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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
6
7 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
8 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
9 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
10
11 ** Backward incompatible changes
12
13 *** Obsolete features
14
15 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
16
17 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
18 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
19
20 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
21 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
22
23 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
24 in the release 2.5).
25
26 ** Bug fixes
27
28 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
29
30 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
31 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
32 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
33 preprocessor expansion:
34
35 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
36
37 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
38 identifiers for user-provided variables.
39
40 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
41
42 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
43 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
44
45 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
46
47 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
48 Santet.
49
50 *** Carets
51
52 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
53 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
54 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
55
56 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
57 the caret information only. For instance on:
58
59 %%
60 exp: 'a' | 'a';
61
62 Bison 2.7 reports:
63
64 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
65 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
66
67 Now bison reports:
68
69 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
70 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
71 exp: 'a' | 'a';
72 ^^^
73
74 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
75
76 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
77 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
78
79 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
80
81 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
82 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
83 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
84
85 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
86 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
87 errors (and only those):
88
89 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
90
91 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
92 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
93
94 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
95
96 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
97
98 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
99 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
100
101 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
102 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
103 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
104
105 *** The display of warnings is now richer
106
107 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
108
109 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
110
111 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
112 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
113 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
114
115 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
116 with failure):
117
118 bison: warnings being treated as errors
119 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
120
121 it now reports:
122
123 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
124
125 *** Deprecated constructs
126
127 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
128 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
129 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
130
131 *** Useless semantic types
132
133 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
134 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
135 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
136 types that trigger the warning:
137
138 %token <type1> term
139 %type <type2> nterm
140 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
141 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
142 %%
143 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
144
145 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
146 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
147
148 *** Undefined but unused symbols
149
150 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
151 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
152
153 %printer {} symbol1
154 %destructor {} symbol2
155 %type <type> symbol3
156 %%
157 exp: "a";
158
159 *** Useless destructors or printers
160
161 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
162 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
163 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
164 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
165
166 %token <type1> token1
167 <type2> token2
168 <type3> token3
169 <type4> token4
170 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
171 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
172
173 *** Conflicts
174
175 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
176 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
177
178 %glr-parser
179 %%
180 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
181
182 compare the previous version of bison:
183
184 $ bison foo.y
185 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
186 $ bison -Werror foo.y
187 bison: warnings being treated as errors
188 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
189
190 with the new behavior:
191
192 $ bison foo.y
193 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
194 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
195 $ bison -Werror foo.y
196 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
197 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
198
199 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
200
201 %expect 0
202 %glr-parser
203 %%
204 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
205
206 Former behavior:
207
208 $ bison bar.y
209 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
210 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
211 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
212
213 New one:
214
215 $ bison bar.y
216 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
217 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
218
219 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
220
221 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
222 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
223 or more arguments. Instead of
224
225 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
226 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
227 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
228 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
229
230 one may now declare
231
232 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
233
234 ** Variable api.token.prefix
235
236 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
237 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
238 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
239
240 %token FILE for ERROR
241 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
242 %%
243 start: FILE for ERROR;
244
245 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
246 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
247 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
248 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
249
250 ** Variable parse.error
251
252 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
253 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
254 verbose".
255
256 ** Renamed %define variables
257
258 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
259 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
260
261 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
262 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
263 namespace -> api.namespace
264 stype -> api.value.type
265
266 ** Semantic predicates
267
268 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
269
270 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
271 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
272 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
273 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
274 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
275 expressions.
276
277 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
278
279 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
280 reduce/reduce conflicts.
281
282 ** Token numbering has changed to preserve the user-defined order
283
284 When declaring %token A B, the numbering for A is inferior to B. Up to now,
285 when declaring associativity at the same time, with %left (or %right,
286 %precedence, %nonassoc), B was inferior to A.
287
288 ** Useless precedence and associativity
289
290 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
291
292 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
293 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
294 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
295 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
296 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
297 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
298 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
299
300 *** Precedence warning category
301
302 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
303 useless precedence and associativity directives.
304
305 *** Useless associativity
306
307 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
308 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
309 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
310 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
311 For example:
312
313 %left '+'
314 %left '*'
315 %%
316 exp:
317 "number"
318 | exp '+' "number"
319 | exp '*' exp
320 ;
321
322 will produce a
323
324 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
325 %left '+'
326 ^^^
327
328 *** Useless precedence
329
330 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
331 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
332 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
333 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
334
335 %precedence '='
336 %%
337 exp: "var" '=' "number";
338
339 will produce a
340
341 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
342 %precedence '='
343 ^^^
344
345 *** Useless precedence and associativity
346
347 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
348 as follows:
349
350 %nonassoc '='
351 %%
352 exp: "var" '=' "number";
353
354 The warning is:
355
356 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
357 %nonassoc '='
358 ^^^
359
360 ** Empty rules
361
362 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
363
364 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
365 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
366 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
367 %empty. On the following grammar:
368
369 %%
370 s: a b c;
371 a: ;
372 b: %empty;
373 c: 'a' %empty;
374
375 bison reports:
376
377 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
378 a: {}
379 ^^
380 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
381 c: 'a' %empty {};
382 ^^^^^^
383
384 ** Java skeleton improvements
385
386 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
387
388 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
389 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
390 and "%define init_throws".
391
392 ** C++ skeletons improvements
393
394 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
395
396 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
397 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
398 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
399
400 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
401
402 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
403
404 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
405
406 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
407 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
408 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
409 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
410 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
411 factory invoked by the user actions).
412
413 *** %define api.value.type variant
414
415 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
416 from Théophile Ranquet.
417
418 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
419 instance:
420
421 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
422 %token <int> NUMBER;
423 %token SEMICOLON ";"
424 %type <::std::string> item;
425 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
426 %%
427 result:
428 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
429 ;
430
431 list:
432 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
433 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
434 ;
435
436 item:
437 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
438 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
439 ;
440
441 *** %define api.token.constructor
442
443 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
444 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
445 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
446
447 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
448 {
449 parser::location_type loc = ...;
450 ...
451 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
452 ...
453 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
454 ...
455 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
456 ...
457 }
458
459 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
460
461 ** Bug fixes
462
463 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
464
465 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
466
467 ** Diagnostics are improved
468
469 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
470
471 *** Changes in the format of error messages
472
473 This used to be the format of many error reports:
474
475 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
476 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
477
478 It is now:
479
480 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
481 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
482
483 *** New format for error reports: carets
484
485 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
486
487 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
488 %type <sval> exp
489 ^^^^^^
490 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
491 %type <ival> exp
492 ^^^^^^
493
494 or
495
496 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
497 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
498 ^^^^
499 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
500 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
501 ^^^
502 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
503 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
504 ^^^
505 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
506 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
507 ^^^
508
509 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
510 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
511 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
512 -fno-caret).
513
514 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
515
516 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
517 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
518 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
519 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
520 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
521 parsers).
522
523 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
524 "%define api.pure full".
525
526 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
527
528 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
529 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
530 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
531 then responsible to define her type.
532
533 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
534 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
535 them.
536
537 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
538 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
539 compatibility).
540
541 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
542 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
543 api.position.type.
544
545 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
546
547 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
548 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
549 before re-throwing the exception.
550
551 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
552 appreciated.
553
554 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
555
556 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
557
558 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
559 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
560 numbered and left-justified.
561
562 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
563 diamond shaped nodes.
564
565 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
566 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
567
568 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
569
570 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
571 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
572
573 ** Documentation
574
575 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
576 have been fixed and extended.
577
578 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
579 were not properly documented.
580
581 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
582
583 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
584
585 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
586 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
587 reporting them to us.
588
589 ** Bug fixes
590
591 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
592 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
593 3.2.
594
595 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
596
597 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
598
599 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
600 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
601
602 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
603
604 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
605
606 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
607
608 ** Bug fixes
609
610 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
611
612 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
613 users to the appropriate place to report them.
614
615 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
616
617 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
618 generated, are removed.
619
620 All the generated headers are self-contained.
621
622 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
623
624 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
625 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
626 For instance the header generated from
627
628 %define api.prefix "calc"
629 %defines "lib/parse.h"
630
631 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
632
633 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
634
635 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
636 warnings such as:
637
638 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
639 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
640 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
641 *++yyvsp = yylval;
642 ^
643
644 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
645
646 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
647 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
648 addressed.
649
650 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
651
652 ** Bug fixes
653
654 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
655 suite have been fixed.
656
657 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
658
659 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
660 invalid C++. This is fixed.
661
662 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
663
664 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
665
666 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
667
668 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
669
670 ** Future Changes
671
672 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
673 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
674 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
675
676 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
677
678 write:
679
680 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
681
682 ** Bug fixes
683
684 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
685
686 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
687
688 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
689
690 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
691 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
692 now does.
693
694 ** Type names in actions
695
696 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
697 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
698
699 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
700
701 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
702 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
703
704 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
705
706 ** Future changes
707
708 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
709 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
710
711 *** K&R C parsers
712
713 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
714 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
715 compilers.
716
717 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
718
719 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
720 YYLTYPE.
721
722 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
723 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
724
725 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
726 %error-verbose.
727
728 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
729
730 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
731 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
732 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
733 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
734 it.
735
736 ** Generated Parser Headers
737
738 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
739
740 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
741 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
742
743 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
744 # define YY_FOO_H
745 ...
746 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
747
748 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
749
750 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
751 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
752
753 int bar_parse (void);
754
755 rather than
756
757 #define yyparse bar_parse
758 int yyparse (void);
759
760 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
761 single compilation unit.
762
763 *** Exported symbols in C++
764
765 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
766 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
767 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
768
769 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
770
771 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
772 longer defined.
773
774 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
775
776 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
777 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
778 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
779 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
780 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
781 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
782 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
783
784 The following examples compares both:
785
786 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
787 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
788 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
789 %% %%
790 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
791
792 bison generates:
793
794 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
795 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
796
797 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
798 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
799 > # if defined YYDEBUG
800 > # if YYDEBUG
801 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
802 > # else
803 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
804 > # endif
805 > # else
806 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
807 > # endif
808 # endif | # endif
809
810 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
811 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
812 # endif # endif
813
814 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
815 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
816 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
817 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
818 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
819 }; };
820 # endif # endif
821
822 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
823 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
824 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
825 { {
826 int ival; int ival;
827 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
828 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
829 #endif #endif
830
831 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
832
833 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
834
835 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
836
837 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
838
839 ** Future changes:
840
841 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
842
843 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
844
845 ** glr.c improvements:
846
847 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
848
849 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
850 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
851
852 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
853
854 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
855 when -std is passed to GCC).
856
857 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
858
859 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
860 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
861
862 ** Changes for C++:
863
864 *** C++11 compatibility:
865
866 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
867 or higher.
868
869 *** Header guards
870
871 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
872 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
873
874 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
875 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
876 ...
877 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
878
879 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
880 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
881 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
882
883 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
884
885 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
886 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
887 ...
888 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
889
890 *** C++ locations:
891
892 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
893 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
894 documentation were fixed.
895
896 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
897
898 ** Changes in the manual:
899
900 *** %printer is documented
901
902 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
903 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
904
905 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
906 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
907
908 *** Several improvements have been made:
909
910 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
911 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
912 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
913 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
914
915 ** Building bison:
916
917 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
918
919 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
920 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
921
922 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
923
924 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
925
926 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
927 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
928
929 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
930
931 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
932 halts in the middle of its course.
933
934 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
935
936 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
937
938 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
939 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
940 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
941 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
942 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
943
944 ** Named references:
945
946 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
947 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
948 actions code.
949
950 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
951 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
952 as named references:
953
954 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
955 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
956
957 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
958
959 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
960 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
961
962 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
963 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
964 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
965
966 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
967 will help to stabilize them.
968 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
969
970 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
971
972 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
973 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
974 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
975 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
976 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
977 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
978 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
979 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
980 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
981
982 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
983 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
984 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
985 file with these directives:
986
987 %define lr.type lalr
988 %define lr.type ielr
989 %define lr.type canonical-lr
990
991 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
992 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
993 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
994 manual.
995
996 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
997 stabilize them.
998
999 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1000
1001 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1002
1003 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1004 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1005 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1006 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1007 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1008 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1009 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1010 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1011 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1012 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1013 tokens.
1014
1015 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1016 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1017 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1018 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1019 inconsistent states.
1020
1021 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1022 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1023 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1024 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1025 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1026 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1027 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1028 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1029 power.
1030
1031 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1032 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1033
1034 %define parse.lac full
1035
1036 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1037 details including a few caveats.
1038
1039 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1040 stabilize it.
1041
1042 ** %define improvements:
1043
1044 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1045
1046 Each of these command-line options
1047
1048 -D NAME[=VALUE]
1049 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1050
1051 -F NAME[=VALUE]
1052 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1053
1054 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1055
1056 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1057
1058 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1059 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1060 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1061 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1062
1063 *** Variables renamed:
1064
1065 The following %define variables
1066
1067 api.push_pull
1068 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1069
1070 have been renamed to
1071
1072 api.push-pull
1073 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1074
1075 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1076 for backward compatibility.
1077
1078 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1079
1080 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1081 within quotations marks. For example,
1082
1083 %define api.push-pull "push"
1084
1085 can be rewritten as
1086
1087 %define api.push-pull push
1088
1089 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1090
1091 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1092
1093 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1094
1095 ** Character literals not of length one:
1096
1097 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1098 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1099 the following grammar to be the same token:
1100
1101 exp: exp '++'
1102 | exp '+' exp
1103 ;
1104
1105 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1106 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1107
1108 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1109
1110 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1111 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1112 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1113 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1114
1115 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1116
1117 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1118 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1119 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1120 and "last" members, instead of
1121
1122 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1123 do \
1124 if (N) \
1125 { \
1126 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1127 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1128 } \
1129 else \
1130 { \
1131 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1132 } \
1133 while (false)
1134
1135 use:
1136
1137 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1138 do \
1139 if (N) \
1140 { \
1141 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1142 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1143 } \
1144 else \
1145 { \
1146 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1147 } \
1148 while (false)
1149
1150 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1151
1152 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1153 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1154 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1155 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1156
1157 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1158
1159 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1160 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1161 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1162 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1163 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1164 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1165 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1166 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1167
1168 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1169
1170 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1171 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1172 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1173 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1174
1175 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1176
1177 instead of
1178
1179 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1180
1181 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1182 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1183 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1184 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1185 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1186 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1187 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1188
1189 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1190
1191 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1192 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1193 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1194 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1195 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1196
1197 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1198 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1199 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1200 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1201 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1202 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1203 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1204 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1205 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1206 shifted or discarded.
1207
1208 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1209 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1210 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1211 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1212
1213 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1214 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1215 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1216 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1217 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1218 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1219 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1220 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1221 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1222 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1223 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1224 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1225 by default.
1226
1227 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1228
1229 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1230
1231 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1232 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1233
1234 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1235
1236 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1237
1238 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1239
1240 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1241 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1242
1243 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1244
1245 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1246
1247 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1248 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1249 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1250 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1251 example:
1252
1253 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1254 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1255 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1256 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1257
1258 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1259 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1260 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1261 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1262
1263 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1264
1265 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1266 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1267
1268 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1269
1270 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1271
1272 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1273 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1274 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1275 suppress all warnings:
1276
1277 bison -Wnone gram.y
1278
1279 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1280
1281 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1282 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1283 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1284
1285 %left END 0
1286
1287 This bug has been fixed.
1288
1289 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1290
1291 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1292 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1293
1294 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1295 been fixed.
1296
1297 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1298
1299 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1300 been fixed.
1301
1302 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1303 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1304 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1305 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1306
1307 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1308
1309 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1310
1311 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1312 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1313 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1314 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1315 affected platforms.
1316
1317 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1318
1319 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1320 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1321 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1322 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1323 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1324 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1325 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1326 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1327 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1328
1329 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1330
1331 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1332 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1333 avoided.
1334
1335 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1336
1337 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1338
1339 %{CODE%}
1340
1341 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1342 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1343
1344 %code {CODE}
1345 %code requires {CODE}
1346 %code provides {CODE}
1347 %code top {CODE}
1348
1349 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1350 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1351 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1352 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1353 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1354
1355 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1356 is still considered experimental.
1357
1358 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1359
1360 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1361 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1362 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1363 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1364 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1365 specified by POSIX.
1366
1367 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1368 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1369 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1370 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1371 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1372 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1373 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1374
1375 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1376
1377 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1378 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1379 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1380 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1381 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1382 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1383 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1384 be removed altogether.
1385
1386 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1387 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1388 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1389 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1390 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1391 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1392 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1393 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1394 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1395 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1396
1397 ** Internationalization.
1398
1399 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1400 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1401 host system.
1402
1403 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1404
1405 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1406 declarations have been fixed.
1407
1408 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1409
1410 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1411 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1412
1413 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1414
1415 instead of
1416
1417 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1418
1419 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1420 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1421 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1422 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1423 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1424 feature.
1425
1426 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1427
1428 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1429
1430 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1431
1432 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1433 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1434 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1435 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1436 in future releases.
1437
1438 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1439
1440 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1441 fixed.
1442
1443 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1444
1445 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1446 are now deprecated:
1447
1448 %define NAME "VALUE"
1449
1450 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1451
1452 %define api.pure
1453
1454 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1455 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1456
1457 ** Push Parsing
1458
1459 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1460 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1461 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1462 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1463 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1464
1465 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1466 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1467
1468 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1469
1470 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1471 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1472
1473 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1474 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1475 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1476
1477 ** Java
1478
1479 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1480 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1481 %skeleton to select it.
1482
1483 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1484
1485 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1486 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1487 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1488
1489 ** %language
1490
1491 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1492 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1493 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1494 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1495
1496 ** XML Automaton Report
1497
1498 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1499 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1500 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1501 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1502
1503 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1504 %defines. For example:
1505
1506 %defines "parser.h"
1507
1508 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1509 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1510 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1511 instead of "unused".
1512
1513 ** Unreachable State Removal
1514
1515 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1516 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1517 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1518
1519 1. Removes unreachable states.
1520
1521 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1522 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1523 directives in existing grammar files.
1524
1525 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1526 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1527
1528 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1529
1530 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1531
1532 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1533 for further discussion.
1534
1535 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1536
1537 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1538 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1539 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1540 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1541 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1542 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1543 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1544 code.
1545
1546 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1547 name.
1548
1549 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1550 deprecated:
1551
1552 %file-prefix "parser"
1553 %name-prefix "c_"
1554 %output "parser.c"
1555
1556 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1557
1558 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1559 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1560 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1561 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1562 it:
1563
1564 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1565 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1566 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1567 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1568
1569 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1570 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1571 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1572 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1573
1574 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1575 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1576
1577 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1578
1579 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1580 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1581 about unused $2 in:
1582
1583 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1584
1585 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1586 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1587
1588 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1589
1590 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1591 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1592 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1593
1594 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1595 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1596
1597 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1598
1599 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1600 %printer's:
1601
1602 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1603 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1604 declared semantic type tags.
1605
1606 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1607 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1608 type tags.
1609
1610 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1611 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1612 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1613 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1614
1615 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1616 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1617 features.
1618
1619 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1620 details.
1621
1622 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1623 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1624 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1625
1626 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1627 completely removed from Bison.
1628
1629 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1630
1631 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1632 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1633 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1634 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1635 and is required by POSIX.
1636
1637 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1638 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1639
1640 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1641
1642 For example:
1643
1644 %union { char *string; }
1645 %token <string> STRING1
1646 %token <string> STRING2
1647 %type <string> string1
1648 %type <string> string2
1649 %union { char character; }
1650 %token <character> CHR
1651 %type <character> chr
1652 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1653 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1654 %destructor { } <character>
1655
1656 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1657 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1658 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1659 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1660 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1661
1662 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1663 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1664 future versions.]
1665
1666 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1667 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1668 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1669 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1670 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1671
1672 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1673 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1674
1675 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1676 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1677 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1678 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1679 declared after the first %union.
1680
1681 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1682 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1683 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1684 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1685 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1686 after the token definitions.
1687
1688 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1689 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1690
1691 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1692 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1693 %after-header.
1694
1695 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1696 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1697 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1698 convenient for you:
1699
1700 %before-header {
1701 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1702 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1703 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1704 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1705 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1706 }
1707 %start-header {
1708 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1709 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1710 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1711 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1712 }
1713 %union {
1714 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1715 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1716 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1717 }
1718 %end-header {
1719 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1720 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1721 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1722 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1723 * definitions. */
1724 }
1725 %after-header {
1726 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1727 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1728 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1729 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1730 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1731 }
1732
1733 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1734 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1735
1736 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1737 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1738
1739 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1740 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1741 in a future release.
1742
1743 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1744
1745 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1746 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1747
1748 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1749 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1750
1751 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1752
1753 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1754 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1755 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1756
1757 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1758
1759 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1760
1761 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1762 their contents together.
1763
1764 ** New warning: unused values
1765 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1766 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1767
1768 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1769 | exp "+" exp
1770 ;
1771
1772 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1773 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1774 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1775
1776 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1777 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1778 | exp "+" exp
1779 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1780 ;
1781
1782 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1783 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1784 values are used, e.g.:
1785
1786 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1787 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1788 ;
1789
1790 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1791 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1792
1793 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1794
1795 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1796 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1797
1798 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1799 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1800 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1801 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1802
1803 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1804 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1805 instead of warnings.
1806
1807 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1808 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1809 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1810
1811 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1812
1813 ** %require "VERSION"
1814 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1815 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1816
1817 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1818 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1819 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1820 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1821 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1822
1823 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1824 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1825 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1826 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1827
1828 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1829 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1830
1831 ** DJGPP support added.
1832 \f
1833 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1834
1835 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1836
1837 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1838 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1839 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1840 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1841 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1842 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1843
1844 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1845 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1846 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1847 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1848
1849 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1850 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1851 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1852
1853 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1854 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1855 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1856 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1857 unexpected "number"'.
1858 \f
1859 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1860
1861 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1862
1863 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1864 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1865 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1866 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1867 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1868
1869 - Error token location.
1870 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1871 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1872 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1873 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1874
1875 - Semicolon changes:
1876 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1877 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1878
1879 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1880 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1881 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1882 forget a closing quote.
1883
1884 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1885
1886 ** New features
1887
1888 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1889
1890 - New directive: %initial-action.
1891 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1892 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1893
1894 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1895 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1896
1897 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1898 This is a GNU extension.
1899
1900 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1901 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1902
1903 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1904
1905 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1906 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1907
1908 ** Bug fixes
1909
1910 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1911 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1912 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1913 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1914 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1915 these violations will become errors again.
1916
1917 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1918 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1919
1920 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1921 \f
1922 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1923
1924 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1925 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1926
1927 ** syntax error processing
1928
1929 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1930 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1931
1932 - %destructor
1933 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1934 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1935
1936 - %error-verbose
1937 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1938
1939 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1940 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1941
1942 ** POSIX conformance
1943
1944 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1945 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1946 compatibility with Yacc.
1947
1948 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1949 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1950 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1951 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1952 be consistent.
1953
1954 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1955 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1956
1957 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1958 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1959
1960 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1961 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1962
1963 - Yacc command and library now available
1964 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1965 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1966 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1967 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1968
1969 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1970
1971 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1972 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1973 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1974
1975 ** Other compatibility issues
1976
1977 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1978 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1979 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1980 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1981 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1982 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1983
1984 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1985 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1986
1987 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1988 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1989
1990 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1991 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1992 withdrawn in a future release.
1993
1994 ** GLR parser notes
1995
1996 - GLR and inline
1997 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1998 C keyword "inline".
1999
2000 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2001 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2002
2003 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2004 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2005 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2006 shortcomings:
2007
2008 - a single argument only can be added,
2009 - their types are weak (void *),
2010 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2011 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2012
2013 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2014 For instance:
2015
2016 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2017 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2018 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2019
2020 results in the following signatures:
2021
2022 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2023 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2024
2025 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2026
2027 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2028 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2029
2030 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2031 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2032 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2033
2034 ** #line in output files
2035 - --no-line works properly.
2036
2037 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2038 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2039 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2040 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2041 \f
2042 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2043
2044 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2045
2046 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2047
2048 ** GLR parsers
2049 Fix spurious parse errors.
2050
2051 ** Pure parsers
2052 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2053 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2054
2055 ** Type Clashes
2056 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2057 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2058
2059 untyped: ... typed;
2060
2061 but the converse remains an error:
2062
2063 typed: ... untyped;
2064
2065 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2066 The following code:
2067
2068 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2069
2070 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2071 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2072 \f
2073 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2074
2075 ** GLR parsing
2076 The declaration
2077 %glr-parser
2078 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2079 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2080 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2081 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2082
2083 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2084 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2085
2086 ** Output Directory
2087 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2088 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2089 now creates "bar.c".
2090
2091 ** Undefined token
2092 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2093 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2094
2095 ** Unknown token numbers
2096 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2097 no longer the case.
2098
2099 ** Error token
2100 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2101 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2102 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2103 will be mapped onto another number.
2104
2105 ** Verbose error messages
2106 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2107 error recovery is possible.
2108
2109 ** End token
2110 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2111
2112 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2113 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2114 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2115 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2116 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2117 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2118 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2119 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2120 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2121
2122 ** Traces
2123 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2124
2125 ** Larger grammars
2126 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2127 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2128 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2129 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2130
2131 ** Explicit initial rule
2132 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2133 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2134 graphs as rule 0.
2135
2136 ** Useless rules
2137 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2138 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2139
2140 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2141 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2142
2143 ** Rules never reduced
2144 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2145 reported.
2146
2147 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2148 On a grammar such as
2149
2150 %token useless useful
2151 %%
2152 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2153
2154 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2155 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2156
2157 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2158 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2159
2160 ** Default locations
2161 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2162 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2163 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2164 the computation of @$.
2165
2166 ** Token end-of-file
2167 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2168 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2169 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2170 For instance
2171 %token MYEOF 0
2172 or
2173 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2174
2175 ** Semantic parser
2176 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2177
2178 ** New translations
2179 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2180 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2181
2182 ** Incorrect token definitions
2183 When given
2184 %token 'a' "A"
2185 bison used to output
2186 #define 'a' 65
2187
2188 ** Token definitions as enums
2189 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2190 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2191 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2192
2193 ** Reports
2194 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2195 produces additional information:
2196 - itemset
2197 complete the core item sets with their closure
2198 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2199 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2200 - solved
2201 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2202 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2203 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2204
2205 ** Type clashes
2206 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2207 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2208
2209 %type <foo> bar
2210 %%
2211 bar: '0' {} '0';
2212
2213 This is fixed.
2214
2215 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2216 \f
2217 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2218
2219 ** C Skeleton
2220 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2221 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2222 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2223
2224 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2225 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2226 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2227 kludge will be disabled.
2228
2229 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2230 extended.
2231 \f
2232 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2233
2234 ** File name clashes are detected
2235 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2236 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2237
2238 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2239 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2240 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2241 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2242 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2243 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2244
2245 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2246 many portability hassles.
2247
2248 ** DJGPP support added.
2249
2250 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2251 \f
2252 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2253
2254 ** Fix C++ issues
2255 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2256 under some conditions.
2257
2258 ** Catch invalid @n
2259 As is done with $n.
2260 \f
2261 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2262
2263 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2264
2265 ** Portability fixes
2266
2267 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2268 \f
2269 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2270
2271 ** Many Bug Fixes
2272
2273 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2274 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2275 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2276 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2277 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2278
2279 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2280 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2281 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2282
2283 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2284 problems as on AIX.
2285
2286 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2287
2288 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2289 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2290
2291 ** User Actions
2292 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2293 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2294 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2295
2296 ** Better C++ compliance
2297 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2298 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2299
2300 ** Reduced Grammars
2301 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2302
2303 ** 64 bit hosts
2304 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2305
2306 ** Error messages
2307 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2308
2309 ** %expect
2310 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2311 any warning.
2312
2313 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2314
2315 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2316
2317 ** Swedish translation
2318
2319 ** Parse errors
2320 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2321 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2322 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2323
2324 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2325 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2326 previous allocations were not freed.
2327
2328 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2329 Some newlines were missing.
2330 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2331
2332 ** Fixed conflict report.
2333 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2334
2335 ** %expect
2336 Was not used.
2337 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2338
2339 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2340
2341 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2342
2343 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2344
2345 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2346 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2347
2348 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2349
2350 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2351 New.
2352
2353 ** --output
2354 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2355 \f
2356 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2357
2358 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2359 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2360 argument.
2361
2362 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2363 experiment.
2364
2365 ** Portability fixes.
2366 \f
2367 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2368
2369 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2370 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2371 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2372 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2373
2374 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2375
2376 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2377
2378 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2379
2380 ** Russian translation added.
2381
2382 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2383
2384 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2385
2386 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2387
2388 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2389
2390 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2391
2392 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2393 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2394
2395 ** New directives.
2396 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2397 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2398
2399 ** @$
2400 Automatic location tracking.
2401 \f
2402 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2403
2404 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2405
2406 ** Added NLS.
2407
2408 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2409
2410 ** There is now a FAQ.
2411 \f
2412 * Changes in version 1.27:
2413
2414 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2415 some systems has been fixed.
2416 \f
2417 * Changes in version 1.26:
2418
2419 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2420
2421 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2422
2423 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2424
2425 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2426
2427 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2428
2429 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2430
2431 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2432 not provide alloca().
2433 \f
2434 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2435
2436 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2437 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2438
2439 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2440 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2441 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2442
2443 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2444 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2445 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2446 purposes.
2447
2448 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2449 directives in the parser file.
2450
2451 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2452 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2453
2454 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2455 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2456 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2457 a switch statement body.
2458 \f
2459 * Changes in version 1.23:
2460
2461 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2462 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2463 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2464 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2465
2466 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2467 \f
2468 * Changes in version 1.22:
2469
2470 --help option added.
2471 \f
2472 * Changes in version 1.20:
2473
2474 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2475
2476 -----
2477
2478 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2479
2480 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2481
2482 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2483 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2484 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2485 (at your option) any later version.
2486
2487 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2488 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2489 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2490 GNU General Public License for more details.
2491
2492 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2493 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2494
2495 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2496 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2497 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2498 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2499 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2500 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2501 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2502 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2503 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2504 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2505 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2506 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2507 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2508 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2509 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2510 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2511 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2512 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2513 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2514 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2515 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2516 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2517 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
2518 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY
2519
2520 Local Variables:
2521 mode: outline
2522 fill-column: 76
2523 End: