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