3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
9 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
10 users to the appropriate place to report them.
12 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
14 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
15 generated, are removed.
17 All the generated headers are self-contained.
19 ** Changes in the format of error messages
21 This used to be the format of many error reports:
23 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
24 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
28 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
29 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
31 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
33 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
34 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
35 For instance the header generated from
37 %define api.prefix "calc"
38 %defines "lib/parse.h"
40 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
42 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
46 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
47 suite have been fixed.
49 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
51 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
52 invalid C++. This is fixed.
54 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
56 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
58 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
60 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
64 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
65 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
66 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
68 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
72 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
76 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
78 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
80 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
82 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
83 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
86 ** Type names in actions
88 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
89 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
91 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
93 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
94 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
96 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
100 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
101 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
105 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
106 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
109 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
111 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
114 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
115 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
117 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
120 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
122 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
123 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
124 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
125 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
128 ** Generated Parser Headers
130 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
132 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
133 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
138 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
140 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
142 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
143 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
145 int bar_parse (void);
149 #define yyparse bar_parse
152 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
153 single compilation unit.
155 *** Exported symbols in C++
157 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
158 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
159 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
163 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
166 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
168 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
169 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
170 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
171 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
172 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
173 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
174 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
176 The following examples compares both:
178 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
179 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
180 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
186 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
187 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
189 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
190 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
191 > # if defined YYDEBUG
193 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
195 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
198 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
202 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
203 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
206 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
207 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
208 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
209 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
214 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
215 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
216 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
219 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
220 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
223 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
225 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
227 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
229 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
233 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
235 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
237 ** glr.c improvements:
239 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
241 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
242 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
244 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
246 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
247 when -std is passed to GCC).
249 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
251 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
252 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
256 *** C++11 compatibility:
258 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
263 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
264 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
266 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
267 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
269 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
271 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
272 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
273 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
275 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
277 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
278 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
280 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
284 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
285 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
286 documentation were fixed.
288 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
290 ** Changes in the manual:
292 *** %printer is documented
294 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
295 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
297 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
298 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
300 *** Several improvements have been made:
302 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
303 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
304 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
305 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
309 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
311 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
312 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
314 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
316 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
318 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
319 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
321 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
323 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
324 halts in the middle of its course.
326 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
328 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
330 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
331 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
332 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
333 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
334 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
338 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
339 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
342 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
343 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
346 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
347 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
349 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
351 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
352 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
354 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
355 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
356 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
358 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
359 will help to stabilize them.
361 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
363 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
364 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
365 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
366 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
367 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
368 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
369 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
370 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
371 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
373 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
374 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
375 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
376 file with these directives:
380 %define lr.type canonical-lr
382 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
383 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
384 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
387 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
390 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
392 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
393 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
394 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
395 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
396 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
397 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
398 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
399 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
400 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
401 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
404 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
405 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
406 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
407 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
410 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
411 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
412 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
413 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
414 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
415 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
416 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
417 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
420 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
421 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
423 %define parse.lac full
425 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
426 details including a few caveats.
428 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
431 ** %define improvements:
433 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
435 Each of these command-line options
438 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
441 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
443 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
445 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
447 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
448 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
449 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
450 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
452 *** Variables renamed:
454 The following %define variables
457 lr.keep_unreachable_states
462 lr.keep-unreachable-states
464 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
465 for backward compatibility.
467 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
469 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
470 within quotations marks. For example,
472 %define api.push-pull "push"
476 %define api.push-pull push
478 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
480 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
482 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
484 ** Character literals not of length one:
486 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
487 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
488 the following grammar to be the same token:
494 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
495 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
497 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
499 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
500 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
501 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
502 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
504 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
506 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
507 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
508 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
509 and "last" members, instead of
511 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
515 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
516 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
520 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
526 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
530 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
531 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
535 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
539 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
541 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
542 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
543 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
544 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
546 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
548 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
549 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
550 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
551 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
552 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
553 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
554 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
555 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
557 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
559 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
560 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
561 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
562 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
564 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
568 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
570 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
571 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
572 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
573 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
574 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
575 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
576 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
578 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
580 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
581 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
582 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
583 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
584 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
586 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
587 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
588 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
589 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
590 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
591 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
592 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
593 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
594 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
595 shifted or discarded.
597 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
598 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
599 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
600 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
602 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
603 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
604 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
605 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
606 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
607 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
608 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
609 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
610 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
611 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
612 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
613 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
616 ** Java skeleton fixes:
618 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
620 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
621 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
623 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
625 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
627 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
629 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
630 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
632 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
634 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
636 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
637 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
638 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
639 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
642 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
643 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
644 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
645 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
647 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
648 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
649 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
650 then have no effect on the conflict report.
652 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
654 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
655 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
657 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
659 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
661 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
662 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
663 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
664 suppress all warnings:
668 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
670 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
671 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
672 produced an assertion failure. For example:
676 This bug has been fixed.
678 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
680 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
681 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
683 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
686 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
688 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
691 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
692 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
693 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
694 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
696 ** Minor documentation fixes.
698 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
700 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
701 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
702 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
703 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
706 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
708 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
709 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
710 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
711 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
712 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
713 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
714 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
715 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
716 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
718 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
720 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
721 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
724 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
726 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
730 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
731 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
734 %code requires {CODE}
735 %code provides {CODE}
738 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
739 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
740 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
741 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
742 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
744 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
745 is still considered experimental.
747 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
749 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
750 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
751 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
752 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
753 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
756 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
757 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
758 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
759 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
760 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
761 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
762 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
764 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
766 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
767 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
768 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
769 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
770 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
771 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
772 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
773 be removed altogether.
775 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
776 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
777 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
778 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
779 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
780 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
781 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
782 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
783 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
784 2.4.2 is not necessary.
786 ** Internationalization.
788 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
789 message translations were not installed although supported by the
792 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
794 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
795 declarations have been fixed.
797 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
799 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
800 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
802 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
806 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
808 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
809 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
810 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
811 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
812 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
815 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
817 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
819 ** %language is an experimental feature.
821 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
822 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
823 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
824 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
827 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
829 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
832 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
834 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
839 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
843 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
844 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
848 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
849 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
850 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
851 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
852 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
854 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
855 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
857 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
859 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
860 feedback will help to stabilize it.
862 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
863 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
864 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
868 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
869 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
870 %skeleton to select it.
872 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
874 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
875 feedback will help to stabilize it.
879 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
880 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
881 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
882 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
884 ** XML Automaton Report
886 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
887 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
888 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
890 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
891 %defines. For example:
895 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
896 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
897 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
900 ** Unreachable State Removal
902 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
903 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
904 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
906 1. Removes unreachable states.
908 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
909 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
910 directives in existing grammar files.
912 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
913 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
915 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
917 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
919 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
920 for further discussion.
922 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
924 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
925 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
926 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
927 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
928 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
929 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
930 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
933 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
936 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
939 %file-prefix "parser"
943 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
945 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
946 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
947 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
948 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
951 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
952 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
953 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
954 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
956 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
957 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
958 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
959 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
961 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
962 determine whether they should become permanent features.
964 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
966 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
967 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
970 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
972 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
973 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
975 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
977 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
978 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
979 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
981 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
982 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
984 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
986 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
989 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
990 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
991 declared semantic type tags.
993 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
994 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
997 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
998 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
999 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1000 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1002 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1003 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1006 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1009 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1010 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1011 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1013 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1014 completely removed from Bison.
1016 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1018 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1019 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1020 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1021 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1022 and is required by POSIX.
1024 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1025 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1027 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1031 %union { char *string; }
1032 %token <string> STRING1
1033 %token <string> STRING2
1034 %type <string> string1
1035 %type <string> string2
1036 %union { char character; }
1037 %token <character> CHR
1038 %type <character> chr
1039 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1040 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1041 %destructor { } <character>
1043 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1044 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1045 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1046 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1047 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1049 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1050 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1053 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1054 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1055 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1056 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1057 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1059 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1060 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1062 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1063 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1064 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1065 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1066 declared after the first %union.
1068 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1069 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1070 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1071 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1072 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1073 after the token definitions.
1075 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1076 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1078 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1079 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1082 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1083 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1084 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1088 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1089 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1090 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1091 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1092 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1095 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1096 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1097 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1098 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1101 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1102 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1103 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1106 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1107 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1108 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1109 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1113 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1114 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1115 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1116 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1117 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1120 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1121 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1123 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1124 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1126 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1127 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1128 in a future release.
1130 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1132 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1133 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1135 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1136 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1138 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1140 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1141 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1142 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1144 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1146 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1148 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1149 their contents together.
1151 ** New warning: unused values
1152 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1153 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1155 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1159 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1160 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1161 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1163 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1164 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1166 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1169 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1170 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1171 values are used, e.g.:
1173 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1174 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1177 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1178 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1180 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1182 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1183 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1185 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1186 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1187 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1188 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1190 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1191 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1192 instead of warnings.
1194 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1195 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1196 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1198 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1200 ** %require "VERSION"
1201 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1202 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1204 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1205 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1206 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1207 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1208 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1210 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1211 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1212 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1213 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1215 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1216 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1218 ** DJGPP support added.
1220 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1222 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1224 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1225 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1226 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1227 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1228 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1229 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1231 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1232 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1233 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1234 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1236 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1237 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1238 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1240 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1241 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1242 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1243 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1244 unexpected "number"'.
1246 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1248 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1250 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1251 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1252 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1253 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1254 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1256 - Error token location.
1257 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1258 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1259 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1260 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1262 - Semicolon changes:
1263 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1264 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1266 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1267 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1268 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1269 forget a closing quote.
1271 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1275 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1277 - New directive: %initial-action.
1278 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1279 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1281 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1282 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1284 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1285 This is a GNU extension.
1287 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1288 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1290 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1292 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1293 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1297 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1298 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1299 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1300 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1301 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1302 these violations will become errors again.
1304 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1305 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1307 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1309 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1311 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1312 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1314 ** syntax error processing
1316 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1317 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1320 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1321 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1324 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1326 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1327 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1329 ** POSIX conformance
1331 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1332 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1333 compatibility with Yacc.
1335 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1336 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1337 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1338 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1341 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1342 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1344 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1345 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1347 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1348 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1350 - Yacc command and library now available
1351 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1352 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1353 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1354 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1356 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1358 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1359 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1360 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1362 ** Other compatibility issues
1364 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1365 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1366 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1367 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1368 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1369 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1371 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1372 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1374 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1375 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1377 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1378 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1379 withdrawn in a future release.
1384 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1387 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1388 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1390 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1391 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1392 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1395 - a single argument only can be added,
1396 - their types are weak (void *),
1397 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1398 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1400 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1403 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1404 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1405 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1407 results in the following signatures:
1409 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1410 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1412 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1414 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1415 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1417 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1418 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1419 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1421 ** #line in output files
1422 - --no-line works properly.
1424 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1425 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1426 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1427 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1429 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1431 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1433 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1436 Fix spurious parse errors.
1439 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1440 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1443 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1444 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1448 but the converse remains an error:
1452 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1455 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1457 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1458 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1460 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1465 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1466 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1467 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1468 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1470 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1471 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1474 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1475 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1476 now creates "bar.c".
1479 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1480 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1482 ** Unknown token numbers
1483 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1487 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1488 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1489 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1490 will be mapped onto another number.
1492 ** Verbose error messages
1493 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1494 error recovery is possible.
1497 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1499 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1500 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1501 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1502 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1503 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1504 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1505 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1506 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1507 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1510 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1513 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1514 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1515 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1516 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1518 ** Explicit initial rule
1519 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1520 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1524 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1525 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1527 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1528 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1530 ** Rules never reduced
1531 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1534 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1535 On a grammar such as
1537 %token useless useful
1539 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1541 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1542 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1544 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1545 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1547 ** Default locations
1548 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1549 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1550 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1551 the computation of @$.
1553 ** Token end-of-file
1554 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1555 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1556 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1560 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1563 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1566 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1567 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1569 ** Incorrect token definitions
1572 bison used to output
1575 ** Token definitions as enums
1576 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1577 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1578 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1581 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1582 produces additional information:
1584 complete the core item sets with their closure
1585 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1586 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1588 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1589 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1590 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1593 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1594 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1602 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1604 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1607 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1608 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1609 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1611 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1612 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1613 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1614 kludge will be disabled.
1616 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1619 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1621 ** File name clashes are detected
1622 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1623 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1625 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1626 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1627 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1628 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1629 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1630 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1632 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1633 many portability hassles.
1635 ** DJGPP support added.
1637 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1639 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1642 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1643 under some conditions.
1648 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1650 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1652 ** Portability fixes
1654 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1656 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1660 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1661 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1662 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1663 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1664 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1666 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1667 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1668 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1670 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1673 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1675 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1676 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1679 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1680 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1681 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1683 ** Better C++ compliance
1684 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1685 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1688 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1691 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1694 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1697 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1700 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1702 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1704 ** Swedish translation
1707 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1708 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1709 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1711 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1712 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1713 previous allocations were not freed.
1715 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1716 Some newlines were missing.
1717 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1719 ** Fixed conflict report.
1720 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1724 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1726 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1728 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1730 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1732 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1733 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1735 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1737 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1741 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1743 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1745 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1746 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1749 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1752 ** Portability fixes.
1754 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1756 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1757 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1758 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1759 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1761 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1763 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1765 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1767 ** Russian translation added.
1769 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1771 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1773 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1775 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1777 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1779 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1780 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1783 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1784 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1787 Automatic location tracking.
1789 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1791 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1795 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1797 ** There is now a FAQ.
1799 * Changes in version 1.27:
1801 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1802 some systems has been fixed.
1804 * Changes in version 1.26:
1806 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1808 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1810 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1812 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1814 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1816 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1818 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1819 not provide alloca().
1821 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1823 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1824 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1826 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1827 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1828 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1830 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1831 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1832 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1835 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1836 directives in the parser file.
1838 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1839 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1841 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1842 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1843 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1844 a switch statement body.
1846 * Changes in version 1.23:
1848 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1849 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1850 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1851 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1853 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1855 * Changes in version 1.22:
1857 --help option added.
1859 * Changes in version 1.20:
1861 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1865 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1867 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1869 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1870 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1871 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1872 (at your option) any later version.
1874 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1875 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1876 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1877 GNU General Public License for more details.
1879 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1880 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1882 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1883 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1884 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1885 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1886 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1887 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1888 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1889 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1890 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1891 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1892 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1893 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1894 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1895 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
1896 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1897 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
1898 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
1899 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval