3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Changes in the format of error messages
7 This used to be the format of many error reports:
9 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
10 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
14 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
15 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
17 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
19 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
20 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
21 before re-throwing the exception.
23 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
26 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
28 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
29 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
30 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
31 then responsible to define her type.
33 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
34 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
37 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
38 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
41 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
42 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
45 ** Graphviz improvements
47 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
48 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
49 numbered and left-justified.
51 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
54 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
58 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
60 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
61 users to the appropriate place to report them.
63 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
65 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
66 generated, are removed.
68 All the generated headers are self-contained.
70 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
72 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
73 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
74 For instance the header generated from
76 %define api.prefix "calc"
77 %defines "lib/parse.h"
79 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
81 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
83 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
86 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
87 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
88 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
92 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
94 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
95 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
98 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
102 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
103 suite have been fixed.
105 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
107 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
108 invalid C++. This is fixed.
110 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
112 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
114 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
116 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
120 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
121 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
122 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
124 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
128 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
132 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
134 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
136 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
138 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
139 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
142 ** Type names in actions
144 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
145 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
147 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
149 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
150 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
152 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
156 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
157 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
161 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
162 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
165 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
167 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
170 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
171 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
173 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
176 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
178 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
179 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
180 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
181 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
184 ** Generated Parser Headers
186 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
188 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
189 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
194 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
196 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
198 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
199 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
201 int bar_parse (void);
205 #define yyparse bar_parse
208 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
209 single compilation unit.
211 *** Exported symbols in C++
213 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
214 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
215 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
219 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
222 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
224 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
225 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
226 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
227 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
228 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
229 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
230 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
232 The following examples compares both:
234 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
235 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
236 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
242 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
243 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
245 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
246 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
247 > # if defined YYDEBUG
249 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
251 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
254 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
258 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
259 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
262 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
263 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
264 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
265 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
270 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
271 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
272 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
275 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
276 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
279 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
281 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
283 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
285 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
289 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
291 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
293 ** glr.c improvements:
295 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
297 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
298 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
300 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
302 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
303 when -std is passed to GCC).
305 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
307 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
308 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
312 *** C++11 compatibility:
314 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
319 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
320 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
322 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
323 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
325 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
327 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
328 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
329 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
331 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
333 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
334 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
336 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
340 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
341 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
342 documentation were fixed.
344 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
346 ** Changes in the manual:
348 *** %printer is documented
350 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
351 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
353 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
354 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
356 *** Several improvements have been made:
358 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
359 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
360 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
361 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
365 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
367 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
368 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
370 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
372 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
374 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
375 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
377 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
379 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
380 halts in the middle of its course.
382 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
384 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
386 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
387 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
388 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
389 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
390 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
394 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
395 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
398 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
399 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
402 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
403 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
405 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
407 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
408 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
410 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
411 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
412 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
414 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
415 will help to stabilize them.
417 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
419 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
420 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
421 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
422 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
423 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
424 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
425 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
426 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
427 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
429 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
430 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
431 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
432 file with these directives:
436 %define lr.type canonical-lr
438 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
439 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
440 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
443 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
446 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
448 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
449 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
450 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
451 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
452 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
453 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
454 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
455 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
456 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
457 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
460 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
461 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
462 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
463 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
466 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
467 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
468 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
469 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
470 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
471 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
472 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
473 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
476 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
477 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
479 %define parse.lac full
481 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
482 details including a few caveats.
484 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
487 ** %define improvements:
489 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
491 Each of these command-line options
494 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
497 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
499 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
501 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
503 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
504 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
505 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
506 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
508 *** Variables renamed:
510 The following %define variables
513 lr.keep_unreachable_states
518 lr.keep-unreachable-states
520 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
521 for backward compatibility.
523 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
525 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
526 within quotations marks. For example,
528 %define api.push-pull "push"
532 %define api.push-pull push
534 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
536 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
538 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
540 ** Character literals not of length one:
542 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
543 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
544 the following grammar to be the same token:
550 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
551 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
553 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
555 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
556 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
557 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
558 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
560 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
562 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
563 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
564 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
565 and "last" members, instead of
567 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
571 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
572 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
576 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
582 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
586 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
587 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
591 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
595 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
597 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
598 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
599 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
600 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
602 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
604 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
605 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
606 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
607 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
608 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
609 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
610 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
611 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
613 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
615 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
616 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
617 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
618 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
620 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
624 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
626 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
627 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
628 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
629 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
630 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
631 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
632 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
634 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
636 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
637 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
638 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
639 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
640 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
642 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
643 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
644 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
645 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
646 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
647 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
648 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
649 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
650 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
651 shifted or discarded.
653 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
654 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
655 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
656 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
658 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
659 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
660 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
661 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
662 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
663 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
664 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
665 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
666 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
667 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
668 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
669 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
672 ** Java skeleton fixes:
674 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
676 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
677 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
679 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
681 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
683 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
685 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
686 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
688 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
690 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
692 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
693 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
694 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
695 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
698 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
699 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
700 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
701 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
703 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
704 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
705 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
706 then have no effect on the conflict report.
708 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
710 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
711 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
713 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
715 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
717 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
718 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
719 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
720 suppress all warnings:
724 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
726 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
727 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
728 produced an assertion failure. For example:
732 This bug has been fixed.
734 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
736 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
737 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
739 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
742 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
744 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
747 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
748 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
749 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
750 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
752 ** Minor documentation fixes.
754 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
756 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
757 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
758 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
759 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
762 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
764 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
765 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
766 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
767 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
768 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
769 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
770 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
771 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
772 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
774 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
776 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
777 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
780 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
782 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
786 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
787 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
790 %code requires {CODE}
791 %code provides {CODE}
794 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
795 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
796 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
797 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
798 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
800 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
801 is still considered experimental.
803 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
805 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
806 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
807 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
808 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
809 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
812 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
813 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
814 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
815 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
816 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
817 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
818 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
820 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
822 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
823 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
824 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
825 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
826 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
827 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
828 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
829 be removed altogether.
831 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
832 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
833 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
834 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
835 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
836 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
837 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
838 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
839 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
840 2.4.2 is not necessary.
842 ** Internationalization.
844 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
845 message translations were not installed although supported by the
848 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
850 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
851 declarations have been fixed.
853 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
855 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
856 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
858 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
862 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
864 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
865 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
866 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
867 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
868 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
871 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
873 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
875 ** %language is an experimental feature.
877 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
878 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
879 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
880 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
883 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
885 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
888 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
890 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
895 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
899 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
900 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
904 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
905 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
906 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
907 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
908 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
910 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
911 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
913 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
915 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
916 feedback will help to stabilize it.
918 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
919 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
920 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
924 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
925 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
926 %skeleton to select it.
928 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
930 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
931 feedback will help to stabilize it.
935 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
936 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
937 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
938 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
940 ** XML Automaton Report
942 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
943 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
944 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
946 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
947 %defines. For example:
951 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
952 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
953 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
956 ** Unreachable State Removal
958 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
959 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
960 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
962 1. Removes unreachable states.
964 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
965 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
966 directives in existing grammar files.
968 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
969 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
971 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
973 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
975 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
976 for further discussion.
978 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
980 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
981 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
982 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
983 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
984 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
985 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
986 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
989 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
992 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
995 %file-prefix "parser"
999 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1001 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1002 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1003 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1004 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1007 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1008 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1009 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1010 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1012 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1013 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1014 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1015 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1017 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1018 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1020 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1022 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1023 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1026 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1028 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1029 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1031 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1033 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1034 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1035 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1037 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1038 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1040 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1042 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1045 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1046 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1047 declared semantic type tags.
1049 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1050 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1053 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1054 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1055 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1056 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1058 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1059 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1062 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1065 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1066 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1067 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1069 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1070 completely removed from Bison.
1072 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1074 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1075 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1076 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1077 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1078 and is required by POSIX.
1080 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1081 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1083 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1087 %union { char *string; }
1088 %token <string> STRING1
1089 %token <string> STRING2
1090 %type <string> string1
1091 %type <string> string2
1092 %union { char character; }
1093 %token <character> CHR
1094 %type <character> chr
1095 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1096 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1097 %destructor { } <character>
1099 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1100 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1101 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1102 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1103 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1105 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1106 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1109 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1110 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1111 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1112 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1113 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1115 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1116 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1118 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1119 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1120 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1121 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1122 declared after the first %union.
1124 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1125 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1126 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1127 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1128 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1129 after the token definitions.
1131 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1132 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1134 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1135 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1138 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1139 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1140 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1144 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1145 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1146 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1147 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1148 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1151 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1152 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1153 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1154 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1157 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1158 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1159 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1162 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1163 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1164 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1165 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1169 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1170 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1171 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1172 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1173 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1176 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1177 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1179 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1180 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1182 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1183 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1184 in a future release.
1186 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1188 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1189 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1191 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1192 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1194 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1196 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1197 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1198 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1200 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1202 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1204 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1205 their contents together.
1207 ** New warning: unused values
1208 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1209 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1211 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1215 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1216 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1217 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1219 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1220 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1222 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1225 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1226 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1227 values are used, e.g.:
1229 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1230 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1233 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1234 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1236 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1238 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1239 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1241 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1242 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1243 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1244 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1246 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1247 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1248 instead of warnings.
1250 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1251 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1252 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1254 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1256 ** %require "VERSION"
1257 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1258 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1260 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1261 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1262 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1263 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1264 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1266 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1267 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1268 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1269 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1271 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1272 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1274 ** DJGPP support added.
1276 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1278 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1280 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1281 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1282 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1283 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1284 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1285 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1287 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1288 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1289 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1290 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1292 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1293 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1294 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1296 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1297 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1298 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1299 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1300 unexpected "number"'.
1302 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1304 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1306 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1307 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1308 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1309 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1310 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1312 - Error token location.
1313 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1314 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1315 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1316 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1318 - Semicolon changes:
1319 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1320 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1322 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1323 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1324 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1325 forget a closing quote.
1327 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1331 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1333 - New directive: %initial-action.
1334 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1335 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1337 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1338 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1340 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1341 This is a GNU extension.
1343 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1344 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1346 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1348 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1349 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1353 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1354 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1355 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1356 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1357 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1358 these violations will become errors again.
1360 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1361 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1363 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1365 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1367 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1368 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1370 ** syntax error processing
1372 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1373 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1376 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1377 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1380 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1382 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1383 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1385 ** POSIX conformance
1387 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1388 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1389 compatibility with Yacc.
1391 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1392 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1393 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1394 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1397 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1398 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1400 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1401 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1403 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1404 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1406 - Yacc command and library now available
1407 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1408 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1409 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1410 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1412 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1414 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1415 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1416 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1418 ** Other compatibility issues
1420 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1421 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1422 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1423 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1424 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1425 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1427 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1428 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1430 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1431 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1433 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1434 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1435 withdrawn in a future release.
1440 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1443 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1444 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1446 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1447 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1448 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1451 - a single argument only can be added,
1452 - their types are weak (void *),
1453 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1454 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1456 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1459 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1460 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1461 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1463 results in the following signatures:
1465 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1466 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1468 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1470 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1471 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1473 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1474 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1475 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1477 ** #line in output files
1478 - --no-line works properly.
1480 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1481 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1482 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1483 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1485 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1487 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1489 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1492 Fix spurious parse errors.
1495 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1496 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1499 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1500 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1504 but the converse remains an error:
1508 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1511 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1513 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1514 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1516 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1521 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1522 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1523 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1524 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1526 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1527 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1530 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1531 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1532 now creates "bar.c".
1535 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1536 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1538 ** Unknown token numbers
1539 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1543 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1544 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1545 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1546 will be mapped onto another number.
1548 ** Verbose error messages
1549 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1550 error recovery is possible.
1553 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1555 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1556 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1557 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1558 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1559 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1560 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1561 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1562 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1563 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1566 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1569 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1570 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1571 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1572 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1574 ** Explicit initial rule
1575 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1576 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1580 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1581 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1583 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1584 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1586 ** Rules never reduced
1587 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1590 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1591 On a grammar such as
1593 %token useless useful
1595 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1597 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1598 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1600 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1601 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1603 ** Default locations
1604 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1605 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1606 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1607 the computation of @$.
1609 ** Token end-of-file
1610 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1611 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1612 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1616 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1619 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1622 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1623 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1625 ** Incorrect token definitions
1628 bison used to output
1631 ** Token definitions as enums
1632 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1633 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1634 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1637 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1638 produces additional information:
1640 complete the core item sets with their closure
1641 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1642 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1644 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1645 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1646 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1649 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1650 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1658 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1660 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1663 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1664 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1665 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1667 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1668 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1669 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1670 kludge will be disabled.
1672 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1675 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1677 ** File name clashes are detected
1678 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1679 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1681 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1682 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1683 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1684 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1685 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1686 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1688 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1689 many portability hassles.
1691 ** DJGPP support added.
1693 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1695 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1698 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1699 under some conditions.
1704 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1706 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1708 ** Portability fixes
1710 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1712 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1716 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1717 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1718 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1719 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1720 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1722 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1723 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1724 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1726 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1729 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1731 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1732 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1735 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1736 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1737 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1739 ** Better C++ compliance
1740 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1741 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1744 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1747 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1750 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1753 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1756 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1758 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1760 ** Swedish translation
1763 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1764 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1765 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1767 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1768 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1769 previous allocations were not freed.
1771 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1772 Some newlines were missing.
1773 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1775 ** Fixed conflict report.
1776 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1780 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1782 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1784 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1786 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1788 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1789 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1791 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1793 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1797 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1799 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1801 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1802 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1805 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1808 ** Portability fixes.
1810 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1812 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1813 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1814 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1815 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1817 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1819 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1821 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1823 ** Russian translation added.
1825 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1827 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1829 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1831 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1833 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1835 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1836 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1839 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1840 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1843 Automatic location tracking.
1845 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1847 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1851 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1853 ** There is now a FAQ.
1855 * Changes in version 1.27:
1857 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1858 some systems has been fixed.
1860 * Changes in version 1.26:
1862 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1864 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1866 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1868 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1870 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1872 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1874 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1875 not provide alloca().
1877 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1879 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1880 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1882 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1883 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1884 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1886 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1887 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1888 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1891 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1892 directives in the parser file.
1894 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1895 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1897 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1898 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1899 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1900 a switch statement body.
1902 * Changes in version 1.23:
1904 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1905 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1906 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1907 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1909 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1911 * Changes in version 1.22:
1913 --help option added.
1915 * Changes in version 1.20:
1917 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1921 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1923 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1925 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1926 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1927 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1928 (at your option) any later version.
1930 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1931 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1932 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1933 GNU General Public License for more details.
1935 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1936 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1938 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1939 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1940 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1941 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1942 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1943 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1944 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1945 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1946 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1947 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1948 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1949 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1950 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1951 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1952 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1953 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1954 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1955 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
1956 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's