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