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