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1 Bison News
2 ----------
3
4 * Changes in version 2.5 (????-??-??):
5
6 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
7
8 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
9 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
10 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
11 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
12 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
13
14 ** Named references:
15
16 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
17 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
18 actions code.
19
20 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
21 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
22 as named references:
23
24 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
25 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
26
27 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
28
29 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
30 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
31
32 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
33 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
34 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
35
36 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
37 will help to stabilize them.
38
39 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
40
41 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
42 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
43 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
44 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
45 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
46 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
47 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
48 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
49 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
50
51 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
52 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
53 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
54 file with these directives:
55
56 %define lr.type lalr
57 %define lr.type ielr
58 %define lr.type canonical-lr
59
60 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
61 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
62 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
63 manual.
64
65 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
66 stabilize them.
67
68 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
69
70 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
71 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
72 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
73 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
74 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
75 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
76 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
77 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
78 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
79 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
80 tokens.
81
82 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
83 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
84 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
85 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
86 inconsistent states.
87
88 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
89 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
90 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
91 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
92 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
93 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
94 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
95 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
96 power.
97
98 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
99 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
100
101 %define parse.lac full
102
103 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
104 details including a few caveats.
105
106 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
107 stabilize it.
108
109 ** %define improvements:
110
111 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
112
113 Each of these command-line options
114
115 -D NAME[=VALUE]
116 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
117
118 -F NAME[=VALUE]
119 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
120
121 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
122
123 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
124
125 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
126 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
127 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
128 details, see the section `Bison Options' in the Bison manual.
129
130 *** Variables renamed:
131
132 The following %define variables
133
134 api.push_pull
135 lr.keep_unreachable_states
136
137 have been renamed to
138
139 api.push-pull
140 lr.keep-unreachable-states
141
142 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
143 for backward compatibility.
144
145 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
146
147 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
148 within quotations marks. For example,
149
150 %define api.push-pull "push"
151
152 can be rewritten as
153
154 %define api.push-pull push
155
156 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
157
158 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
159
160 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
161
162 ** Character literals not of length one:
163
164 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
165 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
166 the following grammar to be the same token:
167
168 exp: exp '++'
169 | exp '+' exp
170 ;
171
172 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
173 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
174
175 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
176
177 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
178 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
179 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
180 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
181
182 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
183
184 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
185 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
186 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has `first'
187 and `last' members, instead of
188
189 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
190 do \
191 if (N) \
192 { \
193 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
194 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
195 } \
196 else \
197 { \
198 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
199 } \
200 while (false)
201
202 use:
203
204 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
205 do \
206 if (N) \
207 { \
208 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
209 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
210 } \
211 else \
212 { \
213 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
214 } \
215 while (false)
216
217 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
218
219 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
220 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
221 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
222 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
223
224 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
225
226 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
227 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
228 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
229 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
230 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
231 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
232 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
233 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
234
235 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
236
237 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
238 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
239 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
240 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
241
242 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
243
244 instead of
245
246 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
247
248 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
249 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
250 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
251 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
252 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
253 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
254 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
255
256 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
257
258 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
259 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
260 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
261 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
262 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
263
264 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
265 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
266 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
267 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
268 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
269 reports the simpler message, `syntax error'. Previously, this
270 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
271 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
272 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
273 shifted or discarded.
274
275 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
276 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
277 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
278 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
279
280 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
281 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
282 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
283 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
284 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
285 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
286 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
287 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
288 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
289 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
290 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
291 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
292 by default.
293
294 ** Java skeleton fixes:
295
296 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
297
298 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
299 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
300
301 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
302
303 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
304
305 *** Bison now properly recognizes the `no-' versions of categories:
306
307 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
308 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
309
310 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
311
312 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
313
314 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
315 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
316 `conflicts-sr' and `conflicts-rr'. This change has important
317 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
318 example:
319
320 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
321 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
322 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
323 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
324
325 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
326 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
327 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
328 then have no effect on the conflict report.
329
330 *** The `none' category no longer disables a preceding `error':
331
332 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
333 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
334
335 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
336
337 *** The `none' category now disables all Bison warnings.
338
339 Previously, the `none' category disabled only Bison warnings for
340 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
341 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
342 suppress all warnings:
343
344 bison -Wnone gram.y
345
346 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
347
348 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
349 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
350
351 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
352 been fixed.
353
354 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
355
356 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
357 been fixed.
358
359 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
360 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
361 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
362 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
363
364 ** Minor documentation fixes.
365
366 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
367
368 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
369 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
370 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
371 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
372 affected platforms.
373
374 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
375
376 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
377 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
378 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
379 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
380 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
381 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
382 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
383 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
384 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
385
386 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
387
388 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
389 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
390 avoided.
391
392 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
393
394 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
395
396 %{CODE%}
397
398 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
399 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
400
401 %code {CODE}
402 %code requires {CODE}
403 %code provides {CODE}
404 %code top {CODE}
405
406 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
407 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
408 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
409 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
410 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
411
412 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
413 is still considered experimental.
414
415 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
416
417 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
418 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
419 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
420 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
421 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
422 specified by POSIX.
423
424 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
425 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
426 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
427 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
428 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
429 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
430 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
431
432 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
433
434 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
435 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
436 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
437 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
438 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
439 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
440 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
441 be removed altogether.
442
443 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
444 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
445 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
446 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
447 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
448 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
449 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
450 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
451 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
452 2.4.2 is not necessary.
453
454 ** Internationalization.
455
456 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
457 message translations were not installed although supported by the
458 host system.
459
460 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
461
462 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
463 declarations have been fixed.
464
465 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
466
467 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
468 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
469
470 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
471
472 instead of
473
474 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
475
476 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
477 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
478 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
479 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
480 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
481 feature.
482
483 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
484
485 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
486
487 ** %language is an experimental feature.
488
489 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
490 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
491 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
492 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
493 in future releases.
494
495 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
496
497 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
498 fixed.
499
500 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
501
502 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
503 are now deprecated:
504
505 %define NAME "VALUE"
506
507 ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
508
509 %define api.pure
510
511 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
512 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
513
514 ** Push Parsing
515
516 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
517 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
518 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
519 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
520 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
521
522 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
523 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
524
525 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
526
527 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
528 feedback will help to stabilize it.
529
530 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
531 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
532 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
533
534 ** Java
535
536 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
537 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
538 %skeleton to select it.
539
540 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
541
542 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
543 feedback will help to stabilize it.
544
545 ** %language
546
547 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
548 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
549 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
550 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
551
552 ** XML Automaton Report
553
554 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
555 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
556 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
557
558 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
559 %defines. For example:
560
561 %defines "parser.h"
562
563 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
564 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
565 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
566 instead of "unused".
567
568 ** Unreachable State Removal
569
570 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
571 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
572 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
573
574 1. Removes unreachable states.
575
576 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
577 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
578 directives in existing grammar files.
579
580 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
581 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
582
583 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
584
585 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
586
587 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
588 for further discussion.
589
590 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
591
592 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
593 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
594 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
595 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
596 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
597 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
598 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
599 code.
600
601 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
602 name.
603
604 ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
605 deprecated:
606
607 %file-prefix "parser"
608 %name-prefix "c_"
609 %output "parser.c"
610
611 ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
612
613 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
614 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
615 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
616 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
617 it:
618
619 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
620 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
621 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
622 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
623
624 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
625 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
626 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
627 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
628
629 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
630 determine whether they should become permanent features.
631
632 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
633
634 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
635 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
636 about unused $2 in:
637
638 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
639
640 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
641 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
642
643 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
644
645 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
646 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
647 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
648
649 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
650 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
651
652 ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
653
654 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
655 %printer's:
656
657 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
658 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
659 declared semantic type tags.
660
661 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
662 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
663 type tags.
664
665 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
666 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
667 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
668 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
669
670 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
671 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
672 features.
673
674 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
675 details.
676
677 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
678 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
679 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
680
681 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
682 completely removed from Bison.
683
684 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
685
686 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
687 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
688 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
689 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
690 and is required by POSIX.
691
692 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
693 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
694
695 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
696
697 For example:
698
699 %union { char *string; }
700 %token <string> STRING1
701 %token <string> STRING2
702 %type <string> string1
703 %type <string> string2
704 %union { char character; }
705 %token <character> CHR
706 %type <character> chr
707 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
708 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
709 %destructor { } <character>
710
711 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
712 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
713 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
714 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
715 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
716
717 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
718 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
719 future versions.]
720
721 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
722 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
723 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
724 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
725 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
726
727 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
728 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
729
730 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
731 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
732 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
733 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
734 declared after the first %union.
735
736 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
737 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
738 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
739 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
740 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
741 after the token definitions.
742
743 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
744 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
745
746 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
747 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
748 %after-header.
749
750 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
751 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
752 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
753 convenient for you:
754
755 %before-header {
756 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
757 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
758 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
759 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
760 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
761 }
762 %start-header {
763 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
764 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
765 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
766 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
767 }
768 %union {
769 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
770 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
771 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
772 }
773 %end-header {
774 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
775 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
776 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
777 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
778 * definitions. */
779 }
780 %after-header {
781 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
782 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
783 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
784 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
785 * Bison-generated definitions. */
786 }
787
788 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
789 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
790
791 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
792 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
793
794 ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
795 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
796 in a future release.
797
798 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
799
800 ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
801 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
802
803 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
804 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
805
806 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
807
808 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
809 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
810 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
811
812 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
813
814 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
815
816 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
817 their contents together.
818
819 ** New warning: unused values
820 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
821 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
822
823 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
824 | exp "+" exp
825 ;
826
827 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
828 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
829 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
830
831 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
832 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
833 | exp "+" exp
834 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
835 ;
836
837 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
838 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
839 values are used, e.g.:
840
841 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
842 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
843 ;
844
845 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
846 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
847
848 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
849
850 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
851 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
852
853 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
854 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
855 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
856 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
857
858 ** %expect, %expect-rr
859 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
860 instead of warnings.
861
862 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
863 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
864 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
865
866 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
867
868 ** %require "VERSION"
869 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
870 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
871
872 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
873 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
874 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
875 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
876 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
877
878 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
879 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
880 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
881 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
882
883 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
884 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
885
886 ** DJGPP support added.
887 \f
888 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
889
890 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
891
892 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
893 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
894 language is still English. For details, please see the new
895 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
896 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
897 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
898
899 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
900 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
901 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
902 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
903
904 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
905 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
906 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
907
908 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
909 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
910 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
911 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
912 unexpected "number"'.
913 \f
914 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
915
916 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
917
918 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
919 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
920 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
921 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
922 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
923
924 - Error token location.
925 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
926 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
927 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
928 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
929
930 - Semicolon changes:
931 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
932 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
933
934 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
935 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
936 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
937 forget a closing quote.
938
939 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
940
941 ** New features
942
943 - GLR grammars now support locations.
944
945 - New directive: %initial-action.
946 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
947 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
948
949 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
950 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
951
952 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
953 This is a GNU extension.
954
955 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
956 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
957
958 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
959
960 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
961 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
962
963 ** Bug fixes
964
965 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
966 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
967 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
968 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
969 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
970 these violations will become errors again.
971
972 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
973 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
974
975 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
976 \f
977 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
978
979 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
980 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
981
982 ** syntax error processing
983
984 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
985 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
986
987 - %destructor
988 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
989 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
990
991 - %error-verbose
992 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
993
994 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
995 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
996
997 ** POSIX conformance
998
999 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1000 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1001 compatibility with Yacc.
1002
1003 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1004 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1005 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1006 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1007 be consistent.
1008
1009 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1010 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1011
1012 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1013 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1014
1015 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1016 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1017
1018 - Yacc command and library now available
1019 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1020 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1021 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1022 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1023
1024 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1025
1026 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1027 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1028 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1029
1030 ** Other compatibility issues
1031
1032 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1033 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1034 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1035 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1036 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1037 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1038
1039 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1040 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1041
1042 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1043 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
1044
1045 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1046 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1047 withdrawn in a future release.
1048
1049 ** GLR parser notes
1050
1051 - GLR and inline
1052 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1053 C keyword `inline'.
1054
1055 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1056 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
1057
1058 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1059 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1060 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1061
1062 ** #line in output files
1063 - --no-line works properly.
1064
1065 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1066 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1067 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1068 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1069 \f
1070 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1071
1072 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1073
1074 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1075
1076 ** GLR parsers
1077 Fix spurious parse errors.
1078
1079 ** Pure parsers
1080 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1081 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1082
1083 ** Type Clashes
1084 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1085 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1086
1087 untyped: ... typed;
1088
1089 but the converse remains an error:
1090
1091 typed: ... untyped;
1092
1093 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1094 The following code:
1095
1096 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1097
1098 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1099 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1100 \f
1101 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1102
1103 ** GLR parsing
1104 The declaration
1105 %glr-parser
1106 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1107 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1108 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1109 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1110
1111 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1112 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1113
1114 ** Output Directory
1115 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1116 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
1117 now creates `bar.c'.
1118
1119 ** Undefined token
1120 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1121 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1122
1123 ** Unknown token numbers
1124 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1125 no longer the case.
1126
1127 ** Error token
1128 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1129 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1130 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1131 will be mapped onto another number.
1132
1133 ** Verbose error messages
1134 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1135 error recovery is possible.
1136
1137 ** End token
1138 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1139
1140 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1141 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1142 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1143 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1144 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1145 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1146 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1147 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1148 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1149
1150 ** Traces
1151 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1152
1153 ** Larger grammars
1154 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1155 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1156 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1157 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1158
1159 ** Explicit initial rule
1160 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1161 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1162 graphs as rule 0.
1163
1164 ** Useless rules
1165 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1166 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1167
1168 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1169 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1170
1171 ** Rules never reduced
1172 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1173 reported.
1174
1175 ** Incorrect `Token not used'
1176 On a grammar such as
1177
1178 %token useless useful
1179 %%
1180 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1181
1182 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1183 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1184
1185 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1186 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1187
1188 ** Default locations
1189 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1190 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1191 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1192 the computation of @$.
1193
1194 ** Token end-of-file
1195 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1196 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1197 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1198 For instance
1199 %token MYEOF 0
1200 or
1201 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1202
1203 ** Semantic parser
1204 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1205
1206 ** New translations
1207 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1208 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1209
1210 ** Incorrect token definitions
1211 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1212
1213 ** Token definitions as enums
1214 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1215 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1216 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1217
1218 ** Reports
1219 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1220 produces additional information:
1221 - itemset
1222 complete the core item sets with their closure
1223 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1224 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1225 - solved
1226 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1227 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1228 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1229
1230 ** Type clashes
1231 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1232 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1233
1234 %type <foo> bar
1235 %%
1236 bar: '0' {} '0';
1237
1238 This is fixed.
1239
1240 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1241 \f
1242 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1243
1244 ** C Skeleton
1245 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1246 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1247 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1248
1249 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1250 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1251 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1252 kludge will be disabled.
1253
1254 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1255 extended.
1256 \f
1257 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1258
1259 ** File name clashes are detected
1260 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1261 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1262
1263 ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1264 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1265 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1266 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1267 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1268 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1269
1270 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1271 many portability hassles.
1272
1273 ** DJGPP support added.
1274
1275 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1276 \f
1277 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1278
1279 ** Fix C++ issues
1280 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1281 under some conditions.
1282
1283 ** Catch invalid @n
1284 As is done with $n.
1285 \f
1286 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1287
1288 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1289
1290 ** Portability fixes
1291
1292 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1293 \f
1294 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1295
1296 ** Many Bug Fixes
1297
1298 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1299 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1300 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1301 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1302 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1303
1304 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1305 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1306 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1307
1308 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1309 problems as on AIX.
1310
1311 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1312
1313 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1314 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1315
1316 ** User Actions
1317 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1318 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1319 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1320
1321 ** Better C++ compliance
1322 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1323 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1324
1325 ** Reduced Grammars
1326 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1327
1328 ** 64 bit hosts
1329 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1330
1331 ** Error messages
1332 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1333
1334 ** %expect
1335 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1336 any warning.
1337
1338 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1339
1340 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1341
1342 ** Swedish translation
1343
1344 ** Parse errors
1345 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1346 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1347 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1348
1349 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1350 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1351 previous allocations were not freed.
1352
1353 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1354 Some newlines were missing.
1355 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1356
1357 ** Fixed conflict report.
1358 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1359
1360 ** %expect
1361 Was not used.
1362 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1363
1364 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1365
1366 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1367
1368 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1369
1370 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1371 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1372
1373 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1374
1375 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1376 New.
1377
1378 ** --output
1379 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1380 \f
1381 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1382
1383 ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1384 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1385 argument.
1386
1387 ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1388 experiment.
1389
1390 ** Portability fixes.
1391 \f
1392 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1393
1394 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1395 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1396 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1397 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1398
1399 ** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1400
1401 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1402
1403 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1404
1405 ** Russian translation added.
1406
1407 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1408
1409 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1410
1411 ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1412
1413 ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1414
1415 ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1416
1417 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1418 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1419
1420 ** New directives.
1421 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1422 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1423
1424 ** @$
1425 Automatic location tracking.
1426 \f
1427 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1428
1429 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1430
1431 ** Added NLS.
1432
1433 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1434
1435 ** There is now a FAQ.
1436 \f
1437 * Changes in version 1.27:
1438
1439 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1440 some systems has been fixed.
1441 \f
1442 * Changes in version 1.26:
1443
1444 ** Bison now uses automake.
1445
1446 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1447
1448 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1449
1450 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1451
1452 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1453
1454 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1455
1456 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1457 not provide alloca().
1458 \f
1459 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1460
1461 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1462 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1463
1464 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1465 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1466 of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1467
1468 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1469 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1470 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1471 purposes.
1472
1473 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1474 directives in the parser file.
1475
1476 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1477 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1478
1479 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1480 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1481 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1482 a switch statement body.
1483 \f
1484 * Changes in version 1.23:
1485
1486 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1487 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1488 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1489 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1490
1491 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1492 \f
1493 * Changes in version 1.22:
1494
1495 --help option added.
1496 \f
1497 * Changes in version 1.20:
1498
1499 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1500
1501 Local Variables:
1502 mode: outline
1503 End:
1504
1505 -----
1506
1507 Copyright (C) 1995-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1508
1509 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1510
1511 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1512 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1513 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1514 (at your option) any later version.
1515
1516 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1517 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1518 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1519 GNU General Public License for more details.
1520
1521 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1522 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.