4 * Changes in version ?.? (????-??-??):
6 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
8 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
9 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives
10 support one or more arguments. Instead of
12 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
13 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
14 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
15 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
19 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
21 ** Java skeleton improvements
23 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
24 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
25 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
27 ** C++ skeleton improvements
29 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
30 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
31 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
32 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
33 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
34 factory invoked by the user actions).
36 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
38 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
39 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
40 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
43 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
45 start: FILE for ERROR;
47 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
48 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
49 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
50 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
52 ** Variable api.namespace
54 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
55 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
57 ** Variable parse.error
59 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
60 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
61 %define parse.error "verbose".
63 ** Semantic predicates
65 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
66 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
67 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
68 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
69 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
72 * Changes in version 2.5.1 (????-??-??):
76 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
78 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
80 ** glr.c improvements:
82 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
84 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
85 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
87 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
89 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
90 when -std is passed to GCC).
92 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
94 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
95 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
99 *** C++11 compatibility:
101 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
106 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
107 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
109 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
110 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
112 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
114 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
115 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
116 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
118 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
120 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
121 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
123 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
127 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
128 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
129 documentation were fixed.
131 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
133 ** Changes in the manual:
135 *** %printer is documented
137 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
138 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
140 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
141 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
143 *** Several improvements have been made:
145 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
146 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
147 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
148 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
152 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
154 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
155 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
157 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
159 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
161 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
162 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
164 *** The install-pdf target work properly:
166 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
167 halts in the middle of its course.
169 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
171 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
173 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
174 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
175 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
176 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
177 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
181 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
182 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
185 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
186 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
189 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
190 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
192 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
194 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
195 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
197 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
198 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
199 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
201 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
202 will help to stabilize them.
204 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
206 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
207 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
208 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
209 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
210 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
211 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
212 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
213 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
214 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
216 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
217 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
218 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
219 file with these directives:
223 %define lr.type canonical-lr
225 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
226 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
227 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
230 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
233 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
235 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
236 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
237 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
238 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
239 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
240 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
241 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
242 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
243 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
244 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
247 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
248 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
249 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
250 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
253 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
254 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
255 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
256 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
257 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
258 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
259 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
260 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
263 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
264 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
266 %define parse.lac full
268 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
269 details including a few caveats.
271 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
274 ** %define improvements:
276 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
278 Each of these command-line options
281 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
284 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
286 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
288 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
290 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
291 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
292 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
293 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
295 *** Variables renamed:
297 The following %define variables
300 lr.keep_unreachable_states
305 lr.keep-unreachable-states
307 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
308 for backward compatibility.
310 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
312 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
313 within quotations marks. For example,
315 %define api.push-pull "push"
319 %define api.push-pull push
321 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
323 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
325 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
327 ** Character literals not of length one:
329 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
330 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
331 the following grammar to be the same token:
337 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
338 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
340 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
342 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
343 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
344 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
345 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
347 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
349 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
350 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
351 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
352 and "last" members, instead of
354 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
358 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
359 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
363 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
369 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
373 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
374 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
378 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
382 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
384 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
385 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
386 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
387 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
389 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
391 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
392 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
393 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
394 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
395 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
396 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
397 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
398 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
400 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
402 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
403 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
404 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
405 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
407 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
411 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
413 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
414 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
415 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
416 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
417 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
418 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
419 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
421 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
423 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
424 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
425 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
426 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
427 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
429 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
430 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
431 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
432 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
433 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
434 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
435 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
436 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
437 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
438 shifted or discarded.
440 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
441 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
442 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
443 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
445 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
446 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
447 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
448 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
449 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
450 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
451 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
452 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
453 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
454 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
455 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
456 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
459 ** Java skeleton fixes:
461 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
463 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
464 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
466 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
468 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
470 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
472 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
473 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
475 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
477 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
479 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
480 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
481 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
482 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
485 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
486 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
487 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
488 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
490 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
491 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
492 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
493 then have no effect on the conflict report.
495 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
497 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
498 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
500 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
502 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
504 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
505 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
506 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
507 suppress all warnings:
511 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
513 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
514 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
515 produced an assertion failure. For example:
519 This bug has been fixed.
521 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
523 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
524 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
526 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
529 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
531 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
534 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
535 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
536 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
537 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
539 ** Minor documentation fixes.
541 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
543 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
544 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
545 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
546 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
549 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
551 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
552 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
553 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
554 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
555 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
556 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
557 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
558 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
559 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
561 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
563 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
564 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
567 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
569 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
573 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
574 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
577 %code requires {CODE}
578 %code provides {CODE}
581 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
582 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
583 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
584 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
585 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
587 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
588 is still considered experimental.
590 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
592 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
593 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
594 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
595 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
596 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
599 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
600 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
601 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
602 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
603 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
604 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
605 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
607 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
609 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
610 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
611 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
612 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
613 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
614 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
615 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
616 be removed altogether.
618 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
619 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
620 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
621 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
622 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
623 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
624 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
625 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
626 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
627 2.4.2 is not necessary.
629 ** Internationalization.
631 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
632 message translations were not installed although supported by the
635 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
637 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
638 declarations have been fixed.
640 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
642 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
643 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
645 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
649 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
651 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
652 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
653 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
654 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
655 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
658 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
660 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
662 ** %language is an experimental feature.
664 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
665 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
666 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
667 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
670 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
672 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
675 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
677 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
682 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
686 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
687 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
691 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
692 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
693 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
694 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
695 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
697 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
698 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
700 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
702 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
703 feedback will help to stabilize it.
705 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
706 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
707 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
711 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
712 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
713 %skeleton to select it.
715 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
717 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
718 feedback will help to stabilize it.
722 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
723 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
724 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
725 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
727 ** XML Automaton Report
729 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
730 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
731 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
733 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
734 %defines. For example:
738 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
739 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
740 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
743 ** Unreachable State Removal
745 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
746 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
747 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
749 1. Removes unreachable states.
751 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
752 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
753 directives in existing grammar files.
755 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
756 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
758 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
760 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
762 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
763 for further discussion.
765 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
767 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
768 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
769 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
770 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
771 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
772 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
773 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
776 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
779 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
782 %file-prefix "parser"
786 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
788 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
789 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
790 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
791 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
794 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
795 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
796 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
797 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
799 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
800 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
801 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
802 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
804 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
805 determine whether they should become permanent features.
807 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
809 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
810 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
813 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
815 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
816 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
818 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
820 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
821 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
822 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
824 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
825 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
827 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
829 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
832 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
833 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
834 declared semantic type tags.
836 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
837 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
840 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
841 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
842 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
843 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
845 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
846 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
849 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
852 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
853 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
854 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
856 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
857 completely removed from Bison.
859 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
861 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
862 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
863 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
864 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
865 and is required by POSIX.
867 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
868 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
870 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
874 %union { char *string; }
875 %token <string> STRING1
876 %token <string> STRING2
877 %type <string> string1
878 %type <string> string2
879 %union { char character; }
880 %token <character> CHR
881 %type <character> chr
882 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
883 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
884 %destructor { } <character>
886 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
887 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
888 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
889 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
890 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
892 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
893 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
896 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
897 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
898 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
899 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
900 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
902 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
903 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
905 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
906 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
907 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
908 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
909 declared after the first %union.
911 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
912 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
913 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
914 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
915 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
916 after the token definitions.
918 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
919 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
921 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
922 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
925 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
926 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
927 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
931 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
932 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
933 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
934 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
935 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
938 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
939 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
940 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
941 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
944 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
945 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
946 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
949 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
950 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
951 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
952 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
956 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
957 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
958 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
959 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
960 * Bison-generated definitions. */
963 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
964 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
966 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
967 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
969 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
970 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
973 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
975 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
976 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
978 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
979 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
981 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
983 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
984 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
985 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
987 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
989 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
991 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
992 their contents together.
994 ** New warning: unused values
995 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
996 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
998 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1002 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1003 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1004 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1006 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1007 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1009 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1012 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1013 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1014 values are used, e.g.:
1016 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1017 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1020 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1021 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1023 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1025 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1026 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1028 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1029 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1030 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1031 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1033 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1034 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1035 instead of warnings.
1037 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1038 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1039 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1041 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1043 ** %require "VERSION"
1044 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1045 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1047 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1048 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1049 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1050 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1051 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1053 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1054 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1055 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1056 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1058 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1059 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1061 ** DJGPP support added.
1063 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1065 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1067 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1068 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1069 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1070 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1071 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1072 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1074 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1075 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1076 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1077 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1079 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1080 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1081 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1083 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1084 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1085 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1086 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1087 unexpected "number"'.
1089 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1091 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1093 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1094 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1095 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1096 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1097 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1099 - Error token location.
1100 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1101 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1102 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1103 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1105 - Semicolon changes:
1106 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1107 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1109 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1110 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1111 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1112 forget a closing quote.
1114 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1118 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1120 - New directive: %initial-action.
1121 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1122 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1124 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1125 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1127 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1128 This is a GNU extension.
1130 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1131 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1133 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1135 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1136 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1140 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1141 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1142 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1143 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1144 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1145 these violations will become errors again.
1147 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1148 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1150 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1152 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1154 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1155 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1157 ** syntax error processing
1159 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1160 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1163 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1164 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1167 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1169 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1170 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1172 ** POSIX conformance
1174 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1175 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1176 compatibility with Yacc.
1178 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1179 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1180 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1181 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1184 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1185 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1187 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1188 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1190 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1191 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1193 - Yacc command and library now available
1194 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1195 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1196 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1197 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1199 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1201 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1202 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1203 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1205 ** Other compatibility issues
1207 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1208 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1209 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1210 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1211 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1212 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1214 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1215 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1217 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1218 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1220 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1221 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1222 withdrawn in a future release.
1227 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1230 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1231 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1233 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1234 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1235 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1237 ** #line in output files
1238 - --no-line works properly.
1240 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1241 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1242 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1243 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1245 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1247 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1249 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1252 Fix spurious parse errors.
1255 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1256 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1259 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1260 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1264 but the converse remains an error:
1268 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1271 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1273 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1274 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1276 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1281 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1282 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1283 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1284 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1286 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1287 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1290 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1291 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1292 now creates "bar.c".
1295 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1296 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1298 ** Unknown token numbers
1299 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1303 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1304 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1305 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1306 will be mapped onto another number.
1308 ** Verbose error messages
1309 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1310 error recovery is possible.
1313 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1315 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1316 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1317 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1318 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1319 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1320 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1321 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1322 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1323 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1326 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1329 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1330 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1331 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1332 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1334 ** Explicit initial rule
1335 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1336 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1340 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1341 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1343 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1344 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1346 ** Rules never reduced
1347 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1350 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1351 On a grammar such as
1353 %token useless useful
1355 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1357 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1358 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1360 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1361 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1363 ** Default locations
1364 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1365 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1366 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1367 the computation of @$.
1369 ** Token end-of-file
1370 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1371 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1372 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1376 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1379 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1382 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1383 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1385 ** Incorrect token definitions
1388 bison used to output
1391 ** Token definitions as enums
1392 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1393 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1394 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1397 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1398 produces additional information:
1400 complete the core item sets with their closure
1401 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1402 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1404 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1405 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1406 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1409 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1410 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1418 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1420 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1423 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1424 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1425 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1427 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1428 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1429 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1430 kludge will be disabled.
1432 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1435 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1437 ** File name clashes are detected
1438 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1439 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1441 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1442 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1443 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1444 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1445 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1446 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1448 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1449 many portability hassles.
1451 ** DJGPP support added.
1453 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1455 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1458 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1459 under some conditions.
1464 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1466 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1468 ** Portability fixes
1470 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1472 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1476 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1477 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1478 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1479 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1480 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1482 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1483 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1484 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1486 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1489 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1491 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1492 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1495 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1496 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1497 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1499 ** Better C++ compliance
1500 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1501 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1504 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1507 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1510 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1513 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1516 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1518 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1520 ** Swedish translation
1523 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1524 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1525 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1527 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1528 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1529 previous allocations were not freed.
1531 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1532 Some newlines were missing.
1533 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1535 ** Fixed conflict report.
1536 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1540 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1542 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1544 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1546 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1548 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1549 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1551 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1553 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1557 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1559 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1561 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1562 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1565 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1568 ** Portability fixes.
1570 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1572 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1573 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1574 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1575 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1577 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1579 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1581 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1583 ** Russian translation added.
1585 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1587 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1589 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1591 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1593 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1595 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1596 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1599 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1600 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1603 Automatic location tracking.
1605 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1607 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1611 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1613 ** There is now a FAQ.
1615 * Changes in version 1.27:
1617 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1618 some systems has been fixed.
1620 * Changes in version 1.26:
1622 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1624 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1626 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1628 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1630 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1632 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1634 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1635 not provide alloca().
1637 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1639 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1640 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1642 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1643 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1644 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1646 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1647 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1648 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1651 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1652 directives in the parser file.
1654 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1655 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1657 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1658 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1659 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1660 a switch statement body.
1662 * Changes in version 1.23:
1664 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1665 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1666 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1667 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1669 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1671 * Changes in version 1.22:
1673 --help option added.
1675 * Changes in version 1.20:
1677 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1681 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1683 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1685 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1686 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1687 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1688 (at your option) any later version.
1690 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1691 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1692 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1693 GNU General Public License for more details.
1695 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1696 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1698 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1699 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1700 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1701 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1702 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1703 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1704 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1705 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1706 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1707 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1708 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1709 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1710 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1711 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1712 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1713 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ