3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Warning categories are now displayed
20 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
22 *** Useless semantic types
24 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
25 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
26 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
27 types that trigger the warning:
31 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
32 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
34 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
36 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
37 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
39 *** Undeclared symbols
41 Bison used to raise an error for %printer and %destructor directives for
45 %destructor {} symbol2
49 This is now only a warning.
51 *** Useless destructors or printers
53 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
54 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
55 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
56 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
62 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
63 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
65 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
67 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
68 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
69 or more arguments. Instead of
71 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
72 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
73 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
74 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
78 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
80 ** Java skeleton improvements
82 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
83 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
84 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
86 ** C++ skeletons improvements
88 *** parser header (%defines) is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc)
90 In which case, if needed, the support classes are defined in the generated
91 parser, instead of additional files (location.hh, position.hh and
94 *** locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
96 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
98 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
100 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
101 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
102 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
103 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
104 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
105 factory invoked by the user actions).
107 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
109 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
110 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
111 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
113 %token FILE for ERROR
114 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
116 start: FILE for ERROR;
118 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
119 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
120 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
121 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
123 ** Variable api.namespace
125 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
126 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
128 ** Variable parse.error
130 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
131 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
132 %define parse.error "verbose".
134 ** Semantic predicates
136 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
137 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
138 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
139 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
140 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
141 run-time expressions.
143 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
146 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
150 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
151 suite have been fixed.
153 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
155 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
156 invalid C++. This is fixed.
158 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
160 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
162 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
164 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
168 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
169 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
170 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
172 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
176 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
180 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
182 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
184 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
186 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
187 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
190 ** Type names in actions
192 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
193 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
195 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
197 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
198 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
200 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
204 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
205 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
209 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
210 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
213 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
215 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
218 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
219 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
221 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
224 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
226 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
227 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
228 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
229 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
232 ** Generated Parser Headers
234 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
236 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
237 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
242 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
244 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
246 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
247 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
249 int bar_parse (void);
253 #define yyparse bar_parse
256 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
257 single compilation unit.
259 *** Exported symbols in C++
261 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
262 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
263 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
267 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
270 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
272 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
273 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
274 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
275 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
276 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
277 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
278 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
280 The following examples compares both:
282 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
283 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
284 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
290 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
291 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
293 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
294 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
295 > # if defined YYDEBUG
297 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
299 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
302 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
306 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
307 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
310 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
311 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
312 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
313 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
318 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
319 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
320 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
323 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
324 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
327 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
329 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
331 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
333 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
337 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
339 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
341 ** glr.c improvements:
343 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
345 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
346 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
348 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
350 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
351 when -std is passed to GCC).
353 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
355 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
356 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
360 *** C++11 compatibility:
362 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
367 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
368 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
370 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
371 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
373 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
375 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
376 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
377 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
379 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
381 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
382 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
384 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
388 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
389 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
390 documentation were fixed.
392 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
394 ** Changes in the manual:
396 *** %printer is documented
398 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
399 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
401 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
402 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
404 *** Several improvements have been made:
406 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
407 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
408 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
409 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
413 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
415 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
416 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
418 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
420 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
422 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
423 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
425 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
427 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
428 halts in the middle of its course.
430 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
432 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
434 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
435 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
436 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
437 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
438 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
442 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
443 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
446 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
447 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
450 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
451 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
453 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
455 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
456 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
458 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
459 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
460 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
462 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
463 will help to stabilize them.
465 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
467 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
468 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
469 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
470 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
471 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
472 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
473 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
474 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
475 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
477 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
478 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
479 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
480 file with these directives:
484 %define lr.type canonical-lr
486 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
487 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
488 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
491 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
494 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
496 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
497 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
498 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
499 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
500 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
501 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
502 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
503 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
504 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
505 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
508 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
509 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
510 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
511 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
514 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
515 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
516 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
517 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
518 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
519 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
520 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
521 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
524 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
525 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
527 %define parse.lac full
529 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
530 details including a few caveats.
532 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
535 ** %define improvements:
537 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
539 Each of these command-line options
542 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
545 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
547 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
549 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
551 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
552 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
553 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
554 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
556 *** Variables renamed:
558 The following %define variables
561 lr.keep_unreachable_states
566 lr.keep-unreachable-states
568 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
569 for backward compatibility.
571 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
573 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
574 within quotations marks. For example,
576 %define api.push-pull "push"
580 %define api.push-pull push
582 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
584 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
586 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
588 ** Character literals not of length one:
590 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
591 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
592 the following grammar to be the same token:
598 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
599 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
601 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
603 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
604 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
605 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
606 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
608 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
610 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
611 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
612 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
613 and "last" members, instead of
615 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
619 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
620 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
624 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
630 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
634 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
635 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
639 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
643 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
645 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
646 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
647 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
648 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
650 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
652 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
653 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
654 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
655 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
656 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
657 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
658 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
659 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
661 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
663 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
664 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
665 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
666 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
668 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
672 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
674 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
675 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
676 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
677 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
678 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
679 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
680 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
682 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
684 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
685 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
686 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
687 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
688 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
690 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
691 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
692 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
693 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
694 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
695 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
696 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
697 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
698 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
699 shifted or discarded.
701 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
702 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
703 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
704 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
706 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
707 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
708 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
709 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
710 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
711 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
712 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
713 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
714 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
715 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
716 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
717 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
720 ** Java skeleton fixes:
722 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
724 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
725 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
727 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
729 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
731 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
733 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
734 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
736 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
738 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
740 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
741 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
742 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
743 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
746 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
747 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
748 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
749 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
751 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
752 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
753 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
754 then have no effect on the conflict report.
756 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
758 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
759 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
761 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
763 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
765 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
766 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
767 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
768 suppress all warnings:
772 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
774 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
775 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
776 produced an assertion failure. For example:
780 This bug has been fixed.
782 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
784 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
785 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
787 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
790 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
792 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
795 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
796 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
797 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
798 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
800 ** Minor documentation fixes.
802 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
804 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
805 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
806 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
807 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
810 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
812 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
813 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
814 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
815 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
816 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
817 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
818 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
819 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
820 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
822 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
824 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
825 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
828 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
830 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
834 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
835 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
838 %code requires {CODE}
839 %code provides {CODE}
842 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
843 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
844 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
845 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
846 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
848 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
849 is still considered experimental.
851 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
853 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
854 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
855 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
856 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
857 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
860 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
861 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
862 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
863 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
864 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
865 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
866 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
868 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
870 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
871 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
872 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
873 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
874 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
875 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
876 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
877 be removed altogether.
879 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
880 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
881 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
882 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
883 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
884 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
885 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
886 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
887 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
888 2.4.2 is not necessary.
890 ** Internationalization.
892 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
893 message translations were not installed although supported by the
896 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
898 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
899 declarations have been fixed.
901 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
903 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
904 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
906 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
910 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
912 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
913 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
914 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
915 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
916 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
919 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
921 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
923 ** %language is an experimental feature.
925 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
926 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
927 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
928 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
931 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
933 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
936 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
938 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
943 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
947 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
948 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
952 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
953 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
954 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
955 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
956 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
958 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
959 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
961 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
963 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
964 feedback will help to stabilize it.
966 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
967 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
968 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
972 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
973 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
974 %skeleton to select it.
976 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
978 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
979 feedback will help to stabilize it.
983 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
984 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
985 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
986 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
988 ** XML Automaton Report
990 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
991 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
992 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
994 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
995 %defines. For example:
999 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1000 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1001 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1002 instead of "unused".
1004 ** Unreachable State Removal
1006 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1007 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1008 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1010 1. Removes unreachable states.
1012 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1013 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1014 directives in existing grammar files.
1016 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1017 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1019 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1021 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1023 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1024 for further discussion.
1026 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1028 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1029 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1030 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1031 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1032 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1033 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1034 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1037 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1040 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1043 %file-prefix "parser"
1047 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1049 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1050 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1051 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1052 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1055 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1056 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1057 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1058 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1060 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1061 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1062 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1063 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1065 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1066 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1068 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1070 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1071 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1074 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1076 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1077 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1079 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1081 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1082 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1083 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1085 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1086 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1088 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1090 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1093 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1094 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1095 declared semantic type tags.
1097 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1098 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1101 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1102 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1103 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1104 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1106 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1107 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1110 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1113 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1114 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1115 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1117 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1118 completely removed from Bison.
1120 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1122 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1123 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1124 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1125 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1126 and is required by POSIX.
1128 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1129 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1131 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1135 %union { char *string; }
1136 %token <string> STRING1
1137 %token <string> STRING2
1138 %type <string> string1
1139 %type <string> string2
1140 %union { char character; }
1141 %token <character> CHR
1142 %type <character> chr
1143 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1144 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1145 %destructor { } <character>
1147 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1148 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1149 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1150 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1151 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1153 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1154 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1157 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1158 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1159 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1160 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1161 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1163 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1164 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1166 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1167 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1168 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1169 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1170 declared after the first %union.
1172 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1173 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1174 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1175 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1176 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1177 after the token definitions.
1179 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1180 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1182 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1183 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1186 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1187 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1188 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1192 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1193 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1194 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1195 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1196 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1199 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1200 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1201 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1202 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1205 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1206 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1207 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1210 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1211 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1212 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1213 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1217 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1218 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1219 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1220 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1221 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1224 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1225 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1227 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1228 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1230 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1231 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1232 in a future release.
1234 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1236 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1237 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1239 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1240 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1242 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1244 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1245 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1246 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1248 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1250 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1252 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1253 their contents together.
1255 ** New warning: unused values
1256 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1257 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1259 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1263 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1264 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1265 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1267 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1268 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1270 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1273 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1274 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1275 values are used, e.g.:
1277 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1278 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1281 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1282 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1284 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1286 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1287 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1289 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1290 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1291 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1292 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1294 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1295 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1296 instead of warnings.
1298 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1299 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1300 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1302 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1304 ** %require "VERSION"
1305 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1306 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1308 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1309 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1310 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1311 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1312 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1314 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1315 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1316 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1317 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1319 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1320 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1322 ** DJGPP support added.
1324 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1326 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1328 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1329 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1330 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1331 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1332 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1333 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1335 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1336 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1337 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1338 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1340 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1341 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1342 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1344 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1345 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1346 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1347 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1348 unexpected "number"'.
1350 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1352 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1354 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1355 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1356 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1357 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1358 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1360 - Error token location.
1361 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1362 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1363 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1364 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1366 - Semicolon changes:
1367 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1368 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1370 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1371 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1372 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1373 forget a closing quote.
1375 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1379 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1381 - New directive: %initial-action.
1382 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1383 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1385 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1386 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1388 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1389 This is a GNU extension.
1391 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1392 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1394 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1396 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1397 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1401 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1402 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1403 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1404 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1405 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1406 these violations will become errors again.
1408 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1409 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1411 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1413 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1415 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1416 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1418 ** syntax error processing
1420 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1421 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1424 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1425 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1428 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1430 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1431 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1433 ** POSIX conformance
1435 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1436 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1437 compatibility with Yacc.
1439 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1440 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1441 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1442 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1445 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1446 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1448 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1449 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1451 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1452 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1454 - Yacc command and library now available
1455 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1456 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1457 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1458 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1460 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1462 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1463 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1464 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1466 ** Other compatibility issues
1468 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1469 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1470 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1471 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1472 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1473 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1475 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1476 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1478 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1479 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1481 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1482 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1483 withdrawn in a future release.
1488 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1491 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1492 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1494 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1495 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1496 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1499 - a single argument only can be added,
1500 - their types are weak (void *),
1501 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1502 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1504 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1507 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1508 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1509 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1511 results in the following signatures:
1513 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1514 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1516 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1518 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1519 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1521 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1522 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1523 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1525 ** #line in output files
1526 - --no-line works properly.
1528 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1529 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1530 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1531 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1533 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1535 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1537 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1540 Fix spurious parse errors.
1543 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1544 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1547 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1548 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1552 but the converse remains an error:
1556 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1559 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1561 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1562 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1564 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1569 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1570 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1571 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1572 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1574 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1575 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1578 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1579 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1580 now creates "bar.c".
1583 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1584 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1586 ** Unknown token numbers
1587 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1591 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1592 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1593 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1594 will be mapped onto another number.
1596 ** Verbose error messages
1597 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1598 error recovery is possible.
1601 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1603 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1604 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1605 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1606 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1607 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1608 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1609 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1610 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1611 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1614 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1617 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1618 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1619 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1620 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1622 ** Explicit initial rule
1623 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1624 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1628 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1629 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1631 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1632 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1634 ** Rules never reduced
1635 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1638 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1639 On a grammar such as
1641 %token useless useful
1643 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1645 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1646 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1648 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1649 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1651 ** Default locations
1652 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1653 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1654 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1655 the computation of @$.
1657 ** Token end-of-file
1658 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1659 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1660 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1664 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1667 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1670 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1671 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1673 ** Incorrect token definitions
1676 bison used to output
1679 ** Token definitions as enums
1680 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1681 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1682 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1685 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1686 produces additional information:
1688 complete the core item sets with their closure
1689 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1690 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1692 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1693 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1694 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1697 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1698 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1706 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1708 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1711 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1712 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1713 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1715 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1716 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1717 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1718 kludge will be disabled.
1720 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1723 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1725 ** File name clashes are detected
1726 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1727 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1729 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1730 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1731 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1732 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1733 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1734 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1736 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1737 many portability hassles.
1739 ** DJGPP support added.
1741 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1743 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1746 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1747 under some conditions.
1752 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1754 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1756 ** Portability fixes
1758 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1760 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1764 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1765 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1766 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1767 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1768 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1770 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1771 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1772 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1774 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1777 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1779 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1780 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1783 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1784 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1785 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1787 ** Better C++ compliance
1788 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1789 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1792 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1795 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1798 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1801 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1804 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1806 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1808 ** Swedish translation
1811 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1812 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1813 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1815 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1816 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1817 previous allocations were not freed.
1819 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1820 Some newlines were missing.
1821 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1823 ** Fixed conflict report.
1824 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1828 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1830 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1832 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1834 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1836 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1837 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1839 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1841 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1845 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1847 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1849 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1850 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1853 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1856 ** Portability fixes.
1858 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1860 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1861 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1862 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1863 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1865 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1867 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1869 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1871 ** Russian translation added.
1873 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1875 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1877 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1879 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1881 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1883 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1884 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1887 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1888 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1891 Automatic location tracking.
1893 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1895 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1899 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1901 ** There is now a FAQ.
1903 * Changes in version 1.27:
1905 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1906 some systems has been fixed.
1908 * Changes in version 1.26:
1910 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1912 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1914 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1916 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1918 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1920 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1922 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1923 not provide alloca().
1925 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1927 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1928 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1930 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1931 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1932 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1934 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1935 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1936 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1939 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1940 directives in the parser file.
1942 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1943 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1945 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1946 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1947 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1948 a switch statement body.
1950 * Changes in version 1.23:
1952 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1953 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1954 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1955 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1957 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1959 * Changes in version 1.22:
1961 --help option added.
1963 * Changes in version 1.20:
1965 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1969 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1971 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1973 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1974 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1975 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1976 (at your option) any later version.
1978 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1979 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1980 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1981 GNU General Public License for more details.
1983 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1984 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1986 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1987 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1988 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1989 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1990 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1991 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1992 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1993 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1994 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1995 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1996 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1997 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1998 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1999 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2000 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2001 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2002 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2003 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init