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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Incompatible changes
6
7 *** Obsolete features
8
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
13
14 ** Warnings
15
16 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
17
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
21
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
25
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
27
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
30
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
32
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
34
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
37
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
41
42 *** The display of warnings is now richer
43
44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
45
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
47
48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
49 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
50 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
51
52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
53 with failure):
54
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
57
58 it now reports:
59
60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
61
62 *** Deprecated constructs
63
64 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
65 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
66 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
67
68 *** Useless semantic types
69
70 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
71 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
72 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
73 types that trigger the warning:
74
75 %token <type1> term
76 %type <type2> nterm
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
79 %%
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
81
82 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
83 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
84
85 *** Undefined but unused symbols
86
87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
89
90 %printer {} symbol1
91 %destructor {} symbol2
92 %type <type> symbol3
93 %%
94 exp: "a";
95
96 *** Useless destructors or printers
97
98 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
99 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
100 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
101 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
102
103 %token <type1> token1
104 <type2> token2
105 <type3> token3
106 <type4> token4
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
109
110 *** Conflicts
111
112 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
113 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
114
115 %glr-parser
116 %%
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
118
119 compare the previous version of bison:
120
121 $ bison foo.y
122 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
123 $ bison -Werror foo.y
124 bison: warnings being treated as errors
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
126
127 with the new behavior:
128
129 $ bison foo.y
130 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
131 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 $ bison -Werror foo.y
133 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
135
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
137
138 %expect 0
139 %glr-parser
140 %%
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
142
143 Former behavior:
144
145 $ bison bar.y
146 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
147 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
148 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
149
150 New one:
151
152 $ bison bar.y
153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
155
156 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
157
158 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
159 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
160 or more arguments. Instead of
161
162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
166
167 one may now declare
168
169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
170
171 ** Java skeleton improvements
172
173 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
174 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
175 and "%define init_throws".
176
177 ** C++ skeletons improvements
178
179 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
180
181 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
182 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
183 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
184
185 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
186
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
188
189 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
190
191 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
192 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
193 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
194 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
195 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
196 factory invoked by the user actions).
197
198 ** Variable api.token.prefix
199
200 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
201 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
202 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
203
204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
206 %%
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
208
209 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
210 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
211 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
212 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
213
214 ** Renamed %define variables
215
216 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
218
219 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
220 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
221 namespace -> api.namespace
222
223 ** Variable parse.error
224
225 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
226 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
227 verbose".
228
229 ** Semantic predicates
230
231 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
232 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
233 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
234 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
235 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
236 expressions.
237
238 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
239
240 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
241 reduce/reduce conflicts.
242
243 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
244
245 ** Changes in the format of error messages
246
247 This used to be the format of many error reports:
248
249 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
250 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
251
252 It is now:
253
254 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
255 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
256
257 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
258
259 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
260 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
261 before re-throwing the exception.
262
263 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
264 appreciated.
265
266 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
267
268 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
269 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
270 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
271 then responsible to define her type.
272
273 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
274 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
275 them.
276
277 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
278 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
279 compatibility).
280
281 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
282 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
283 api.position.type.
284
285 ** Graphviz improvements
286
287 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
288 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
289 numbered and left-justified.
290
291 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
292 diamond shaped nodes.
293
294 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
295
296 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
297
298 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
299
300 ** Bug fixes
301
302 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
303
304 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
305 users to the appropriate place to report them.
306
307 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
308
309 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
310 generated, are removed.
311
312 All the generated headers are self-contained.
313
314 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
315
316 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
317 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
318 For instance the header generated from
319
320 %define api.prefix "calc"
321 %defines "lib/parse.h"
322
323 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
324
325 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
326
327 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
328 warnings such as:
329
330 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
331 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
332 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
333 *++yyvsp = yylval;
334 ^
335
336 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
337
338 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
339 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
340 addressed.
341
342 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
343
344 ** Bug fixes
345
346 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
347 suite have been fixed.
348
349 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
350
351 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
352 invalid C++. This is fixed.
353
354 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
355
356 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
357
358 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
359
360 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
361
362 ** Future Changes
363
364 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
365 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
366 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
367
368 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
369
370 write:
371
372 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
373
374 ** Bug fixes
375
376 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
377
378 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
379
380 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
381
382 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
383 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
384 now does.
385
386 ** Type names in actions
387
388 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
389 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
390
391 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
392
393 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
394 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
395
396 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
397
398 ** Future changes
399
400 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
401 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
402
403 *** K&R C parsers
404
405 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
406 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
407 compilers.
408
409 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
410
411 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
412 YYLTYPE.
413
414 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
415 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
416
417 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
418 %error-verbose.
419
420 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
421
422 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
423 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
424 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
425 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
426 it.
427
428 ** Generated Parser Headers
429
430 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
431
432 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
433 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
434
435 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
436 # define YY_FOO_H
437 ...
438 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
439
440 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
441
442 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
443 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
444
445 int bar_parse (void);
446
447 rather than
448
449 #define yyparse bar_parse
450 int yyparse (void);
451
452 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
453 single compilation unit.
454
455 *** Exported symbols in C++
456
457 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
458 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
459 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
460
461 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
462
463 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
464 longer defined.
465
466 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
467
468 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
469 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
470 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
471 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
472 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
473 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
474 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
475
476 The following examples compares both:
477
478 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
479 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
480 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
481 %% %%
482 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
483
484 bison generates:
485
486 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
487 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
488
489 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
490 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
491 > # if defined YYDEBUG
492 > # if YYDEBUG
493 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
494 > # else
495 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
496 > # endif
497 > # else
498 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
499 > # endif
500 # endif | # endif
501
502 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
503 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
504 # endif # endif
505
506 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
507 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
508 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
509 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
510 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
511 }; };
512 # endif # endif
513
514 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
515 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
516 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
517 { {
518 int ival; int ival;
519 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
520 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
521 #endif #endif
522
523 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
524
525 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
526
527 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
528
529 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
530
531 ** Future changes:
532
533 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
534
535 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
536
537 ** glr.c improvements:
538
539 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
540
541 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
542 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
543
544 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
545
546 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
547 when -std is passed to GCC).
548
549 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
550
551 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
552 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
553
554 ** Changes for C++:
555
556 *** C++11 compatibility:
557
558 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
559 or higher.
560
561 *** Header guards
562
563 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
564 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
565
566 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
567 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
568 ...
569 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
570
571 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
572 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
573 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
574
575 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
576
577 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
578 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
579 ...
580 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
581
582 *** C++ locations:
583
584 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
585 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
586 documentation were fixed.
587
588 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
589
590 ** Changes in the manual:
591
592 *** %printer is documented
593
594 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
595 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
596
597 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
598 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
599
600 *** Several improvements have been made:
601
602 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
603 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
604 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
605 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
606
607 ** Building bison:
608
609 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
610
611 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
612 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
613
614 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
615
616 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
617
618 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
619 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
620
621 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
622
623 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
624 halts in the middle of its course.
625
626 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
627
628 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
629
630 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
631 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
632 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
633 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
634 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
635
636 ** Named references:
637
638 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
639 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
640 actions code.
641
642 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
643 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
644 as named references:
645
646 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
647 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
648
649 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
650
651 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
652 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
653
654 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
655 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
656 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
657
658 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
659 will help to stabilize them.
660
661 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
662
663 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
664 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
665 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
666 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
667 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
668 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
669 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
670 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
671 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
672
673 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
674 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
675 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
676 file with these directives:
677
678 %define lr.type lalr
679 %define lr.type ielr
680 %define lr.type canonical-lr
681
682 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
683 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
684 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
685 manual.
686
687 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
688 stabilize them.
689
690 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
691
692 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
693 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
694 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
695 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
696 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
697 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
698 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
699 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
700 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
701 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
702 tokens.
703
704 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
705 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
706 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
707 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
708 inconsistent states.
709
710 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
711 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
712 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
713 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
714 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
715 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
716 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
717 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
718 power.
719
720 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
721 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
722
723 %define parse.lac full
724
725 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
726 details including a few caveats.
727
728 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
729 stabilize it.
730
731 ** %define improvements:
732
733 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
734
735 Each of these command-line options
736
737 -D NAME[=VALUE]
738 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
739
740 -F NAME[=VALUE]
741 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
742
743 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
744
745 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
746
747 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
748 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
749 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
750 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
751
752 *** Variables renamed:
753
754 The following %define variables
755
756 api.push_pull
757 lr.keep_unreachable_states
758
759 have been renamed to
760
761 api.push-pull
762 lr.keep-unreachable-states
763
764 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
765 for backward compatibility.
766
767 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
768
769 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
770 within quotations marks. For example,
771
772 %define api.push-pull "push"
773
774 can be rewritten as
775
776 %define api.push-pull push
777
778 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
779
780 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
781
782 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
783
784 ** Character literals not of length one:
785
786 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
787 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
788 the following grammar to be the same token:
789
790 exp: exp '++'
791 | exp '+' exp
792 ;
793
794 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
795 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
796
797 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
798
799 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
800 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
801 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
802 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
803
804 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
805
806 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
807 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
808 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
809 and "last" members, instead of
810
811 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
812 do \
813 if (N) \
814 { \
815 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
816 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
817 } \
818 else \
819 { \
820 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
821 } \
822 while (false)
823
824 use:
825
826 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
827 do \
828 if (N) \
829 { \
830 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
831 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
832 } \
833 else \
834 { \
835 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
836 } \
837 while (false)
838
839 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
840
841 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
842 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
843 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
844 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
845
846 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
847
848 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
849 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
850 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
851 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
852 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
853 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
854 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
855 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
856
857 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
858
859 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
860 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
861 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
862 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
863
864 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
865
866 instead of
867
868 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
869
870 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
871 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
872 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
873 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
874 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
875 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
876 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
877
878 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
879
880 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
881 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
882 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
883 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
884 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
885
886 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
887 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
888 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
889 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
890 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
891 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
892 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
893 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
894 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
895 shifted or discarded.
896
897 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
898 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
899 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
900 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
901
902 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
903 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
904 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
905 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
906 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
907 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
908 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
909 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
910 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
911 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
912 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
913 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
914 by default.
915
916 ** Java skeleton fixes:
917
918 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
919
920 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
921 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
922
923 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
924
925 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
926
927 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
928
929 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
930 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
931
932 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
933
934 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
935
936 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
937 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
938 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
939 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
940 example:
941
942 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
943 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
944 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
945 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
946
947 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
948 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
949 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
950 then have no effect on the conflict report.
951
952 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
953
954 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
955 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
956
957 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
958
959 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
960
961 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
962 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
963 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
964 suppress all warnings:
965
966 bison -Wnone gram.y
967
968 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
969
970 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
971 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
972 produced an assertion failure. For example:
973
974 %left END 0
975
976 This bug has been fixed.
977
978 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
979
980 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
981 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
982
983 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
984 been fixed.
985
986 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
987
988 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
989 been fixed.
990
991 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
992 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
993 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
994 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
995
996 ** Minor documentation fixes.
997
998 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
999
1000 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1001 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1002 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1003 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1004 affected platforms.
1005
1006 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1007
1008 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1009 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1010 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1011 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1012 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1013 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1014 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1015 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1016 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1017
1018 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1019
1020 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1021 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1022 avoided.
1023
1024 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1025
1026 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1027
1028 %{CODE%}
1029
1030 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1031 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1032
1033 %code {CODE}
1034 %code requires {CODE}
1035 %code provides {CODE}
1036 %code top {CODE}
1037
1038 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1039 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1040 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1041 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1042 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1043
1044 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1045 is still considered experimental.
1046
1047 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1048
1049 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1050 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1051 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1052 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1053 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1054 specified by POSIX.
1055
1056 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1057 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1058 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1059 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1060 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1061 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1062 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1063
1064 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1065
1066 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1067 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1068 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1069 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1070 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1071 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1072 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1073 be removed altogether.
1074
1075 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1076 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1077 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1078 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1079 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1080 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1081 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1082 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1083 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1084 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1085
1086 ** Internationalization.
1087
1088 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1089 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1090 host system.
1091
1092 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1093
1094 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1095 declarations have been fixed.
1096
1097 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1098
1099 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1100 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1101
1102 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1103
1104 instead of
1105
1106 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1107
1108 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1109 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1110 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1111 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1112 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1113 feature.
1114
1115 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1116
1117 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1118
1119 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1120
1121 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1122 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1123 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1124 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1125 in future releases.
1126
1127 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1128
1129 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1130 fixed.
1131
1132 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1133
1134 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1135 are now deprecated:
1136
1137 %define NAME "VALUE"
1138
1139 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1140
1141 %define api.pure
1142
1143 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1144 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1145
1146 ** Push Parsing
1147
1148 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1149 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1150 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1151 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1152 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1153
1154 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1155 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1156
1157 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1158
1159 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1160 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1161
1162 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1163 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1164 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1165
1166 ** Java
1167
1168 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1169 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1170 %skeleton to select it.
1171
1172 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1173
1174 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1175 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1176
1177 ** %language
1178
1179 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1180 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1181 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1182 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1183
1184 ** XML Automaton Report
1185
1186 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1187 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1188 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1189
1190 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1191 %defines. For example:
1192
1193 %defines "parser.h"
1194
1195 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1196 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1197 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1198 instead of "unused".
1199
1200 ** Unreachable State Removal
1201
1202 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1203 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1204 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1205
1206 1. Removes unreachable states.
1207
1208 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1209 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1210 directives in existing grammar files.
1211
1212 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1213 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1214
1215 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1216
1217 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1218
1219 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1220 for further discussion.
1221
1222 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1223
1224 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1225 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1226 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1227 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1228 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1229 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1230 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1231 code.
1232
1233 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1234 name.
1235
1236 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1237 deprecated:
1238
1239 %file-prefix "parser"
1240 %name-prefix "c_"
1241 %output "parser.c"
1242
1243 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1244
1245 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1246 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1247 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1248 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1249 it:
1250
1251 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1252 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1253 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1254 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1255
1256 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1257 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1258 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1259 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1260
1261 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1262 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1263
1264 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1265
1266 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1267 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1268 about unused $2 in:
1269
1270 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1271
1272 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1273 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1274
1275 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1276
1277 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1278 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1279 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1280
1281 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1282 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1283
1284 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1285
1286 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1287 %printer's:
1288
1289 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1290 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1291 declared semantic type tags.
1292
1293 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1294 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1295 type tags.
1296
1297 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1298 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1299 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1300 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1301
1302 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1303 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1304 features.
1305
1306 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1307 details.
1308
1309 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1310 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1311 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1312
1313 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1314 completely removed from Bison.
1315
1316 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1317
1318 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1319 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1320 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1321 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1322 and is required by POSIX.
1323
1324 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1325 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1326
1327 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1328
1329 For example:
1330
1331 %union { char *string; }
1332 %token <string> STRING1
1333 %token <string> STRING2
1334 %type <string> string1
1335 %type <string> string2
1336 %union { char character; }
1337 %token <character> CHR
1338 %type <character> chr
1339 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1340 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1341 %destructor { } <character>
1342
1343 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1344 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1345 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1346 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1347 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1348
1349 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1350 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1351 future versions.]
1352
1353 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1354 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1355 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1356 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1357 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1358
1359 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1360 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1361
1362 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1363 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1364 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1365 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1366 declared after the first %union.
1367
1368 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1369 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1370 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1371 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1372 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1373 after the token definitions.
1374
1375 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1376 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1377
1378 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1379 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1380 %after-header.
1381
1382 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1383 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1384 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1385 convenient for you:
1386
1387 %before-header {
1388 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1389 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1390 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1391 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1392 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1393 }
1394 %start-header {
1395 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1396 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1397 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1398 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1399 }
1400 %union {
1401 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1402 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1403 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1404 }
1405 %end-header {
1406 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1407 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1408 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1409 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1410 * definitions. */
1411 }
1412 %after-header {
1413 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1414 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1415 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1416 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1417 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1418 }
1419
1420 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1421 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1422
1423 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1424 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1425
1426 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1427 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1428 in a future release.
1429
1430 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1431
1432 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1433 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1434
1435 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1436 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1437
1438 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1439
1440 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1441 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1442 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1443
1444 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1445
1446 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1447
1448 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1449 their contents together.
1450
1451 ** New warning: unused values
1452 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1453 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1454
1455 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1456 | exp "+" exp
1457 ;
1458
1459 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1460 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1461 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1462
1463 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1464 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1465 | exp "+" exp
1466 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1467 ;
1468
1469 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1470 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1471 values are used, e.g.:
1472
1473 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1474 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1475 ;
1476
1477 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1478 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1479
1480 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1481
1482 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1483 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1484
1485 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1486 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1487 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1488 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1489
1490 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1491 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1492 instead of warnings.
1493
1494 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1495 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1496 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1497
1498 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1499
1500 ** %require "VERSION"
1501 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1502 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1503
1504 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1505 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1506 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1507 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1508 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1509
1510 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1511 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1512 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1513 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1514
1515 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1516 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1517
1518 ** DJGPP support added.
1519 \f
1520 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1521
1522 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1523
1524 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1525 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1526 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1527 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1528 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1529 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1530
1531 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1532 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1533 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1534 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1535
1536 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1537 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1538 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1539
1540 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1541 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1542 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1543 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1544 unexpected "number"'.
1545 \f
1546 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1547
1548 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1549
1550 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1551 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1552 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1553 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1554 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1555
1556 - Error token location.
1557 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1558 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1559 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1560 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1561
1562 - Semicolon changes:
1563 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1564 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1565
1566 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1567 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1568 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1569 forget a closing quote.
1570
1571 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1572
1573 ** New features
1574
1575 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1576
1577 - New directive: %initial-action.
1578 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1579 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1580
1581 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1582 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1583
1584 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1585 This is a GNU extension.
1586
1587 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1588 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1589
1590 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1591
1592 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1593 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1594
1595 ** Bug fixes
1596
1597 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1598 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1599 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1600 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1601 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1602 these violations will become errors again.
1603
1604 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1605 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1606
1607 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1608 \f
1609 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1610
1611 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1612 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1613
1614 ** syntax error processing
1615
1616 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1617 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1618
1619 - %destructor
1620 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1621 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1622
1623 - %error-verbose
1624 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1625
1626 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1627 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1628
1629 ** POSIX conformance
1630
1631 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1632 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1633 compatibility with Yacc.
1634
1635 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1636 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1637 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1638 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1639 be consistent.
1640
1641 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1642 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1643
1644 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1645 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1646
1647 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1648 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1649
1650 - Yacc command and library now available
1651 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1652 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1653 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1654 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1655
1656 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1657
1658 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1659 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1660 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1661
1662 ** Other compatibility issues
1663
1664 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1665 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1666 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1667 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1668 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1669 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1670
1671 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1672 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1673
1674 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1675 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1676
1677 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1678 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1679 withdrawn in a future release.
1680
1681 ** GLR parser notes
1682
1683 - GLR and inline
1684 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1685 C keyword "inline".
1686
1687 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1688 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1689
1690 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1691 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1692 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1693 shortcomings:
1694
1695 - a single argument only can be added,
1696 - their types are weak (void *),
1697 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1698 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1699
1700 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1701 For instance:
1702
1703 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1704 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1705 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1706
1707 results in the following signatures:
1708
1709 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1710 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1711
1712 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1713
1714 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1715 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1716
1717 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1718 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1719 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1720
1721 ** #line in output files
1722 - --no-line works properly.
1723
1724 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1725 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1726 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1727 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1728 \f
1729 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1730
1731 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1732
1733 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1734
1735 ** GLR parsers
1736 Fix spurious parse errors.
1737
1738 ** Pure parsers
1739 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1740 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1741
1742 ** Type Clashes
1743 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1744 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1745
1746 untyped: ... typed;
1747
1748 but the converse remains an error:
1749
1750 typed: ... untyped;
1751
1752 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1753 The following code:
1754
1755 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1756
1757 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1758 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1759 \f
1760 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1761
1762 ** GLR parsing
1763 The declaration
1764 %glr-parser
1765 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1766 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1767 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1768 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1769
1770 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1771 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1772
1773 ** Output Directory
1774 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1775 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1776 now creates "bar.c".
1777
1778 ** Undefined token
1779 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1780 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1781
1782 ** Unknown token numbers
1783 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1784 no longer the case.
1785
1786 ** Error token
1787 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1788 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1789 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1790 will be mapped onto another number.
1791
1792 ** Verbose error messages
1793 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1794 error recovery is possible.
1795
1796 ** End token
1797 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1798
1799 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1800 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1801 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1802 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1803 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1804 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1805 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1806 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1807 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1808
1809 ** Traces
1810 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1811
1812 ** Larger grammars
1813 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1814 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1815 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1816 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1817
1818 ** Explicit initial rule
1819 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1820 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1821 graphs as rule 0.
1822
1823 ** Useless rules
1824 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1825 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1826
1827 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1828 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1829
1830 ** Rules never reduced
1831 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1832 reported.
1833
1834 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1835 On a grammar such as
1836
1837 %token useless useful
1838 %%
1839 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1840
1841 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1842 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1843
1844 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1845 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1846
1847 ** Default locations
1848 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1849 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1850 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1851 the computation of @$.
1852
1853 ** Token end-of-file
1854 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1855 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1856 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1857 For instance
1858 %token MYEOF 0
1859 or
1860 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1861
1862 ** Semantic parser
1863 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1864
1865 ** New translations
1866 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1867 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1868
1869 ** Incorrect token definitions
1870 When given
1871 %token 'a' "A"
1872 bison used to output
1873 #define 'a' 65
1874
1875 ** Token definitions as enums
1876 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1877 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1878 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1879
1880 ** Reports
1881 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1882 produces additional information:
1883 - itemset
1884 complete the core item sets with their closure
1885 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1886 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1887 - solved
1888 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1889 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1890 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1891
1892 ** Type clashes
1893 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1894 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1895
1896 %type <foo> bar
1897 %%
1898 bar: '0' {} '0';
1899
1900 This is fixed.
1901
1902 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1903 \f
1904 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1905
1906 ** C Skeleton
1907 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1908 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1909 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1910
1911 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1912 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1913 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1914 kludge will be disabled.
1915
1916 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1917 extended.
1918 \f
1919 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1920
1921 ** File name clashes are detected
1922 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1923 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1924
1925 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1926 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1927 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1928 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1929 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1930 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1931
1932 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1933 many portability hassles.
1934
1935 ** DJGPP support added.
1936
1937 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1938 \f
1939 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1940
1941 ** Fix C++ issues
1942 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1943 under some conditions.
1944
1945 ** Catch invalid @n
1946 As is done with $n.
1947 \f
1948 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1949
1950 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1951
1952 ** Portability fixes
1953
1954 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1955 \f
1956 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1957
1958 ** Many Bug Fixes
1959
1960 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1961 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1962 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1963 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1964 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1965
1966 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1967 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1968 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1969
1970 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1971 problems as on AIX.
1972
1973 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1974
1975 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1976 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1977
1978 ** User Actions
1979 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1980 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1981 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1982
1983 ** Better C++ compliance
1984 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1985 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1986
1987 ** Reduced Grammars
1988 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1989
1990 ** 64 bit hosts
1991 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1992
1993 ** Error messages
1994 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1995
1996 ** %expect
1997 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1998 any warning.
1999
2000 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2001
2002 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2003
2004 ** Swedish translation
2005
2006 ** Parse errors
2007 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2008 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2009 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2010
2011 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2012 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2013 previous allocations were not freed.
2014
2015 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2016 Some newlines were missing.
2017 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2018
2019 ** Fixed conflict report.
2020 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2021
2022 ** %expect
2023 Was not used.
2024 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2025
2026 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2027
2028 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2029
2030 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2031
2032 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2033 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2034
2035 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2036
2037 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2038 New.
2039
2040 ** --output
2041 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2042 \f
2043 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2044
2045 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2046 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2047 argument.
2048
2049 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2050 experiment.
2051
2052 ** Portability fixes.
2053 \f
2054 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2055
2056 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2057 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2058 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2059 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2060
2061 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2062
2063 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2064
2065 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2066
2067 ** Russian translation added.
2068
2069 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2070
2071 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2072
2073 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2074
2075 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2076
2077 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2078
2079 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2080 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2081
2082 ** New directives.
2083 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2084 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2085
2086 ** @$
2087 Automatic location tracking.
2088 \f
2089 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2090
2091 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2092
2093 ** Added NLS.
2094
2095 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2096
2097 ** There is now a FAQ.
2098 \f
2099 * Changes in version 1.27:
2100
2101 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2102 some systems has been fixed.
2103 \f
2104 * Changes in version 1.26:
2105
2106 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2107
2108 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2109
2110 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2111
2112 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2113
2114 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2115
2116 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2117
2118 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2119 not provide alloca().
2120 \f
2121 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2122
2123 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2124 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2125
2126 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2127 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2128 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2129
2130 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2131 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2132 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2133 purposes.
2134
2135 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2136 directives in the parser file.
2137
2138 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2139 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2140
2141 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2142 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2143 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2144 a switch statement body.
2145 \f
2146 * Changes in version 1.23:
2147
2148 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2149 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2150 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2151 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2152
2153 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2154 \f
2155 * Changes in version 1.22:
2156
2157 --help option added.
2158 \f
2159 * Changes in version 1.20:
2160
2161 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2162
2163 -----
2164
2165 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2166
2167 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2168
2169 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2170 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2171 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2172 (at your option) any later version.
2173
2174 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2175 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2176 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2177 GNU General Public License for more details.
2178
2179 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2180 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2181
2182 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2183 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2184 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2185 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2186 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2187 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2188 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2189 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2190 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2191 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2192 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2193 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2194 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2195 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2196 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2197 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2198 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2199 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2200 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2201
2202 Local Variables:
2203 mode: outline
2204 fill-column: 76
2205 End: