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