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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
6
7 Bison will stop adding a semicolon at the end of the actions (as announced
8 in the release 2.5):
9
10 foo.y:2.22: warning: a ';' might be needed at the end of action code
11 exp: "num" { $$ = $1 }
12 ^
13 foo.y:2.22: future versions of Bison will not add the ';'
14
15 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
16 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
17 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
18
19 ** Backward incompatible changes
20
21 *** Obsolete features
22
23 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
24
25 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
26 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
27
28 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
29 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
30
31 ** Bug fixes
32
33 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
34
35 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
36 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
37 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
38 preprocessor expansion:
39
40 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
41
42 This is has been fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
43 identifiers for user-provided variables.
44
45 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
46
47 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
48 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
49
50 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
51
52 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
53 Santet.
54
55 *** Carets
56
57 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
58 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
59 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
60
61 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
62
63 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
64 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
65 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
66
67 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
68 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
69 errors (and only those):
70
71 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
72
73 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
74 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
75
76 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
77
78 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
79
80 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
81 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
82
83 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
84 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
85 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
86
87 *** The display of warnings is now richer
88
89 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
90
91 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
92
93 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
94 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
95 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
96
97 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
98 with failure):
99
100 bison: warnings being treated as errors
101 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
102
103 it now reports:
104
105 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
106
107 *** Deprecated constructs
108
109 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
110 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
111 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
112
113 *** Useless semantic types
114
115 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
116 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
117 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
118 types that trigger the warning:
119
120 %token <type1> term
121 %type <type2> nterm
122 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
123 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
124 %%
125 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
126
127 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
128 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
129
130 *** Undefined but unused symbols
131
132 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
133 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
134
135 %printer {} symbol1
136 %destructor {} symbol2
137 %type <type> symbol3
138 %%
139 exp: "a";
140
141 *** Useless destructors or printers
142
143 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
144 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
145 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
146 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
147
148 %token <type1> token1
149 <type2> token2
150 <type3> token3
151 <type4> token4
152 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
153 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
154
155 *** Conflicts
156
157 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
158 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
159
160 %glr-parser
161 %%
162 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
163
164 compare the previous version of bison:
165
166 $ bison foo.y
167 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
168 $ bison -Werror foo.y
169 bison: warnings being treated as errors
170 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
171
172 with the new behavior:
173
174 $ bison foo.y
175 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
176 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
177 $ bison -Werror foo.y
178 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
179 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
180
181 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
182
183 %expect 0
184 %glr-parser
185 %%
186 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
187
188 Former behavior:
189
190 $ bison bar.y
191 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
192 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
193 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
194
195 New one:
196
197 $ bison bar.y
198 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
199 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
200
201 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
202
203 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
204 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
205 or more arguments. Instead of
206
207 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
208 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
209 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
210 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
211
212 one may now declare
213
214 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
215
216 ** Variable api.token.prefix
217
218 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
219 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
220 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
221
222 %token FILE for ERROR
223 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
224 %%
225 start: FILE for ERROR;
226
227 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
228 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
229 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
230 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
231
232 ** Variable parse.error
233
234 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
235 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
236 verbose".
237
238 ** Renamed %define variables
239
240 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
241 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
242
243 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
244 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
245 namespace -> api.namespace
246 stype -> api.value.type
247
248 ** Semantic predicates
249
250 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
251
252 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
253 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
254 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
255 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
256 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
257 expressions.
258
259 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
260
261 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
262 reduce/reduce conflicts.
263
264 ** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
265
266 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
267 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
268 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
269
270 ** Useless precedence and associativity
271
272 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
273
274 When developping and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
275 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
276 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
277 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
278 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
279 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
280 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
281
282 *** Precedence warning category
283
284 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
285 useless precedence and associativity directives.
286
287 *** Useless associativity
288
289 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
290 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
291 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
292 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
293 For example:
294
295 %left '+'
296 %left '*'
297 %%
298 exp:
299 "num"
300 | exp '+' "num"
301 | exp '*' exp
302 ;
303
304 will produce a
305
306 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
307 %left '+'
308 ^^^
309
310 *** Useless precedence
311
312 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
313 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
314 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
315 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
316
317 %precedence '='
318 %%
319 exp: "var" '=' "num";
320
321 will produce a
322
323 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
324 %precedence '='
325 ^^^
326
327 *** Useless precedence and associativity
328
329 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
330 as follows:
331
332 %nonassoc '='
333 %%
334 exp: "var" '=' "num";
335
336 The warning is:
337
338 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
339 %nonassoc '='
340 ^^^
341
342 ** Java skeleton improvements
343
344 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
345
346 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
347 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
348 and "%define init_throws".
349
350 ** C++ skeletons improvements
351
352 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
353
354 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
355 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
356 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
357
358 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
359
360 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
361
362 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
363
364 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
365 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
366 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
367 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
368 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
369 factory invoked by the user actions).
370
371 *** %define api.value.type variant
372
373 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
374 from Théophile Ranquet.
375
376 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
377 instance:
378
379 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
380 %token <int> NUMBER;
381 %token SEMICOLON ";"
382 %type <::std::string> item;
383 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
384 %%
385 result:
386 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
387 ;
388
389 list:
390 /* nothing */ { /* Generates an empty string list */ }
391 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
392 ;
393
394 item:
395 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
396 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
397 ;
398
399 *** %define api.token.constructor
400
401 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
402 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
403 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
404
405 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
406 {
407 parser::location_type loc = ...;
408 ...
409 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
410 ...
411 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
412 ...
413 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
414 ...
415 }
416
417 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
418
419 ** Bug fixes
420
421 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
422
423 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
424
425 ** Diagnostics are improved
426
427 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
428
429 *** Changes in the format of error messages
430
431 This used to be the format of many error reports:
432
433 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
434 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
435
436 It is now:
437
438 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
439 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
440
441 *** New format for error reports: carets
442
443 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
444
445 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
446 %type <sval> exp
447 ^^^^^^
448 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
449 %type <ival> exp
450 ^^^^^^
451
452 or
453
454 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
455 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
456 ^^^^
457 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
458 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
459 ^^^
460 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
461 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
462 ^^^
463 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
464 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
465 ^^^
466
467 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
468 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
469 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
470 -fno-caret).
471
472 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
473
474 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
475 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
476 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
477 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
478 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
479 parsers).
480
481 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
482 "%define api.pure full".
483
484 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
485
486 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
487 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
488 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
489 then responsible to define her type.
490
491 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
492 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
493 them.
494
495 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
496 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
497 compatibility).
498
499 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
500 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
501 api.position.type.
502
503 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
504
505 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
506 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
507 before re-throwing the exception.
508
509 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
510 appreciated.
511
512 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
513
514 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
515
516 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
517 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
518 numbered and left-justified.
519
520 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
521 diamond shaped nodes.
522
523 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
524 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
525
526 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
527
528 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
529 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
530
531 ** Documentation
532
533 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
534 have been fixed and extended.
535
536 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
537 were not properly documented.
538
539 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
540
541 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
542
543 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
544 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
545 reporting them to us.
546
547 ** Bug fixes
548
549 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
550 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
551 3.2.
552
553 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
554
555 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
556
557 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
558 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
559
560 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
561
562 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
563
564 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
565
566 ** Bug fixes
567
568 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
569
570 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
571 users to the appropriate place to report them.
572
573 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
574
575 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
576 generated, are removed.
577
578 All the generated headers are self-contained.
579
580 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
581
582 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
583 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
584 For instance the header generated from
585
586 %define api.prefix "calc"
587 %defines "lib/parse.h"
588
589 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
590
591 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
592
593 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
594 warnings such as:
595
596 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
597 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
598 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
599 *++yyvsp = yylval;
600 ^
601
602 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
603
604 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
605 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
606 addressed.
607
608 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
609
610 ** Bug fixes
611
612 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
613 suite have been fixed.
614
615 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
616
617 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
618 invalid C++. This is fixed.
619
620 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
621
622 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
623
624 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
625
626 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
627
628 ** Future Changes
629
630 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
631 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
632 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
633
634 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
635
636 write:
637
638 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
639
640 ** Bug fixes
641
642 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
643
644 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
645
646 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
647
648 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
649 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
650 now does.
651
652 ** Type names in actions
653
654 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
655 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
656
657 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
658
659 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
660 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
661
662 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
663
664 ** Future changes
665
666 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
667 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
668
669 *** K&R C parsers
670
671 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
672 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
673 compilers.
674
675 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
676
677 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
678 YYLTYPE.
679
680 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
681 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
682
683 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
684 %error-verbose.
685
686 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
687
688 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
689 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
690 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
691 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
692 it.
693
694 ** Generated Parser Headers
695
696 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
697
698 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
699 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
700
701 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
702 # define YY_FOO_H
703 ...
704 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
705
706 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
707
708 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
709 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
710
711 int bar_parse (void);
712
713 rather than
714
715 #define yyparse bar_parse
716 int yyparse (void);
717
718 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
719 single compilation unit.
720
721 *** Exported symbols in C++
722
723 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
724 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
725 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
726
727 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
728
729 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
730 longer defined.
731
732 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
733
734 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
735 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
736 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
737 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
738 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
739 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
740 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
741
742 The following examples compares both:
743
744 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
745 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
746 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
747 %% %%
748 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
749
750 bison generates:
751
752 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
753 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
754
755 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
756 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
757 > # if defined YYDEBUG
758 > # if YYDEBUG
759 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
760 > # else
761 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
762 > # endif
763 > # else
764 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
765 > # endif
766 # endif | # endif
767
768 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
769 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
770 # endif # endif
771
772 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
773 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
774 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
775 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
776 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
777 }; };
778 # endif # endif
779
780 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
781 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
782 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
783 { {
784 int ival; int ival;
785 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
786 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
787 #endif #endif
788
789 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
790
791 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
792
793 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
794
795 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
796
797 ** Future changes:
798
799 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
800
801 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
802
803 ** glr.c improvements:
804
805 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
806
807 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
808 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
809
810 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
811
812 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
813 when -std is passed to GCC).
814
815 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
816
817 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
818 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
819
820 ** Changes for C++:
821
822 *** C++11 compatibility:
823
824 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
825 or higher.
826
827 *** Header guards
828
829 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
830 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
831
832 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
833 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
834 ...
835 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
836
837 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
838 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
839 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
840
841 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
842
843 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
844 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
845 ...
846 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
847
848 *** C++ locations:
849
850 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
851 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
852 documentation were fixed.
853
854 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
855
856 ** Changes in the manual:
857
858 *** %printer is documented
859
860 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
861 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
862
863 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
864 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
865
866 *** Several improvements have been made:
867
868 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
869 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
870 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
871 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
872
873 ** Building bison:
874
875 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
876
877 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
878 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
879
880 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
881
882 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
883
884 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
885 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
886
887 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
888
889 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
890 halts in the middle of its course.
891
892 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
893
894 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
895
896 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
897 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
898 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
899 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
900 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
901
902 ** Named references:
903
904 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
905 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
906 actions code.
907
908 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
909 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
910 as named references:
911
912 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
913 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
914
915 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
916
917 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
918 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
919
920 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
921 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
922 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
923
924 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
925 will help to stabilize them.
926 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
927
928 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
929
930 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
931 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
932 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
933 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
934 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
935 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
936 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
937 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
938 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
939
940 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
941 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
942 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
943 file with these directives:
944
945 %define lr.type lalr
946 %define lr.type ielr
947 %define lr.type canonical-lr
948
949 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
950 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
951 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
952 manual.
953
954 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
955 stabilize them.
956
957 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
958
959 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
960
961 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
962 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
963 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
964 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
965 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
966 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
967 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
968 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
969 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
970 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
971 tokens.
972
973 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
974 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
975 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
976 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
977 inconsistent states.
978
979 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
980 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
981 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
982 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
983 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
984 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
985 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
986 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
987 power.
988
989 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
990 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
991
992 %define parse.lac full
993
994 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
995 details including a few caveats.
996
997 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
998 stabilize it.
999
1000 ** %define improvements:
1001
1002 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1003
1004 Each of these command-line options
1005
1006 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1007 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1008
1009 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1010 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1011
1012 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1013
1014 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1015
1016 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1017 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1018 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1019 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1020
1021 *** Variables renamed:
1022
1023 The following %define variables
1024
1025 api.push_pull
1026 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1027
1028 have been renamed to
1029
1030 api.push-pull
1031 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1032
1033 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1034 for backward compatibility.
1035
1036 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1037
1038 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1039 within quotations marks. For example,
1040
1041 %define api.push-pull "push"
1042
1043 can be rewritten as
1044
1045 %define api.push-pull push
1046
1047 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1048
1049 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1050
1051 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1052
1053 ** Character literals not of length one:
1054
1055 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1056 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1057 the following grammar to be the same token:
1058
1059 exp: exp '++'
1060 | exp '+' exp
1061 ;
1062
1063 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1064 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1065
1066 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1067
1068 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1069 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1070 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1071 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1072
1073 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1074
1075 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1076 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1077 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1078 and "last" members, instead of
1079
1080 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1081 do \
1082 if (N) \
1083 { \
1084 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1085 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1086 } \
1087 else \
1088 { \
1089 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1090 } \
1091 while (false)
1092
1093 use:
1094
1095 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1096 do \
1097 if (N) \
1098 { \
1099 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1100 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1101 } \
1102 else \
1103 { \
1104 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1105 } \
1106 while (false)
1107
1108 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1109
1110 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1111 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1112 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1113 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1114
1115 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1116
1117 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1118 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1119 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1120 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1121 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1122 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1123 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1124 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1125
1126 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1127
1128 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1129 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1130 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1131 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1132
1133 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1134
1135 instead of
1136
1137 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1138
1139 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1140 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1141 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1142 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1143 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1144 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1145 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1146
1147 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1148
1149 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1150 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1151 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1152 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1153 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1154
1155 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1156 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1157 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1158 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1159 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1160 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1161 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1162 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1163 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1164 shifted or discarded.
1165
1166 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1167 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1168 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1169 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1170
1171 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1172 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1173 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1174 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1175 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1176 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1177 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1178 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1179 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1180 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1181 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1182 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1183 by default.
1184
1185 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1186
1187 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1188
1189 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1190 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1191
1192 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1193
1194 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1195
1196 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1197
1198 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1199 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1200
1201 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1202
1203 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1204
1205 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1206 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1207 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1208 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1209 example:
1210
1211 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1212 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1213 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1214 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1215
1216 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1217 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1218 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1219 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1220
1221 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1222
1223 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1224 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1225
1226 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1227
1228 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1229
1230 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1231 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1232 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1233 suppress all warnings:
1234
1235 bison -Wnone gram.y
1236
1237 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1238
1239 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1240 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1241 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1242
1243 %left END 0
1244
1245 This bug has been fixed.
1246
1247 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1248
1249 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1250 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1251
1252 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1253 been fixed.
1254
1255 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1256
1257 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1258 been fixed.
1259
1260 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1261 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1262 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1263 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1264
1265 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1266
1267 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1268
1269 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1270 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1271 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1272 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1273 affected platforms.
1274
1275 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1276
1277 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1278 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1279 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1280 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1281 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1282 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1283 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1284 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1285 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1286
1287 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1288
1289 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1290 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1291 avoided.
1292
1293 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1294
1295 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1296
1297 %{CODE%}
1298
1299 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1300 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1301
1302 %code {CODE}
1303 %code requires {CODE}
1304 %code provides {CODE}
1305 %code top {CODE}
1306
1307 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1308 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1309 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1310 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1311 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1312
1313 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1314 is still considered experimental.
1315
1316 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1317
1318 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1319 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1320 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1321 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1322 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1323 specified by POSIX.
1324
1325 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1326 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1327 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1328 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1329 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1330 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1331 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1332
1333 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1334
1335 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1336 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1337 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1338 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1339 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1340 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1341 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1342 be removed altogether.
1343
1344 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1345 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1346 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1347 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1348 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1349 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1350 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1351 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1352 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1353 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1354
1355 ** Internationalization.
1356
1357 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1358 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1359 host system.
1360
1361 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1362
1363 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1364 declarations have been fixed.
1365
1366 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1367
1368 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1369 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1370
1371 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1372
1373 instead of
1374
1375 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1376
1377 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1378 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1379 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1380 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1381 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1382 feature.
1383
1384 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1385
1386 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1387
1388 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1389
1390 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1391 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1392 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1393 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1394 in future releases.
1395
1396 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1397
1398 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1399 fixed.
1400
1401 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1402
1403 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1404 are now deprecated:
1405
1406 %define NAME "VALUE"
1407
1408 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1409
1410 %define api.pure
1411
1412 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1413 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1414
1415 ** Push Parsing
1416
1417 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1418 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1419 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1420 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1421 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1422
1423 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1424 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1425
1426 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1427
1428 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1429 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1430
1431 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1432 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1433 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1434
1435 ** Java
1436
1437 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1438 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1439 %skeleton to select it.
1440
1441 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1442
1443 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1444 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1445 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1446
1447 ** %language
1448
1449 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1450 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1451 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1452 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1453
1454 ** XML Automaton Report
1455
1456 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1457 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1458 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1459 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1460
1461 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1462 %defines. For example:
1463
1464 %defines "parser.h"
1465
1466 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1467 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1468 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1469 instead of "unused".
1470
1471 ** Unreachable State Removal
1472
1473 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1474 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1475 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1476
1477 1. Removes unreachable states.
1478
1479 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1480 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1481 directives in existing grammar files.
1482
1483 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1484 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1485
1486 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1487
1488 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1489
1490 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1491 for further discussion.
1492
1493 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1494
1495 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1496 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1497 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1498 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1499 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1500 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1501 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1502 code.
1503
1504 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1505 name.
1506
1507 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1508 deprecated:
1509
1510 %file-prefix "parser"
1511 %name-prefix "c_"
1512 %output "parser.c"
1513
1514 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1515
1516 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1517 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1518 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1519 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1520 it:
1521
1522 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1523 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1524 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1525 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1526
1527 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1528 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1529 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1530 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1531
1532 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1533 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1534
1535 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1536
1537 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1538 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1539 about unused $2 in:
1540
1541 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1542
1543 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1544 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1545
1546 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1547
1548 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1549 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1550 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1551
1552 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1553 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1554
1555 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1556
1557 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1558 %printer's:
1559
1560 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1561 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1562 declared semantic type tags.
1563
1564 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1565 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1566 type tags.
1567
1568 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1569 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1570 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1571 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1572
1573 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1574 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1575 features.
1576
1577 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1578 details.
1579
1580 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1581 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1582 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1583
1584 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1585 completely removed from Bison.
1586
1587 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1588
1589 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1590 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1591 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1592 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1593 and is required by POSIX.
1594
1595 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1596 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1597
1598 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1599
1600 For example:
1601
1602 %union { char *string; }
1603 %token <string> STRING1
1604 %token <string> STRING2
1605 %type <string> string1
1606 %type <string> string2
1607 %union { char character; }
1608 %token <character> CHR
1609 %type <character> chr
1610 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1611 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1612 %destructor { } <character>
1613
1614 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1615 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1616 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1617 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1618 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1619
1620 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1621 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1622 future versions.]
1623
1624 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1625 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1626 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1627 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1628 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1629
1630 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1631 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1632
1633 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1634 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1635 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1636 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1637 declared after the first %union.
1638
1639 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1640 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1641 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1642 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1643 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1644 after the token definitions.
1645
1646 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1647 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1648
1649 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1650 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1651 %after-header.
1652
1653 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1654 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1655 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1656 convenient for you:
1657
1658 %before-header {
1659 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1660 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1661 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1662 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1663 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1664 }
1665 %start-header {
1666 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1667 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1668 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1669 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1670 }
1671 %union {
1672 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1673 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1674 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1675 }
1676 %end-header {
1677 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1678 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1679 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1680 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1681 * definitions. */
1682 }
1683 %after-header {
1684 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1685 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1686 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1687 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1688 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1689 }
1690
1691 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1692 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1693
1694 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1695 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1696
1697 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1698 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1699 in a future release.
1700
1701 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1702
1703 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1704 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1705
1706 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1707 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1708
1709 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1710
1711 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1712 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1713 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1714
1715 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1716
1717 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1718
1719 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1720 their contents together.
1721
1722 ** New warning: unused values
1723 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1724 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1725
1726 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1727 | exp "+" exp
1728 ;
1729
1730 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1731 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1732 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1733
1734 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1735 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1736 | exp "+" exp
1737 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1738 ;
1739
1740 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1741 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1742 values are used, e.g.:
1743
1744 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1745 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1746 ;
1747
1748 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1749 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1750
1751 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1752
1753 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1754 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1755
1756 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1757 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1758 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1759 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1760
1761 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1762 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1763 instead of warnings.
1764
1765 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1766 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1767 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1768
1769 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1770
1771 ** %require "VERSION"
1772 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1773 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1774
1775 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1776 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1777 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1778 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1779 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1780
1781 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1782 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1783 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1784 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1785
1786 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1787 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1788
1789 ** DJGPP support added.
1790 \f
1791 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1792
1793 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1794
1795 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1796 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1797 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1798 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1799 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1800 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1801
1802 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1803 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1804 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1805 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1806
1807 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1808 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1809 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1810
1811 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1812 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1813 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1814 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1815 unexpected "number"'.
1816 \f
1817 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1818
1819 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1820
1821 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1822 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1823 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1824 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1825 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1826
1827 - Error token location.
1828 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1829 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1830 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1831 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1832
1833 - Semicolon changes:
1834 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1835 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1836
1837 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1838 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1839 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1840 forget a closing quote.
1841
1842 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1843
1844 ** New features
1845
1846 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1847
1848 - New directive: %initial-action.
1849 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1850 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1851
1852 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1853 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1854
1855 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1856 This is a GNU extension.
1857
1858 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1859 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1860
1861 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1862
1863 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1864 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1865
1866 ** Bug fixes
1867
1868 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1869 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1870 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1871 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1872 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1873 these violations will become errors again.
1874
1875 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1876 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1877
1878 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1879 \f
1880 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1881
1882 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1883 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1884
1885 ** syntax error processing
1886
1887 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1888 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1889
1890 - %destructor
1891 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1892 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1893
1894 - %error-verbose
1895 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1896
1897 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1898 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1899
1900 ** POSIX conformance
1901
1902 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1903 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1904 compatibility with Yacc.
1905
1906 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1907 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1908 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1909 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1910 be consistent.
1911
1912 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1913 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1914
1915 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1916 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1917
1918 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1919 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1920
1921 - Yacc command and library now available
1922 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1923 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1924 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1925 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1926
1927 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1928
1929 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1930 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1931 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1932
1933 ** Other compatibility issues
1934
1935 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1936 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1937 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1938 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1939 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1940 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1941
1942 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1943 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1944
1945 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1946 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1947
1948 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1949 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1950 withdrawn in a future release.
1951
1952 ** GLR parser notes
1953
1954 - GLR and inline
1955 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1956 C keyword "inline".
1957
1958 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1959 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1960
1961 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1962 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1963 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1964 shortcomings:
1965
1966 - a single argument only can be added,
1967 - their types are weak (void *),
1968 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1969 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1970
1971 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1972 For instance:
1973
1974 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1975 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1976 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1977
1978 results in the following signatures:
1979
1980 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1981 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1982
1983 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1984
1985 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1986 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1987
1988 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1989 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1990 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1991
1992 ** #line in output files
1993 - --no-line works properly.
1994
1995 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1996 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1997 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1998 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1999 \f
2000 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2001
2002 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2003
2004 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2005
2006 ** GLR parsers
2007 Fix spurious parse errors.
2008
2009 ** Pure parsers
2010 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2011 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2012
2013 ** Type Clashes
2014 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2015 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2016
2017 untyped: ... typed;
2018
2019 but the converse remains an error:
2020
2021 typed: ... untyped;
2022
2023 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2024 The following code:
2025
2026 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2027
2028 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2029 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2030 \f
2031 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2032
2033 ** GLR parsing
2034 The declaration
2035 %glr-parser
2036 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2037 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2038 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2039 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2040
2041 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2042 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2043
2044 ** Output Directory
2045 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2046 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2047 now creates "bar.c".
2048
2049 ** Undefined token
2050 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2051 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2052
2053 ** Unknown token numbers
2054 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2055 no longer the case.
2056
2057 ** Error token
2058 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2059 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2060 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2061 will be mapped onto another number.
2062
2063 ** Verbose error messages
2064 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2065 error recovery is possible.
2066
2067 ** End token
2068 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2069
2070 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2071 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2072 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2073 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2074 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2075 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2076 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2077 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2078 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2079
2080 ** Traces
2081 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2082
2083 ** Larger grammars
2084 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2085 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2086 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2087 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2088
2089 ** Explicit initial rule
2090 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2091 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2092 graphs as rule 0.
2093
2094 ** Useless rules
2095 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2096 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2097
2098 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2099 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2100
2101 ** Rules never reduced
2102 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2103 reported.
2104
2105 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2106 On a grammar such as
2107
2108 %token useless useful
2109 %%
2110 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2111
2112 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2113 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2114
2115 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2116 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2117
2118 ** Default locations
2119 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2120 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2121 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2122 the computation of @$.
2123
2124 ** Token end-of-file
2125 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2126 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2127 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2128 For instance
2129 %token MYEOF 0
2130 or
2131 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2132
2133 ** Semantic parser
2134 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2135
2136 ** New translations
2137 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2138 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2139
2140 ** Incorrect token definitions
2141 When given
2142 %token 'a' "A"
2143 bison used to output
2144 #define 'a' 65
2145
2146 ** Token definitions as enums
2147 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2148 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2149 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2150
2151 ** Reports
2152 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2153 produces additional information:
2154 - itemset
2155 complete the core item sets with their closure
2156 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2157 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2158 - solved
2159 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2160 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2161 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2162
2163 ** Type clashes
2164 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2165 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2166
2167 %type <foo> bar
2168 %%
2169 bar: '0' {} '0';
2170
2171 This is fixed.
2172
2173 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2174 \f
2175 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2176
2177 ** C Skeleton
2178 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2179 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2180 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2181
2182 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2183 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2184 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2185 kludge will be disabled.
2186
2187 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2188 extended.
2189 \f
2190 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2191
2192 ** File name clashes are detected
2193 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2194 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2195
2196 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2197 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2198 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2199 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2200 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2201 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2202
2203 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2204 many portability hassles.
2205
2206 ** DJGPP support added.
2207
2208 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2209 \f
2210 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2211
2212 ** Fix C++ issues
2213 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2214 under some conditions.
2215
2216 ** Catch invalid @n
2217 As is done with $n.
2218 \f
2219 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2220
2221 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2222
2223 ** Portability fixes
2224
2225 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2226 \f
2227 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2228
2229 ** Many Bug Fixes
2230
2231 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2232 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2233 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2234 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2235 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2236
2237 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2238 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2239 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2240
2241 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2242 problems as on AIX.
2243
2244 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2245
2246 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2247 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2248
2249 ** User Actions
2250 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2251 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2252 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2253
2254 ** Better C++ compliance
2255 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2256 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2257
2258 ** Reduced Grammars
2259 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2260
2261 ** 64 bit hosts
2262 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2263
2264 ** Error messages
2265 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2266
2267 ** %expect
2268 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2269 any warning.
2270
2271 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2272
2273 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2274
2275 ** Swedish translation
2276
2277 ** Parse errors
2278 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2279 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2280 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2281
2282 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2283 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2284 previous allocations were not freed.
2285
2286 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2287 Some newlines were missing.
2288 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2289
2290 ** Fixed conflict report.
2291 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2292
2293 ** %expect
2294 Was not used.
2295 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2296
2297 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2298
2299 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2300
2301 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2302
2303 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2304 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2305
2306 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2307
2308 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2309 New.
2310
2311 ** --output
2312 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2313 \f
2314 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2315
2316 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2317 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2318 argument.
2319
2320 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2321 experiment.
2322
2323 ** Portability fixes.
2324 \f
2325 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2326
2327 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2328 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2329 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2330 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2331
2332 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2333
2334 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2335
2336 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2337
2338 ** Russian translation added.
2339
2340 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2341
2342 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2343
2344 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2345
2346 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2347
2348 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2349
2350 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2351 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2352
2353 ** New directives.
2354 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2355 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2356
2357 ** @$
2358 Automatic location tracking.
2359 \f
2360 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2361
2362 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2363
2364 ** Added NLS.
2365
2366 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2367
2368 ** There is now a FAQ.
2369 \f
2370 * Changes in version 1.27:
2371
2372 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2373 some systems has been fixed.
2374 \f
2375 * Changes in version 1.26:
2376
2377 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2378
2379 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2380
2381 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2382
2383 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2384
2385 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2386
2387 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2388
2389 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2390 not provide alloca().
2391 \f
2392 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2393
2394 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2395 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2396
2397 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2398 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2399 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2400
2401 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2402 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2403 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2404 purposes.
2405
2406 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2407 directives in the parser file.
2408
2409 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2410 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2411
2412 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2413 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2414 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2415 a switch statement body.
2416 \f
2417 * Changes in version 1.23:
2418
2419 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2420 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2421 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2422 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2423
2424 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2425 \f
2426 * Changes in version 1.22:
2427
2428 --help option added.
2429 \f
2430 * Changes in version 1.20:
2431
2432 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2433
2434 -----
2435
2436 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2437
2438 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2439
2440 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2441 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2442 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2443 (at your option) any later version.
2444
2445 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2446 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2447 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2448 GNU General Public License for more details.
2449
2450 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2451 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2452
2453 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2454 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2455 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2456 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2457 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2458 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2459 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2460 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2461 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2462 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2463 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2464 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2465 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2466 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2467 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2468 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2469 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2470 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2471 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2472
2473 Local Variables:
2474 mode: outline
2475 fill-column: 76
2476 End: