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