3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
7 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
8 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives
9 support one or more arguments. Instead of
11 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
12 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
13 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
14 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
18 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
20 ** Java skeleton improvements
22 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
23 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
24 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
26 ** C++ skeleton improvements
28 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
29 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
30 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
31 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
32 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
33 factory invoked by the user actions).
35 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
37 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
38 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
39 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
42 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
44 start: FILE for ERROR;
46 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
47 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
48 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
49 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
51 ** Variable api.namespace
53 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
54 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
56 ** Variable parse.error
58 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
59 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
60 %define parse.error "verbose".
62 ** Semantic predicates
64 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
65 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
66 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
67 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
68 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
71 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
75 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C,
76 and remove the definition of yystype (removal announced since Bison
79 ** The generated header is included (yacc.c)
81 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
82 YYSTYPE, yyltype etc.), the generated parser now includes it, as was
83 already the case for GLR or C++ parsers.
85 ** Headers (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
89 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
90 parsers (lalr1.cc). For intance, with --defines=foo.h:
95 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
99 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
100 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
102 int bar_parse (void);
106 #define yyparse bar_parse
109 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
110 single compilation unit.
112 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
116 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
118 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
120 ** glr.c improvements:
122 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
124 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
125 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
127 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
129 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
130 when -std is passed to GCC).
132 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
134 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
135 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
139 *** C++11 compatibility:
141 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
146 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
147 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
149 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
150 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
152 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
154 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
155 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
156 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
158 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
160 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
161 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
163 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
167 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
168 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
169 documentation were fixed.
171 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
173 ** Changes in the manual:
175 *** %printer is documented
177 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
178 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
180 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
181 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
183 *** Several improvements have been made:
185 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
186 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
187 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
188 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
192 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
194 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
195 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
197 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
199 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
201 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
202 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
204 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
206 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
207 halts in the middle of its course.
209 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
211 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
213 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
214 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
215 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
216 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
217 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
221 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
222 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
225 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
226 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
229 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
230 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
232 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
234 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
235 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
237 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
238 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
239 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
241 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
242 will help to stabilize them.
244 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
246 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
247 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
248 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
249 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
250 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
251 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
252 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
253 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
254 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
256 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
257 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
258 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
259 file with these directives:
263 %define lr.type canonical-lr
265 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
266 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
267 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
270 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
273 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
275 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
276 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
277 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
278 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
279 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
280 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
281 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
282 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
283 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
284 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
287 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
288 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
289 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
290 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
293 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
294 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
295 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
296 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
297 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
298 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
299 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
300 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
303 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
304 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
306 %define parse.lac full
308 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
309 details including a few caveats.
311 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
314 ** %define improvements:
316 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
318 Each of these command-line options
321 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
324 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
326 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
328 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
330 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
331 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
332 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
333 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
335 *** Variables renamed:
337 The following %define variables
340 lr.keep_unreachable_states
345 lr.keep-unreachable-states
347 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
348 for backward compatibility.
350 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
352 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
353 within quotations marks. For example,
355 %define api.push-pull "push"
359 %define api.push-pull push
361 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
363 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
365 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
367 ** Character literals not of length one:
369 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
370 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
371 the following grammar to be the same token:
377 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
378 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
380 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
382 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
383 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
384 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
385 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
387 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
389 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
390 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
391 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
392 and "last" members, instead of
394 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
398 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
399 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
403 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
409 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
413 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
414 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
418 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
422 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
424 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
425 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
426 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
427 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
429 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
431 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
432 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
433 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
434 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
435 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
436 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
437 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
438 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
440 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
442 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
443 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
444 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
445 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
447 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
451 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
453 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
454 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
455 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
456 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
457 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
458 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
459 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
461 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
463 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
464 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
465 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
466 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
467 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
469 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
470 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
471 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
472 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
473 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
474 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
475 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
476 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
477 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
478 shifted or discarded.
480 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
481 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
482 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
483 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
485 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
486 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
487 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
488 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
489 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
490 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
491 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
492 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
493 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
494 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
495 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
496 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
499 ** Java skeleton fixes:
501 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
503 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
504 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
506 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
508 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
510 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
512 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
513 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
515 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
517 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
519 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
520 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
521 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
522 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
525 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
526 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
527 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
528 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
530 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
531 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
532 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
533 then have no effect on the conflict report.
535 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
537 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
538 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
540 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
542 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
544 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
545 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
546 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
547 suppress all warnings:
551 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
553 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
554 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
555 produced an assertion failure. For example:
559 This bug has been fixed.
561 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
563 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
564 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
566 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
569 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
571 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
574 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
575 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
576 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
577 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
579 ** Minor documentation fixes.
581 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
583 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
584 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
585 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
586 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
589 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
591 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
592 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
593 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
594 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
595 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
596 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
597 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
598 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
599 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
601 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
603 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
604 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
607 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
609 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
613 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
614 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
617 %code requires {CODE}
618 %code provides {CODE}
621 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
622 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
623 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
624 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
625 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
627 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
628 is still considered experimental.
630 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
632 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
633 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
634 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
635 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
636 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
639 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
640 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
641 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
642 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
643 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
644 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
645 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
647 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
649 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
650 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
651 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
652 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
653 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
654 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
655 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
656 be removed altogether.
658 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
659 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
660 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
661 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
662 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
663 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
664 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
665 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
666 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
667 2.4.2 is not necessary.
669 ** Internationalization.
671 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
672 message translations were not installed although supported by the
675 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
677 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
678 declarations have been fixed.
680 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
682 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
683 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
685 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
689 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
691 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
692 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
693 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
694 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
695 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
698 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
700 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
702 ** %language is an experimental feature.
704 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
705 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
706 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
707 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
710 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
712 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
715 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
717 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
722 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
726 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
727 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
731 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
732 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
733 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
734 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
735 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
737 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
738 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
740 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
742 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
743 feedback will help to stabilize it.
745 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
746 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
747 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
751 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
752 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
753 %skeleton to select it.
755 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
757 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
758 feedback will help to stabilize it.
762 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
763 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
764 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
765 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
767 ** XML Automaton Report
769 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
770 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
771 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
773 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
774 %defines. For example:
778 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
779 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
780 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
783 ** Unreachable State Removal
785 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
786 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
787 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
789 1. Removes unreachable states.
791 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
792 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
793 directives in existing grammar files.
795 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
796 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
798 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
800 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
802 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
803 for further discussion.
805 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
807 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
808 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
809 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
810 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
811 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
812 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
813 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
816 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
819 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
822 %file-prefix "parser"
826 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
828 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
829 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
830 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
831 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
834 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
835 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
836 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
837 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
839 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
840 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
841 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
842 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
844 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
845 determine whether they should become permanent features.
847 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
849 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
850 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
853 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
855 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
856 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
858 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
860 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
861 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
862 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
864 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
865 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
867 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
869 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
872 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
873 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
874 declared semantic type tags.
876 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
877 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
880 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
881 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
882 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
883 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
885 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
886 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
889 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
892 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
893 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
894 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
896 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
897 completely removed from Bison.
899 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
901 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
902 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
903 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
904 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
905 and is required by POSIX.
907 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
908 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
910 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
914 %union { char *string; }
915 %token <string> STRING1
916 %token <string> STRING2
917 %type <string> string1
918 %type <string> string2
919 %union { char character; }
920 %token <character> CHR
921 %type <character> chr
922 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
923 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
924 %destructor { } <character>
926 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
927 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
928 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
929 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
930 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
932 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
933 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
936 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
937 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
938 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
939 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
940 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
942 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
943 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
945 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
946 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
947 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
948 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
949 declared after the first %union.
951 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
952 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
953 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
954 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
955 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
956 after the token definitions.
958 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
959 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
961 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
962 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
965 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
966 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
967 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
971 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
972 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
973 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
974 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
975 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
978 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
979 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
980 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
981 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
984 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
985 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
986 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
989 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
990 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
991 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
992 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
996 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
997 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
998 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
999 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1000 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1003 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1004 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1006 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1007 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1009 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1010 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1011 in a future release.
1013 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1015 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1016 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1018 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1019 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1021 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1023 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1024 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1025 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1027 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1029 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1031 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1032 their contents together.
1034 ** New warning: unused values
1035 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1036 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1038 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1042 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1043 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1044 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1046 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1047 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1049 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1052 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1053 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1054 values are used, e.g.:
1056 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1057 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1060 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1061 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1063 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1065 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1066 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1068 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1069 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1070 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1071 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1073 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1074 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1075 instead of warnings.
1077 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1078 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1079 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1081 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1083 ** %require "VERSION"
1084 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1085 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1087 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1088 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1089 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1090 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1091 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1093 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1094 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1095 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1096 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1098 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1099 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1101 ** DJGPP support added.
1103 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1105 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1107 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1108 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1109 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1110 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1111 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1112 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1114 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1115 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1116 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1117 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1119 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1120 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1121 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1123 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1124 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1125 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1126 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1127 unexpected "number"'.
1129 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1131 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1133 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1134 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1135 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1136 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1137 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1139 - Error token location.
1140 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1141 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1142 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1143 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1145 - Semicolon changes:
1146 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1147 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1149 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1150 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1151 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1152 forget a closing quote.
1154 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1158 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1160 - New directive: %initial-action.
1161 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1162 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1164 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1165 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1167 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1168 This is a GNU extension.
1170 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1171 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1173 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1175 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1176 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1180 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1181 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1182 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1183 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1184 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1185 these violations will become errors again.
1187 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1188 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1190 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1192 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1194 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1195 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1197 ** syntax error processing
1199 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1200 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1203 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1204 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1207 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1209 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1210 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1212 ** POSIX conformance
1214 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1215 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1216 compatibility with Yacc.
1218 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1219 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1220 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1221 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1224 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1225 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1227 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1228 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1230 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1231 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1233 - Yacc command and library now available
1234 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1235 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1236 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1237 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1239 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1241 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1242 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1243 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1245 ** Other compatibility issues
1247 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1248 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1249 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1250 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1251 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1252 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1254 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1255 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1257 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1258 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1260 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1261 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1262 withdrawn in a future release.
1267 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1270 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1271 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1273 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1274 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1275 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1277 ** #line in output files
1278 - --no-line works properly.
1280 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1281 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1282 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1283 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1285 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1287 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1289 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1292 Fix spurious parse errors.
1295 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1296 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1299 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1300 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1304 but the converse remains an error:
1308 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1311 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1313 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1314 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1316 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1321 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1322 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1323 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1324 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1326 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1327 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1330 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1331 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1332 now creates "bar.c".
1335 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1336 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1338 ** Unknown token numbers
1339 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1343 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1344 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1345 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1346 will be mapped onto another number.
1348 ** Verbose error messages
1349 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1350 error recovery is possible.
1353 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1355 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1356 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1357 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1358 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1359 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1360 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1361 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1362 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1363 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1366 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1369 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1370 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1371 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1372 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1374 ** Explicit initial rule
1375 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1376 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1380 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1381 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1383 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1384 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1386 ** Rules never reduced
1387 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1390 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1391 On a grammar such as
1393 %token useless useful
1395 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1397 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1398 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1400 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1401 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1403 ** Default locations
1404 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1405 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1406 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1407 the computation of @$.
1409 ** Token end-of-file
1410 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1411 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1412 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1416 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1419 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1422 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1423 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1425 ** Incorrect token definitions
1428 bison used to output
1431 ** Token definitions as enums
1432 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1433 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1434 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1437 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1438 produces additional information:
1440 complete the core item sets with their closure
1441 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1442 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1444 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1445 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1446 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1449 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1450 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1458 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1460 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1463 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1464 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1465 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1467 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1468 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1469 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1470 kludge will be disabled.
1472 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1475 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1477 ** File name clashes are detected
1478 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1479 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1481 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1482 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1483 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1484 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1485 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1486 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1488 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1489 many portability hassles.
1491 ** DJGPP support added.
1493 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1495 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1498 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1499 under some conditions.
1504 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1506 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1508 ** Portability fixes
1510 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1512 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1516 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1517 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1518 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1519 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1520 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1522 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1523 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1524 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1526 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1529 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1531 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1532 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1535 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1536 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1537 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1539 ** Better C++ compliance
1540 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1541 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1544 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1547 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1550 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1553 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1556 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1558 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1560 ** Swedish translation
1563 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1564 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1565 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1567 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1568 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1569 previous allocations were not freed.
1571 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1572 Some newlines were missing.
1573 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1575 ** Fixed conflict report.
1576 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1580 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1582 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1584 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1586 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1588 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1589 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1591 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1593 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1597 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1599 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1601 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1602 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1605 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1608 ** Portability fixes.
1610 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1612 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1613 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1614 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1615 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1617 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1619 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1621 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1623 ** Russian translation added.
1625 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1627 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1629 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1631 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1633 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1635 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1636 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1639 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1640 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1643 Automatic location tracking.
1645 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1647 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1651 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1653 ** There is now a FAQ.
1655 * Changes in version 1.27:
1657 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1658 some systems has been fixed.
1660 * Changes in version 1.26:
1662 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1664 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1666 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1668 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1670 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1672 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1674 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1675 not provide alloca().
1677 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1679 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1680 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1682 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1683 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1684 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1686 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1687 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1688 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1691 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1692 directives in the parser file.
1694 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1695 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1697 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1698 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1699 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1700 a switch statement body.
1702 * Changes in version 1.23:
1704 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1705 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1706 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1707 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1709 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1711 * Changes in version 1.22:
1713 --help option added.
1715 * Changes in version 1.20:
1717 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1721 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1723 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1725 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1726 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1727 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1728 (at your option) any later version.
1730 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1731 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1732 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1733 GNU General Public License for more details.
1735 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1736 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1738 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
1739 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
1740 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
1741 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
1742 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
1743 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
1744 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
1745 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
1746 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
1747 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
1748 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
1749 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
1750 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
1751 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG
1752 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
1753 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ