together.
1948 ** New warning: unused values
1949 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1950 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1952 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1956 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1957 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1958 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1960 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1961 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1963 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1966 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1967 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1968 values are used, e.g.:
1970 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1971 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1974 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1975 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1977 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1979 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1980 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1982 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1983 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1984 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1985 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1987 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1988 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1989 instead of warnings.
1991 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1992 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1993 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1995 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1997 ** %require "VERSION"
1998 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1999 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
2001 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
2002 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
2003 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
2004 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
2005 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
2007 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
2008 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
2009 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2010 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
2012 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
2013 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
2015 ** DJGPP support added.
2017 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
2019 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
2021 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
2022 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2023 language is still English. For details, please see the new
2024 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2025 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2026 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
2028 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
2029 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2030 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2031 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2033 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
2034 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2035 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2037 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
2038 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2039 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2040 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2041 unexpected "number"'.
2043 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
2045 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
2047 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2048 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2049 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2050 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2051 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
2053 - Error token location.
2054 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2055 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2056 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2057 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
2059 - Semicolon changes:
2060 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2061 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
2063 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2064 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2065 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2066 forget a closing quote.
2068 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
2072 - GLR grammars now support locations.
2074 - New directive: %initial-action.
2075 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2076 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
2078 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2079 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
2081 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
2082 This is a GNU extension.
2084 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
2085 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
2087 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
2089 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2090 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
2094 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2095 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2096 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2097 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2098 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2099 these violations will become errors again.
2101 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2102 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
2104 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
2106 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
2108 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
2109 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
2111 ** syntax error processing
2113 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2114 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
2117 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2118 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
2121 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
2123 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2124 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
2126 ** POSIX conformance
2128 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2129 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2130 compatibility with Yacc.
2132 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2133 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2134 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2135 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
2138 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2139 declared before use. C99 requires this.
2141 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2142 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
2144 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2145 output as "foo\\bar.y".
2147 - Yacc command and library now available
2148 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
2149 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2150 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2151 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
2153 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
2155 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2156 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2157 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
2159 ** Other compatibility issues
2161 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2162 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2163 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2164 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2165 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
2166 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
2168 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
2169 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
2171 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
2172 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
2174 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
2175 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2176 withdrawn in a future release.
2181 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
2184 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2185 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2187 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2188 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2189 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2192 - a single argument only can be added,
2193 - their types are weak (void *),
2194 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2195 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2197 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2200 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2201 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2202 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2204 results in the following signatures:
2206 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2207 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2209 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2211 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2212 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2214 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2215 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2216 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2218 ** #line in output files
2219 - --no-line works properly.
2221 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2222 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2223 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2224 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2226 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2228 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2230 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2233 Fix spurious parse errors.
2236 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2237 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2240 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2241 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2245 but the converse remains an error:
2249 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2252 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2254 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2255 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2257 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2262 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2263 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2264 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2265 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2267 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2268 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2271 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2272 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2273 now creates "bar.c".
2276 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2277 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2279 ** Unknown token numbers
2280 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2284 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2285 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2286 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2287 will be mapped onto another number.
2289 ** Verbose error messages
2290 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2291 error recovery is possible.
2294 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2296 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2297 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2298 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2299 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2300 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2301 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2302 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2303 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2304 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2307 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2310 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2311 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2312 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2313 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2315 ** Explicit initial rule
2316 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2317 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2321 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2322 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2324 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2325 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2327 ** Rules never reduced
2328 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2331 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2332 On a grammar such as
2334 %token useless useful
2336 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2338 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2339 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2341 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2342 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2344 ** Default locations
2345 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2346 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2347 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2348 the computation of @$.
2350 ** Token end-of-file
2351 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2352 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2353 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2357 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2360 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2363 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2364 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2366 ** Incorrect token definitions
2369 bison used to output
2372 ** Token definitions as enums
2373 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2374 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2375 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2378 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2379 produces additional information:
2381 complete the core item sets with their closure
2382 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2383 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2385 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2386 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2387 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2390 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2391 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2399 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2401 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2404 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2405 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2406 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2408 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2409 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2410 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2411 kludge will be disabled.
2413 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2416 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2418 ** File name clashes are detected
2419 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2420 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2422 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2423 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2424 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2425 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2426 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2427 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2429 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2430 many portability hassles.
2432 ** DJGPP support added.
2434 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2436 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2439 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2440 under some conditions.
2445 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2447 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2449 ** Portability fixes
2451 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2453 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2457 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2458 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2459 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2460 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2461 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2463 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2464 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2465 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2467 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2470 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2472 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2473 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2476 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2477 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2478 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2480 ** Better C++ compliance
2481 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2482 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2485 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2488 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2491 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2494 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2497 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2499 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2501 ** Swedish translation
2504 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2505 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2506 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2508 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2509 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2510 previous allocations were not freed.
2512 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2513 Some newlines were missing.
2514 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2516 ** Fixed conflict report.
2517 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2521 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2523 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2525 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2527 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2529 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2530 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2532 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2534 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2538 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2540 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2542 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2543 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2546 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2549 ** Portability fixes.
2551 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2553 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2554 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2555 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2556 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2558 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2560 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2562 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2564 ** Russian translation added.
2566 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2568 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2570 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2572 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2574 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2576 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2577 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2580 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2581 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2584 Automatic location tracking.
2586 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2588 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2592 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2594 ** There is now a FAQ.
2596 * Changes in version 1.27:
2598 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2599 some systems has been fixed.
2601 * Changes in version 1.26:
2603 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2605 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2607 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2609 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2611 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2613 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2615 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2616 not provide alloca().
2618 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2620 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2621 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2623 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2624 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2625 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2627 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2628 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2629 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2632 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2633 directives in the parser file.
2635 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2636 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2638 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2639 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2640 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2641 a switch statement body.
2643 * Changes in version 1.23:
2645 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2646 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2647 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2648 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2650 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2652 * Changes in version 1.22:
2654 --help option added.
2656 * Changes in version 1.20:
2658 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2662 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2664 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2666 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2667 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2668 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2669 (at your option) any later version.
2671 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2672 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2673 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2674 GNU General Public License for more details.
2676 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2677 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2679 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2680 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2681 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2682 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2683 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2684 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2685 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2686 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2687 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2688 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2689 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2690 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2691 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2692 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2693 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2694 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2695 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2696 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2697 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2698 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2699 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2700 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2701 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
2702 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype