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1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Incompatible changes
6
7 *** Obsolete features
8
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
10
11 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
12 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
13
14 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
15 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
16
17 ** Warnings
18
19 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
20
21 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
22 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
23 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
24
25 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
26 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
27 errors (and only those):
28
29 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
30
31 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
32 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
33
34 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
35
36 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
37
38 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
39 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
40
41 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
42 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
43 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
44
45 *** The display of warnings is now richer
46
47 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
48
49 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
50
51 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
52 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
53 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
54
55 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
56 with failure):
57
58 bison: warnings being treated as errors
59 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
60
61 it now reports:
62
63 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
64
65 *** Deprecated constructs
66
67 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
68 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
69 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
70
71 *** Useless semantic types
72
73 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
74 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
75 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
76 types that trigger the warning:
77
78 %token <type1> term
79 %type <type2> nterm
80 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
81 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
82 %%
83 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
84
85 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
86 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
87
88 *** Undefined but unused symbols
89
90 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
91 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
92
93 %printer {} symbol1
94 %destructor {} symbol2
95 %type <type> symbol3
96 %%
97 exp: "a";
98
99 *** Useless destructors or printers
100
101 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
102 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
103 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
104 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
105
106 %token <type1> token1
107 <type2> token2
108 <type3> token3
109 <type4> token4
110 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
111 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
112
113 *** Conflicts
114
115 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
116 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
117
118 %glr-parser
119 %%
120 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
121
122 compare the previous version of bison:
123
124 $ bison foo.y
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
126 $ bison -Werror foo.y
127 bison: warnings being treated as errors
128 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
129
130 with the new behavior:
131
132 $ bison foo.y
133 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
135 $ bison -Werror foo.y
136 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
137 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
138
139 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
140
141 %expect 0
142 %glr-parser
143 %%
144 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
145
146 Former behavior:
147
148 $ bison bar.y
149 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
150 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
151 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
152
153 New one:
154
155 $ bison bar.y
156 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
157 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
158
159 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
160
161 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
162 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
163 or more arguments. Instead of
164
165 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
166 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
167 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
168 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
169
170 one may now declare
171
172 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
173
174 ** Java skeleton improvements
175
176 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
177 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
178 and "%define init_throws".
179
180 ** C++ skeletons improvements
181
182 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
183
184 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
185 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
186 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
187
188 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
189
190 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
191
192 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
193
194 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
195 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
196 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
197 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
198 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
199 factory invoked by the user actions).
200
201 ** Variable api.token.prefix
202
203 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
204 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
205 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
206
207 %token FILE for ERROR
208 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
209 %%
210 start: FILE for ERROR;
211
212 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
213 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
214 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
215 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
216
217 ** Renamed %define variables
218
219 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
220 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
221
222 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
223 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
224 namespace -> api.namespace
225
226 ** Variable parse.error
227
228 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
229 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
230 verbose".
231
232 ** Semantic predicates
233
234 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
235 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
236 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
237 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
238 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
239 expressions.
240
241 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
242
243 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
244 reduce/reduce conflicts.
245
246 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
247
248 ** Bug fixes
249
250 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
251
252 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
253
254 ** Diagnostics are improved
255
256 *** Changes in the format of error messages
257
258 This used to be the format of many error reports:
259
260 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
261 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
262
263 It is now:
264
265 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
266 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
267
268 *** New format for error reports: carets
269
270 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
271
272 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
273 %type <sval> exp
274 ^^^^^^
275 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
276 %type <ival> exp
277 ^^^^^^
278
279 or
280
281 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
282 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
283 ^^^^
284 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
285 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
286 ^^^
287 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
288 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
289 ^^^
290 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
291 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
292 ^^^
293
294 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless
295 explictly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
296 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
297 -fno-caret).
298
299 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
300
301 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
302 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
303 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
304 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
305 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
306 parsers).
307
308 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
309 "%define api.pure full".
310
311 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
312
313 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
314 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
315 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
316 then responsible to define her type.
317
318 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
319 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
320 them.
321
322 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
323 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
324 compatibility).
325
326 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
327 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
328 api.position.type.
329
330 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
331
332 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
333 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
334 before re-throwing the exception.
335
336 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
337 appreciated.
338
339 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
340
341 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
342 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
343 numbered and left-justified.
344
345 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
346 diamond shaped nodes.
347
348 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
349 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
350
351 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
352
353 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
354 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
355
356 ** Documentation
357
358 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
359 have been fixed and extended.
360
361 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
362 were not properly documented.
363
364 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
365
366 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
367
368 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
369 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
370 reporting them to us.
371
372 ** Bug fixes
373
374 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
375 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
376 3.2.
377
378 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
379
380 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
381
382 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
383 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
384
385 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
386
387 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
388
389 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
390
391 ** Bug fixes
392
393 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
394
395 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
396 users to the appropriate place to report them.
397
398 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
399
400 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
401 generated, are removed.
402
403 All the generated headers are self-contained.
404
405 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
406
407 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
408 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
409 For instance the header generated from
410
411 %define api.prefix "calc"
412 %defines "lib/parse.h"
413
414 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
415
416 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
417
418 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
419 warnings such as:
420
421 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
422 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
423 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
424 *++yyvsp = yylval;
425 ^
426
427 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
428
429 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
430 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
431 addressed.
432
433 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
434
435 ** Bug fixes
436
437 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
438 suite have been fixed.
439
440 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
441
442 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
443 invalid C++. This is fixed.
444
445 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
446
447 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
448
449 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
450
451 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
452
453 ** Future Changes
454
455 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
456 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
457 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
458
459 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
460
461 write:
462
463 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
464
465 ** Bug fixes
466
467 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
468
469 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
470
471 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
472
473 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
474 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
475 now does.
476
477 ** Type names in actions
478
479 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
480 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
481
482 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
483
484 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
485 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
486
487 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
488
489 ** Future changes
490
491 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
492 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
493
494 *** K&R C parsers
495
496 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
497 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
498 compilers.
499
500 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
501
502 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
503 YYLTYPE.
504
505 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
506 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
507
508 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
509 %error-verbose.
510
511 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
512
513 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
514 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
515 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
516 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
517 it.
518
519 ** Generated Parser Headers
520
521 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
522
523 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
524 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
525
526 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
527 # define YY_FOO_H
528 ...
529 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
530
531 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
532
533 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
534 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
535
536 int bar_parse (void);
537
538 rather than
539
540 #define yyparse bar_parse
541 int yyparse (void);
542
543 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
544 single compilation unit.
545
546 *** Exported symbols in C++
547
548 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
549 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
550 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
551
552 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
553
554 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
555 longer defined.
556
557 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
558
559 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
560 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
561 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
562 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
563 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
564 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
565 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
566
567 The following examples compares both:
568
569 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
570 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
571 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
572 %% %%
573 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
574
575 bison generates:
576
577 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
578 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
579
580 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
581 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
582 > # if defined YYDEBUG
583 > # if YYDEBUG
584 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
585 > # else
586 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
587 > # endif
588 > # else
589 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
590 > # endif
591 # endif | # endif
592
593 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
594 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
595 # endif # endif
596
597 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
598 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
599 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
600 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
601 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
602 }; };
603 # endif # endif
604
605 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
606 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
607 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
608 { {
609 int ival; int ival;
610 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
611 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
612 #endif #endif
613
614 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
615
616 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
617
618 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
619
620 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
621
622 ** Future changes:
623
624 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
625
626 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
627
628 ** glr.c improvements:
629
630 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
631
632 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
633 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
634
635 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
636
637 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
638 when -std is passed to GCC).
639
640 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
641
642 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
643 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
644
645 ** Changes for C++:
646
647 *** C++11 compatibility:
648
649 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
650 or higher.
651
652 *** Header guards
653
654 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
655 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
656
657 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
658 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
659 ...
660 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
661
662 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
663 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
664 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
665
666 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
667
668 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
669 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
670 ...
671 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
672
673 *** C++ locations:
674
675 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
676 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
677 documentation were fixed.
678
679 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
680
681 ** Changes in the manual:
682
683 *** %printer is documented
684
685 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
686 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
687
688 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
689 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
690
691 *** Several improvements have been made:
692
693 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
694 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
695 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
696 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
697
698 ** Building bison:
699
700 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
701
702 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
703 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
704
705 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
706
707 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
708
709 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
710 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
711
712 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
713
714 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
715 halts in the middle of its course.
716
717 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
718
719 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
720
721 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
722 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
723 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
724 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
725 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
726
727 ** Named references:
728
729 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
730 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
731 actions code.
732
733 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
734 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
735 as named references:
736
737 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
738 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
739
740 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
741
742 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
743 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
744
745 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
746 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
747 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
748
749 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
750 will help to stabilize them.
751 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
752
753 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
754
755 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
756 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
757 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
758 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
759 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
760 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
761 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
762 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
763 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
764
765 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
766 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
767 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
768 file with these directives:
769
770 %define lr.type lalr
771 %define lr.type ielr
772 %define lr.type canonical-lr
773
774 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
775 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
776 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
777 manual.
778
779 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
780 stabilize them.
781
782 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
783
784 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
785 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
786 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
787 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
788 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
789 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
790 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
791 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
792 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
793 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
794 tokens.
795
796 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
797 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
798 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
799 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
800 inconsistent states.
801
802 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
803 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
804 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
805 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
806 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
807 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
808 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
809 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
810 power.
811
812 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
813 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
814
815 %define parse.lac full
816
817 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
818 details including a few caveats.
819
820 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
821 stabilize it.
822
823 ** %define improvements:
824
825 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
826
827 Each of these command-line options
828
829 -D NAME[=VALUE]
830 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
831
832 -F NAME[=VALUE]
833 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
834
835 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
836
837 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
838
839 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
840 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
841 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
842 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
843
844 *** Variables renamed:
845
846 The following %define variables
847
848 api.push_pull
849 lr.keep_unreachable_states
850
851 have been renamed to
852
853 api.push-pull
854 lr.keep-unreachable-states
855
856 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
857 for backward compatibility.
858
859 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
860
861 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
862 within quotations marks. For example,
863
864 %define api.push-pull "push"
865
866 can be rewritten as
867
868 %define api.push-pull push
869
870 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
871
872 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
873
874 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
875
876 ** Character literals not of length one:
877
878 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
879 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
880 the following grammar to be the same token:
881
882 exp: exp '++'
883 | exp '+' exp
884 ;
885
886 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
887 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
888
889 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
890
891 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
892 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
893 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
894 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
895
896 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
897
898 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
899 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
900 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
901 and "last" members, instead of
902
903 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
904 do \
905 if (N) \
906 { \
907 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
908 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
909 } \
910 else \
911 { \
912 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
913 } \
914 while (false)
915
916 use:
917
918 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
919 do \
920 if (N) \
921 { \
922 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
923 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
924 } \
925 else \
926 { \
927 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
928 } \
929 while (false)
930
931 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
932
933 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
934 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
935 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
936 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
937
938 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
939
940 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
941 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
942 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
943 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
944 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
945 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
946 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
947 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
948
949 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
950
951 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
952 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
953 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
954 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
955
956 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
957
958 instead of
959
960 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
961
962 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
963 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
964 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
965 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
966 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
967 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
968 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
969
970 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
971
972 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
973 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
974 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
975 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
976 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
977
978 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
979 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
980 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
981 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
982 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
983 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
984 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
985 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
986 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
987 shifted or discarded.
988
989 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
990 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
991 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
992 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
993
994 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
995 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
996 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
997 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
998 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
999 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1000 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1001 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1002 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1003 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1004 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1005 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1006 by default.
1007
1008 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1009
1010 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1011
1012 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1013 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1014
1015 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1016
1017 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1018
1019 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1020
1021 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1022 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1023
1024 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1025
1026 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1027
1028 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1029 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1030 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1031 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1032 example:
1033
1034 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1035 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1036 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1037 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1038
1039 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1040 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1041 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1042 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1043
1044 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1045
1046 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1047 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1048
1049 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1050
1051 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1052
1053 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1054 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1055 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1056 suppress all warnings:
1057
1058 bison -Wnone gram.y
1059
1060 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1061
1062 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1063 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1064 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1065
1066 %left END 0
1067
1068 This bug has been fixed.
1069
1070 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1071
1072 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1073 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1074
1075 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1076 been fixed.
1077
1078 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1079
1080 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1081 been fixed.
1082
1083 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1084 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1085 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1086 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1087
1088 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1089
1090 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1091
1092 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1093 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1094 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1095 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1096 affected platforms.
1097
1098 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1099
1100 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1101 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1102 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1103 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1104 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1105 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1106 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1107 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1108 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1109
1110 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1111
1112 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1113 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1114 avoided.
1115
1116 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1117
1118 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1119
1120 %{CODE%}
1121
1122 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1123 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1124
1125 %code {CODE}
1126 %code requires {CODE}
1127 %code provides {CODE}
1128 %code top {CODE}
1129
1130 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1131 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1132 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1133 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1134 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1135
1136 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1137 is still considered experimental.
1138
1139 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1140
1141 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1142 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1143 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1144 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1145 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1146 specified by POSIX.
1147
1148 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1149 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1150 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1151 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1152 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1153 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1154 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1155
1156 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1157
1158 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1159 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1160 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1161 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1162 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1163 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1164 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1165 be removed altogether.
1166
1167 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1168 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1169 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1170 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1171 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1172 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1173 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1174 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1175 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1176 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1177
1178 ** Internationalization.
1179
1180 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1181 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1182 host system.
1183
1184 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1185
1186 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1187 declarations have been fixed.
1188
1189 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1190
1191 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1192 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1193
1194 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1195
1196 instead of
1197
1198 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1199
1200 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1201 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1202 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1203 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1204 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1205 feature.
1206
1207 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1208
1209 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1210
1211 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1212
1213 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1214 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1215 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1216 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1217 in future releases.
1218
1219 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1220
1221 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1222 fixed.
1223
1224 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1225
1226 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1227 are now deprecated:
1228
1229 %define NAME "VALUE"
1230
1231 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1232
1233 %define api.pure
1234
1235 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1236 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1237
1238 ** Push Parsing
1239
1240 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1241 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1242 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1243 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1244 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1245
1246 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1247 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1248
1249 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1250
1251 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1252 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1253
1254 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1255 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1256 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1257
1258 ** Java
1259
1260 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1261 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1262 %skeleton to select it.
1263
1264 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1265
1266 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1267 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1268 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1269
1270 ** %language
1271
1272 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1273 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1274 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1275 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1276
1277 ** XML Automaton Report
1278
1279 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1280 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1281 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1282 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1283
1284 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1285 %defines. For example:
1286
1287 %defines "parser.h"
1288
1289 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1290 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1291 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1292 instead of "unused".
1293
1294 ** Unreachable State Removal
1295
1296 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1297 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1298 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1299
1300 1. Removes unreachable states.
1301
1302 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1303 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1304 directives in existing grammar files.
1305
1306 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1307 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1308
1309 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1310
1311 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1312
1313 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1314 for further discussion.
1315
1316 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1317
1318 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1319 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1320 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1321 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1322 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1323 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1324 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1325 code.
1326
1327 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1328 name.
1329
1330 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1331 deprecated:
1332
1333 %file-prefix "parser"
1334 %name-prefix "c_"
1335 %output "parser.c"
1336
1337 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1338
1339 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1340 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1341 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1342 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1343 it:
1344
1345 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1346 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1347 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1348 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1349
1350 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1351 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1352 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1353 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1354
1355 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1356 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1357
1358 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1359
1360 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1361 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1362 about unused $2 in:
1363
1364 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1365
1366 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1367 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1368
1369 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1370
1371 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1372 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1373 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1374
1375 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1376 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1377
1378 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1379
1380 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1381 %printer's:
1382
1383 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1384 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1385 declared semantic type tags.
1386
1387 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1388 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1389 type tags.
1390
1391 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1392 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1393 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1394 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1395
1396 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1397 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1398 features.
1399
1400 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1401 details.
1402
1403 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1404 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1405 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1406
1407 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1408 completely removed from Bison.
1409
1410 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1411
1412 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1413 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1414 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1415 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1416 and is required by POSIX.
1417
1418 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1419 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1420
1421 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1422
1423 For example:
1424
1425 %union { char *string; }
1426 %token <string> STRING1
1427 %token <string> STRING2
1428 %type <string> string1
1429 %type <string> string2
1430 %union { char character; }
1431 %token <character> CHR
1432 %type <character> chr
1433 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1434 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1435 %destructor { } <character>
1436
1437 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1438 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1439 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1440 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1441 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1442
1443 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1444 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1445 future versions.]
1446
1447 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1448 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1449 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1450 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1451 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1452
1453 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1454 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1455
1456 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1457 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1458 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1459 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1460 declared after the first %union.
1461
1462 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1463 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1464 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1465 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1466 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1467 after the token definitions.
1468
1469 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1470 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1471
1472 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1473 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1474 %after-header.
1475
1476 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1477 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1478 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1479 convenient for you:
1480
1481 %before-header {
1482 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1483 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1484 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1485 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1486 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1487 }
1488 %start-header {
1489 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1490 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1491 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1492 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1493 }
1494 %union {
1495 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1496 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1497 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1498 }
1499 %end-header {
1500 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1501 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1502 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1503 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1504 * definitions. */
1505 }
1506 %after-header {
1507 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1508 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1509 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1510 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1511 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1512 }
1513
1514 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1515 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1516
1517 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1518 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1519
1520 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1521 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1522 in a future release.
1523
1524 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1525
1526 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1527 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1528
1529 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1530 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1531
1532 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1533
1534 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1535 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1536 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1537
1538 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1539
1540 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1541
1542 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1543 their contents together.
1544
1545 ** New warning: unused values
1546 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1547 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1548
1549 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1550 | exp "+" exp
1551 ;
1552
1553 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1554 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1555 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1556
1557 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1558 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1559 | exp "+" exp
1560 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1561 ;
1562
1563 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1564 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1565 values are used, e.g.:
1566
1567 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1568 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1569 ;
1570
1571 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1572 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1573
1574 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1575
1576 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1577 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1578
1579 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1580 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1581 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1582 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1583
1584 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1585 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1586 instead of warnings.
1587
1588 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1589 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1590 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1591
1592 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1593
1594 ** %require "VERSION"
1595 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1596 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1597
1598 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1599 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1600 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1601 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1602 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1603
1604 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1605 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1606 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1607 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1608
1609 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1610 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1611
1612 ** DJGPP support added.
1613 \f
1614 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1615
1616 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1617
1618 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1619 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1620 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1621 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1622 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1623 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1624
1625 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1626 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1627 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1628 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1629
1630 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1631 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1632 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1633
1634 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1635 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1636 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1637 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1638 unexpected "number"'.
1639 \f
1640 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1641
1642 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1643
1644 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1645 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1646 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1647 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1648 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1649
1650 - Error token location.
1651 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1652 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1653 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1654 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1655
1656 - Semicolon changes:
1657 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1658 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1659
1660 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1661 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1662 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1663 forget a closing quote.
1664
1665 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1666
1667 ** New features
1668
1669 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1670
1671 - New directive: %initial-action.
1672 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1673 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1674
1675 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1676 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1677
1678 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1679 This is a GNU extension.
1680
1681 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1682 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1683
1684 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1685
1686 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1687 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1688
1689 ** Bug fixes
1690
1691 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1692 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1693 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1694 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1695 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1696 these violations will become errors again.
1697
1698 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1699 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1700
1701 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1702 \f
1703 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1704
1705 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1706 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1707
1708 ** syntax error processing
1709
1710 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1711 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1712
1713 - %destructor
1714 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1715 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1716
1717 - %error-verbose
1718 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1719
1720 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1721 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1722
1723 ** POSIX conformance
1724
1725 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1726 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1727 compatibility with Yacc.
1728
1729 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1730 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1731 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1732 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1733 be consistent.
1734
1735 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1736 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1737
1738 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1739 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1740
1741 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1742 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1743
1744 - Yacc command and library now available
1745 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1746 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1747 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1748 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1749
1750 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1751
1752 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1753 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1754 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1755
1756 ** Other compatibility issues
1757
1758 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1759 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1760 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1761 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1762 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1763 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1764
1765 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1766 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1767
1768 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1769 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1770
1771 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1772 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1773 withdrawn in a future release.
1774
1775 ** GLR parser notes
1776
1777 - GLR and inline
1778 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1779 C keyword "inline".
1780
1781 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1782 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1783
1784 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1785 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1786 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1787 shortcomings:
1788
1789 - a single argument only can be added,
1790 - their types are weak (void *),
1791 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1792 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1793
1794 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1795 For instance:
1796
1797 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1798 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1799 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1800
1801 results in the following signatures:
1802
1803 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1804 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1805
1806 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1807
1808 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1809 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1810
1811 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1812 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1813 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1814
1815 ** #line in output files
1816 - --no-line works properly.
1817
1818 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1819 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1820 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1821 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1822 \f
1823 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1824
1825 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1826
1827 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1828
1829 ** GLR parsers
1830 Fix spurious parse errors.
1831
1832 ** Pure parsers
1833 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1834 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1835
1836 ** Type Clashes
1837 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1838 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1839
1840 untyped: ... typed;
1841
1842 but the converse remains an error:
1843
1844 typed: ... untyped;
1845
1846 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1847 The following code:
1848
1849 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1850
1851 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1852 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1853 \f
1854 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1855
1856 ** GLR parsing
1857 The declaration
1858 %glr-parser
1859 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1860 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1861 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1862 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1863
1864 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1865 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1866
1867 ** Output Directory
1868 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1869 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1870 now creates "bar.c".
1871
1872 ** Undefined token
1873 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1874 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1875
1876 ** Unknown token numbers
1877 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1878 no longer the case.
1879
1880 ** Error token
1881 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1882 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1883 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1884 will be mapped onto another number.
1885
1886 ** Verbose error messages
1887 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1888 error recovery is possible.
1889
1890 ** End token
1891 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1892
1893 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1894 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1895 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1896 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1897 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1898 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1899 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1900 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1901 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1902
1903 ** Traces
1904 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1905
1906 ** Larger grammars
1907 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1908 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1909 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1910 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1911
1912 ** Explicit initial rule
1913 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1914 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1915 graphs as rule 0.
1916
1917 ** Useless rules
1918 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1919 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1920
1921 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1922 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1923
1924 ** Rules never reduced
1925 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1926 reported.
1927
1928 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1929 On a grammar such as
1930
1931 %token useless useful
1932 %%
1933 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1934
1935 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1936 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1937
1938 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1939 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1940
1941 ** Default locations
1942 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1943 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1944 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1945 the computation of @$.
1946
1947 ** Token end-of-file
1948 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1949 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1950 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1951 For instance
1952 %token MYEOF 0
1953 or
1954 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1955
1956 ** Semantic parser
1957 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1958
1959 ** New translations
1960 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1961 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1962
1963 ** Incorrect token definitions
1964 When given
1965 %token 'a' "A"
1966 bison used to output
1967 #define 'a' 65
1968
1969 ** Token definitions as enums
1970 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1971 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1972 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1973
1974 ** Reports
1975 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1976 produces additional information:
1977 - itemset
1978 complete the core item sets with their closure
1979 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1980 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1981 - solved
1982 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1983 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1984 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1985
1986 ** Type clashes
1987 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1988 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1989
1990 %type <foo> bar
1991 %%
1992 bar: '0' {} '0';
1993
1994 This is fixed.
1995
1996 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1997 \f
1998 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1999
2000 ** C Skeleton
2001 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2002 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2003 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2004
2005 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2006 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2007 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2008 kludge will be disabled.
2009
2010 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2011 extended.
2012 \f
2013 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2014
2015 ** File name clashes are detected
2016 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2017 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2018
2019 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2020 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2021 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2022 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2023 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2024 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2025
2026 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2027 many portability hassles.
2028
2029 ** DJGPP support added.
2030
2031 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2032 \f
2033 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2034
2035 ** Fix C++ issues
2036 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2037 under some conditions.
2038
2039 ** Catch invalid @n
2040 As is done with $n.
2041 \f
2042 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2043
2044 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2045
2046 ** Portability fixes
2047
2048 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2049 \f
2050 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2051
2052 ** Many Bug Fixes
2053
2054 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2055 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2056 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2057 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2058 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2059
2060 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2061 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2062 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2063
2064 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2065 problems as on AIX.
2066
2067 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2068
2069 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2070 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2071
2072 ** User Actions
2073 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2074 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2075 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2076
2077 ** Better C++ compliance
2078 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2079 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2080
2081 ** Reduced Grammars
2082 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2083
2084 ** 64 bit hosts
2085 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2086
2087 ** Error messages
2088 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2089
2090 ** %expect
2091 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2092 any warning.
2093
2094 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2095
2096 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2097
2098 ** Swedish translation
2099
2100 ** Parse errors
2101 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2102 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2103 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2104
2105 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2106 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2107 previous allocations were not freed.
2108
2109 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2110 Some newlines were missing.
2111 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2112
2113 ** Fixed conflict report.
2114 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2115
2116 ** %expect
2117 Was not used.
2118 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2119
2120 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2121
2122 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2123
2124 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2125
2126 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2127 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2128
2129 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2130
2131 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2132 New.
2133
2134 ** --output
2135 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2136 \f
2137 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2138
2139 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2140 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2141 argument.
2142
2143 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2144 experiment.
2145
2146 ** Portability fixes.
2147 \f
2148 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2149
2150 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2151 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2152 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2153 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2154
2155 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2156
2157 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2158
2159 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2160
2161 ** Russian translation added.
2162
2163 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2164
2165 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2166
2167 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2168
2169 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2170
2171 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2172
2173 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2174 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2175
2176 ** New directives.
2177 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2178 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2179
2180 ** @$
2181 Automatic location tracking.
2182 \f
2183 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2184
2185 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2186
2187 ** Added NLS.
2188
2189 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2190
2191 ** There is now a FAQ.
2192 \f
2193 * Changes in version 1.27:
2194
2195 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2196 some systems has been fixed.
2197 \f
2198 * Changes in version 1.26:
2199
2200 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2201
2202 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2203
2204 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2205
2206 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2207
2208 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2209
2210 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2211
2212 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2213 not provide alloca().
2214 \f
2215 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2216
2217 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2218 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2219
2220 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2221 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2222 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2223
2224 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2225 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2226 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2227 purposes.
2228
2229 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2230 directives in the parser file.
2231
2232 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2233 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2234
2235 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2236 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2237 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2238 a switch statement body.
2239 \f
2240 * Changes in version 1.23:
2241
2242 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2243 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2244 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2245 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2246
2247 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2248 \f
2249 * Changes in version 1.22:
2250
2251 --help option added.
2252 \f
2253 * Changes in version 1.20:
2254
2255 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2256
2257 -----
2258
2259 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2260
2261 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2262
2263 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2264 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2265 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2266 (at your option) any later version.
2267
2268 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2269 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2270 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2271 GNU General Public License for more details.
2272
2273 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2274 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2275
2276 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2277 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2278 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2279 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2280 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2281 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2282 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2283 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2284 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2285 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2286 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2287 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2288 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2289 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2290 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2291 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2292 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2293 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2294 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2295
2296 Local Variables:
2297 mode: outline
2298 fill-column: 76
2299 End: