3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 *** YYERROR and variants
9 When C++ variant support is enabled, an error triggered via YYERROR, but
10 not caught via error recovery, resulted in a double deletion.
12 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0.1 (2013-11-12) [stable]
16 *** Errors in caret diagnostics
18 On some platforms, some errors could result in endless diagnostics.
20 *** Fixes of the -Werror option
22 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
23 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
25 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
26 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
27 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
31 As demonstrated in the documentation, one can now leave spaces between
36 The yacc.1 man page is no longer installed if --disable-yacc was
39 *** Fixes in the test suite
41 Bugs and portability issues.
43 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
45 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
47 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
48 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
49 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
51 ** Backward incompatible changes
55 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
57 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
58 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
60 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
61 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
63 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
66 *** Use of YACC='bison -y'
68 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
71 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
72 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
73 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
75 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
76 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
77 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
78 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
79 warnings for Bison extensions.
81 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
82 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
83 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
84 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
88 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
90 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
91 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
92 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
93 preprocessor expansion:
95 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
97 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
98 identifiers for user-provided variables.
100 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
102 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
103 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
105 *** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
107 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
109 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
114 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
115 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
116 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
118 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
119 the caret information only. For instance on:
126 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
127 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
131 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
136 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
138 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
139 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
141 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
143 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
144 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
145 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
147 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
148 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
149 errors (and only those):
151 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
153 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
154 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
156 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
158 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
160 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
161 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
163 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
164 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
165 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
167 *** The display of warnings is now richer
169 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
171 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
173 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
174 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
175 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
177 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
180 bison: warnings being treated as errors
181 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
185 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
187 *** Deprecated constructs
189 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
190 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
191 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
193 *** Useless semantic types
195 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
196 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
197 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
198 types that trigger the warning:
202 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
203 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
205 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
207 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
208 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
210 *** Undefined but unused symbols
212 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
213 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
216 %destructor {} symbol2
221 *** Useless destructors or printers
223 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
224 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
225 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
226 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
228 %token <type1> token1
232 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
233 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
237 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
238 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
242 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
244 compare the previous version of bison:
247 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
248 $ bison -Werror foo.y
249 bison: warnings being treated as errors
250 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
252 with the new behavior:
255 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
256 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
257 $ bison -Werror foo.y
258 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
259 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
261 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
266 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
271 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
272 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
273 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
278 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
279 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
281 ** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
283 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
286 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
288 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
289 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
290 or more arguments. Instead of
292 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
293 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
294 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
295 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
299 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
301 ** Types of values for %define variables
303 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
304 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
305 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
308 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
312 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
314 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
316 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
318 ** Variable api.token.prefix
320 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
321 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
322 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
324 %token FILE for ERROR
325 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
327 start: FILE for ERROR;
329 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
330 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
331 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
332 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
334 ** Variable api.value.type
336 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
337 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
338 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
340 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
347 %token <ival> INT "integer"
348 %token <sval> STRING "string"
349 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
350 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
353 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
354 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
356 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
358 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
359 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
360 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
362 %define api.value.type union
363 %token <int> INT "integer"
364 %token <char *> STRING "string"
365 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
366 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
369 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
370 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
372 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
373 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
375 %define api.value.type variant
376 %token <int> INT "integer"
377 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
379 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
397 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
398 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
399 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
400 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
401 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
404 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
405 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
407 ** Variable parse.error
409 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
410 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
413 ** Renamed %define variables
415 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
416 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
418 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
419 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
420 namespace -> api.namespace
421 stype -> api.value.type
423 ** Semantic predicates
425 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
427 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
428 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
429 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
430 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
431 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
434 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
436 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
437 reduce/reduce conflicts.
439 ** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
441 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
443 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
444 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
445 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
446 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
448 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
449 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
450 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
454 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
455 input order is now preserved.
457 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
458 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
459 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
461 ** Useless precedence and associativity
463 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
465 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
466 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
467 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
468 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
469 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
470 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
471 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
473 *** Precedence warning category
475 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
476 useless precedence and associativity directives.
478 *** Useless associativity
480 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
481 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
482 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
483 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
497 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
501 *** Useless precedence
503 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
504 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
505 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
506 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
510 exp: "var" '=' "number";
514 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
518 *** Useless precedence and associativity
520 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
525 exp: "var" '=' "number";
529 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
535 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
537 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
538 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
539 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
540 %empty. On the following grammar:
550 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
553 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
557 ** Java skeleton improvements
559 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
560 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
561 and "%define init_throws".
562 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
564 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
565 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
567 ** C++ skeletons improvements
569 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
571 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
572 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
573 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
575 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
577 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
579 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
581 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
582 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
583 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
584 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
585 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
586 factory invoked by the user actions).
588 *** %define api.value.type variant
590 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
591 from Théophile Ranquet.
593 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
596 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
599 %type <::std::string> item;
600 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
603 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
607 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
608 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
612 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
613 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
616 *** %define api.token.constructor
618 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
619 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
620 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
622 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
624 parser::location_type loc = ...;
626 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
628 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
630 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
636 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
637 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
639 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
643 *** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
645 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
647 *** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
649 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
653 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
655 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
657 ** Diagnostics are improved
659 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
661 *** Changes in the format of error messages
663 This used to be the format of many error reports:
665 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
666 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
670 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
671 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
673 *** New format for error reports: carets
675 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
677 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
680 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
686 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
687 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
689 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
690 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
692 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
693 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
695 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
696 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
699 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
700 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
701 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
704 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
706 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
707 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
708 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
709 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
710 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
713 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
714 "%define api.pure full".
716 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
718 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
719 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
720 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
721 then responsible to define her type.
723 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
724 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
727 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
728 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
731 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
732 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
735 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
737 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
738 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
739 before re-throwing the exception.
741 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
744 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
746 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
748 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
749 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
750 numbered and left-justified.
752 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
753 diamond shaped nodes.
755 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
756 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
758 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
760 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
761 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
765 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
766 have been fixed and extended.
768 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
769 were not properly documented.
771 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
773 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
775 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
776 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
777 reporting them to us.
781 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
782 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
785 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
787 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
789 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
790 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
792 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
794 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
796 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
800 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
802 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
803 users to the appropriate place to report them.
805 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
807 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
808 generated, are removed.
810 All the generated headers are self-contained.
812 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
814 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
815 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
816 For instance the header generated from
818 %define api.prefix "calc"
819 %defines "lib/parse.h"
821 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
823 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
825 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
828 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
829 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
830 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
834 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
836 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
837 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
840 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
844 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
845 suite have been fixed.
847 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
849 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
850 invalid C++. This is fixed.
852 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
854 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
856 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
858 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
862 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
863 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
864 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
866 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
870 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
874 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
876 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
878 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
880 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
881 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
884 ** Type names in actions
886 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
887 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
889 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
891 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
892 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
894 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
898 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
899 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
903 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
904 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
907 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
909 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
912 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
913 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
915 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
918 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
920 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
921 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
922 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
923 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
926 ** Generated Parser Headers
928 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
930 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
931 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
936 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
938 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
940 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
941 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
943 int bar_parse (void);
947 #define yyparse bar_parse
950 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
951 single compilation unit.
953 *** Exported symbols in C++
955 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
956 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
957 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
961 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
964 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
966 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
967 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
968 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
969 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
970 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
971 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
972 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
974 The following examples compares both:
976 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
977 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
978 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
984 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
985 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
987 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
988 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
989 > # if defined YYDEBUG
991 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
993 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
996 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
1000 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
1001 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
1004 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
1005 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
1006 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
1007 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
1012 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
1013 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
1014 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
1017 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
1018 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
1021 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
1023 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1025 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1027 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
1031 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
1033 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
1035 ** glr.c improvements:
1037 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
1039 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1040 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
1042 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
1044 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1045 when -std is passed to GCC).
1047 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
1049 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1050 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
1054 *** C++11 compatibility:
1056 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1061 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1062 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1064 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1065 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1067 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
1069 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1070 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1071 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1073 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1075 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1076 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1078 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1082 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1083 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1084 documentation were fixed.
1086 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1088 ** Changes in the manual:
1090 *** %printer is documented
1092 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1093 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
1095 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1096 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
1098 *** Several improvements have been made:
1100 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1101 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1102 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1103 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
1107 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
1109 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1110 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
1112 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1114 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
1116 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1117 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
1119 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
1121 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1122 halts in the middle of its course.
1124 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
1126 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1128 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1129 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1130 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1131 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1132 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1134 ** Named references:
1136 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1137 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1140 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1141 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1142 as named references:
1144 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
1145 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1147 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1149 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
1150 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1152 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
1153 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1154 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1156 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
1157 will help to stabilize them.
1158 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
1160 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
1162 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1163 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
1164 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
1165 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1166 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
1167 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1168 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1169 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1170 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1172 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1173 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1174 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1175 file with these directives:
1177 %define lr.type lalr
1178 %define lr.type ielr
1179 %define lr.type canonical-lr
1181 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
1182 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1183 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
1186 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1189 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1191 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1193 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1194 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1195 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1196 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1197 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1198 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1199 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1200 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1201 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1202 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1205 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1206 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1207 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1208 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1209 inconsistent states.
1211 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1212 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1213 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1214 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1215 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1216 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1217 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1218 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1221 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1222 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1224 %define parse.lac full
1226 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1227 details including a few caveats.
1229 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1232 ** %define improvements:
1234 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1236 Each of these command-line options
1239 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1242 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1244 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1246 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1248 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1249 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1250 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1251 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1253 *** Variables renamed:
1255 The following %define variables
1258 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1260 have been renamed to
1263 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1265 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1266 for backward compatibility.
1268 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1270 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1271 within quotations marks. For example,
1273 %define api.push-pull "push"
1277 %define api.push-pull push
1279 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1281 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1283 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1285 ** Character literals not of length one:
1287 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1288 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1289 the following grammar to be the same token:
1295 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1296 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1298 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1300 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1301 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1302 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1303 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1305 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1307 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1308 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1309 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1310 and "last" members, instead of
1312 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1316 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1317 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1321 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1327 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1331 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1332 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1336 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1340 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1342 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1343 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1344 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1345 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1347 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1349 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1350 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1351 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1352 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1353 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1354 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1355 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1356 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1358 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1360 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1361 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1362 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1363 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1365 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1369 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1371 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1372 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1373 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1374 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1375 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1376 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1377 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1379 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1381 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1382 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1383 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1384 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1385 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1387 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1388 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1389 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1390 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1391 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1392 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1393 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1394 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1395 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1396 shifted or discarded.
1398 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1399 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1400 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1401 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1403 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1404 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1405 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1406 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1407 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1408 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1409 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1410 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1411 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1412 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1413 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1414 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1417 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1419 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1421 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1422 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1424 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1426 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1428 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1430 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1431 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1433 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1435 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1437 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1438 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1439 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1440 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1443 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1444 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1445 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1446 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1448 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1449 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1450 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1451 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1453 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1455 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1456 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1458 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1460 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1462 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1463 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1464 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1465 suppress all warnings:
1469 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1471 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1472 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1473 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1477 This bug has been fixed.
1479 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1481 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1482 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1484 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1487 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1489 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1492 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1493 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1494 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1495 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1497 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1499 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1501 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1502 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1503 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1504 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1507 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1509 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1510 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1511 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1512 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1513 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1514 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1515 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1516 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1517 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1519 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1521 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1522 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1525 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1527 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1531 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1532 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1535 %code requires {CODE}
1536 %code provides {CODE}
1539 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1540 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1541 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1542 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1543 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1545 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1546 is still considered experimental.
1548 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1550 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1551 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1552 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1553 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1554 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1557 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1558 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1559 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1560 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1561 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1562 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1563 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1565 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1567 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1568 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1569 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1570 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1571 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1572 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1573 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1574 be removed altogether.
1576 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1577 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1578 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1579 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1580 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1581 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1582 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1583 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1584 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1585 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1587 ** Internationalization.
1589 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1590 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1593 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1595 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1596 declarations have been fixed.
1598 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1600 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1601 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1603 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1607 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1609 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1610 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1611 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1612 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1613 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1616 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1618 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1620 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1622 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1623 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1624 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1625 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1628 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1630 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1633 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1635 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1638 %define NAME "VALUE"
1640 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1644 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1645 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1649 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1650 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1651 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1652 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1653 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1655 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1656 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1658 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1660 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1661 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1663 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1664 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1665 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1669 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1670 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1671 %skeleton to select it.
1673 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1675 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1676 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1677 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1681 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1682 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1683 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1684 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1686 ** XML Automaton Report
1688 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1689 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1690 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1691 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1693 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1694 %defines. For example:
1698 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1699 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1700 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1701 instead of "unused".
1703 ** Unreachable State Removal
1705 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1706 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1707 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1709 1. Removes unreachable states.
1711 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1712 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1713 directives in existing grammar files.
1715 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1716 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1718 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1720 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1722 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1723 for further discussion.
1725 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1727 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1728 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1729 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1730 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1731 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1732 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1733 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1736 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1739 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1742 %file-prefix "parser"
1746 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1748 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1749 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1750 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1751 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1754 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1755 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1756 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1757 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1759 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1760 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1761 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1762 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1764 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1765 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1767 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1769 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1770 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1773 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1775 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1776 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1778 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1780 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1781 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1782 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1784 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1785 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1787 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1789 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1792 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1793 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1794 declared semantic type tags.
1796 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1797 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1800 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1801 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1802 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1803 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1805 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1806 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1809 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1812 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1813 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1814 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1816 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1817 completely removed from Bison.
1819 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1821 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1822 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1823 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1824 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1825 and is required by POSIX.
1827 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1828 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1830 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1834 %union { char *string; }
1835 %token <string> STRING1
1836 %token <string> STRING2
1837 %type <string> string1
1838 %type <string> string2
1839 %union { char character; }
1840 %token <character> CHR
1841 %type <character> chr
1842 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1843 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1844 %destructor { } <character>
1846 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1847 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1848 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1849 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1850 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1852 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1853 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1856 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1857 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1858 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1859 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1860 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1862 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1863 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1865 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1866 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1867 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1868 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1869 declared after the first %union.
1871 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1872 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1873 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1874 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1875 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1876 after the token definitions.
1878 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1879 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1881 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1882 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1885 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1886 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1887 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1891 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1892 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1893 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1894 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1895 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1898 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1899 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1900 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1901 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1904 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1905 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1906 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1909 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1910 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1911 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1912 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1916 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1917 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1918 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1919 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1920 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1923 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1924 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1926 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1927 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1929 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1930 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1931 in a future release.
1933 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1935 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1936 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1938 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1939 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1941 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1943 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1944 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1945 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1947 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1949 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1951 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1952 their contents together.
1954 ** New warning: unused values
1955 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1956 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1958 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1962 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1963 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1964 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1966 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1967 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1969 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1972 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1973 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1974 values are used, e.g.:
1976 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1977 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1980 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1981 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1983 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1985 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1986 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1988 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1989 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1990 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1991 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1993 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1994 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1995 instead of warnings.
1997 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1998 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1999 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
2001 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
2003 ** %require "VERSION"
2004 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
2005 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
2007 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
2008 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
2009 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
2010 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
2011 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
2013 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
2014 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
2015 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
2016 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
2018 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
2019 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
2021 ** DJGPP support added.
2023 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
2025 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
2027 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
2028 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2029 language is still English. For details, please see the new
2030 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2031 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2032 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
2034 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
2035 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2036 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2037 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2039 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
2040 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2041 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2043 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
2044 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2045 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2046 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2047 unexpected "number"'.
2049 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
2051 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
2053 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2054 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2055 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2056 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2057 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
2059 - Error token location.
2060 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2061 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2062 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2063 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
2065 - Semicolon changes:
2066 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2067 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
2069 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2070 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2071 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2072 forget a closing quote.
2074 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
2078 - GLR grammars now support locations.
2080 - New directive: %initial-action.
2081 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2082 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
2084 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2085 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
2087 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
2088 This is a GNU extension.
2090 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
2091 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
2093 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
2095 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2096 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
2100 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2101 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2102 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2103 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2104 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2105 these violations will become errors again.
2107 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2108 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
2110 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
2112 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
2114 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
2115 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
2117 ** syntax error processing
2119 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2120 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
2123 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2124 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
2127 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
2129 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2130 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
2132 ** POSIX conformance
2134 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2135 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2136 compatibility with Yacc.
2138 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2139 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2140 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2141 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
2144 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2145 declared before use. C99 requires this.
2147 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2148 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
2150 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2151 output as "foo\\bar.y".
2153 - Yacc command and library now available
2154 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
2155 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2156 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2157 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
2159 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
2161 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2162 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2163 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
2165 ** Other compatibility issues
2167 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2168 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2169 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2170 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2171 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
2172 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
2174 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
2175 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
2177 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
2178 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
2180 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
2181 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2182 withdrawn in a future release.
2187 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
2190 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2191 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2193 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2194 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2195 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2198 - a single argument only can be added,
2199 - their types are weak (void *),
2200 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2201 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2203 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2206 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2207 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2208 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2210 results in the following signatures:
2212 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2213 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2215 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2217 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2218 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2220 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2221 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2222 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2224 ** #line in output files
2225 - --no-line works properly.
2227 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2228 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2229 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2230 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2232 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2234 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2236 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2239 Fix spurious parse errors.
2242 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2243 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2246 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2247 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2251 but the converse remains an error:
2255 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2258 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2260 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2261 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2263 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2268 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2269 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2270 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2271 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2273 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2274 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2277 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2278 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2279 now creates "bar.c".
2282 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2283 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2285 ** Unknown token numbers
2286 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2290 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2291 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2292 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2293 will be mapped onto another number.
2295 ** Verbose error messages
2296 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2297 error recovery is possible.
2300 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2302 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2303 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2304 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2305 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2306 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2307 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2308 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2309 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2310 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2313 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2316 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2317 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2318 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2319 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2321 ** Explicit initial rule
2322 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2323 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2327 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2328 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2330 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2331 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2333 ** Rules never reduced
2334 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2337 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2338 On a grammar such as
2340 %token useless useful
2342 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2344 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2345 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2347 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2348 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2350 ** Default locations
2351 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2352 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2353 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2354 the computation of @$.
2356 ** Token end-of-file
2357 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2358 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2359 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2363 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2366 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2369 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2370 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2372 ** Incorrect token definitions
2375 bison used to output
2378 ** Token definitions as enums
2379 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2380 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2381 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2384 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2385 produces additional information:
2387 complete the core item sets with their closure
2388 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2389 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2391 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2392 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2393 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2396 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2397 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2405 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2407 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2410 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2411 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2412 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2414 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2415 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2416 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2417 kludge will be disabled.
2419 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2422 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2424 ** File name clashes are detected
2425 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2426 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2428 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2429 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2430 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2431 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2432 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2433 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2435 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2436 many portability hassles.
2438 ** DJGPP support added.
2440 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2442 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2445 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2446 under some conditions.
2451 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2453 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2455 ** Portability fixes
2457 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2459 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2463 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2464 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2465 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2466 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2467 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2469 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2470 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2471 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2473 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2476 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2478 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2479 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2482 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2483 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2484 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2486 ** Better C++ compliance
2487 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2488 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2491 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2494 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2497 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2500 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2503 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2505 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2507 ** Swedish translation
2510 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2511 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2512 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2514 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2515 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2516 previous allocations were not freed.
2518 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2519 Some newlines were missing.
2520 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2522 ** Fixed conflict report.
2523 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2527 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2529 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2531 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2533 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2535 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2536 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2538 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2540 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2544 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2546 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2548 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2549 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2552 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2555 ** Portability fixes.
2557 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2559 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2560 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2561 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2562 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2564 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2566 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2568 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2570 ** Russian translation added.
2572 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2574 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2576 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2578 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2580 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2582 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2583 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2586 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2587 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2590 Automatic location tracking.
2592 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2594 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2598 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2600 ** There is now a FAQ.
2602 * Changes in version 1.27:
2604 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2605 some systems has been fixed.
2607 * Changes in version 1.26:
2609 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2611 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2613 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2615 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2617 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2619 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2621 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2622 not provide alloca().
2624 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2626 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2627 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2629 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2630 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2631 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2633 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2634 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2635 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2638 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2639 directives in the parser file.
2641 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2642 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2644 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2645 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2646 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2647 a switch statement body.
2649 * Changes in version 1.23:
2651 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2652 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2653 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2654 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2656 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2658 * Changes in version 1.22:
2660 --help option added.
2662 * Changes in version 1.20:
2664 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2668 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2670 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2672 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2673 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2674 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2675 (at your option) any later version.
2677 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2678 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2679 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2680 GNU General Public License for more details.
2682 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2683 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2685 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2686 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2687 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2688 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2689 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2690 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2691 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2692 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2693 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2694 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2695 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2696 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2697 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2698 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2699 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2700 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2701 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2702 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2703 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2704 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2705 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2706 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2707 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
2708 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype