3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 Bugs in the test suite have been fixed.
9 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
10 users to the appropriate place to report them.
12 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
14 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
15 generated, are removed.
17 All the generated headers are self-contained.
19 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
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
25 %define api.prefix "calc"
26 %defines "lib/parse.h"
28 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
30 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
34 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
35 suite have been fixed.
37 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
39 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
40 invalid C++. This is fixed.
42 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
44 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
46 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
48 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
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:
56 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
60 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
64 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
66 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
68 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
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
74 ** Type names in actions
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:
79 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
81 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
82 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
84 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
88 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
89 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
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
97 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
99 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
102 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
103 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
105 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
108 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
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
116 ** Generated Parser Headers
118 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
120 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
121 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
126 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
128 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
130 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
131 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
133 int bar_parse (void);
137 #define yyparse bar_parse
140 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
141 single compilation unit.
143 *** Exported symbols in C++
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.
151 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
154 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
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.
164 The following examples compares both:
166 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
167 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
168 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
174 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
175 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
177 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
178 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
179 > # if defined YYDEBUG
181 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
183 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
186 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
190 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
191 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
194 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
195 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
196 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
197 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
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
207 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
208 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
211 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
213 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
215 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
217 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
221 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
223 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
225 ** glr.c improvements:
227 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
229 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
230 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
232 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
234 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
235 when -std is passed to GCC).
237 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
239 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
240 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
244 *** C++11 compatibility:
246 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
251 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
252 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
254 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
255 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
257 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
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.
263 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
265 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
266 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
268 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
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.
276 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
278 ** Changes in the manual:
280 *** %printer is documented
282 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
283 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
285 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
286 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
288 *** Several improvements have been made:
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.
297 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
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.
302 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
304 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
306 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
307 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
309 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
311 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
312 halts in the middle of its course.
314 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
316 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
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).
326 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
327 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
330 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
331 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
334 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
335 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
337 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
339 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
340 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
342 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
343 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
344 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
346 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
347 will help to stabilize them.
349 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
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.
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:
368 %define lr.type canonical-lr
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
375 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
378 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
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
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
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
408 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
409 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
411 %define parse.lac full
413 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
414 details including a few caveats.
416 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
419 ** %define improvements:
421 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
423 Each of these command-line options
426 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
429 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
431 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
433 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
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.
440 *** Variables renamed:
442 The following %define variables
445 lr.keep_unreachable_states
450 lr.keep-unreachable-states
452 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
453 for backward compatibility.
455 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
457 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
458 within quotations marks. For example,
460 %define api.push-pull "push"
464 %define api.push-pull push
466 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
468 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
470 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
472 ** Character literals not of length one:
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:
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.
485 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
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.
492 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
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
499 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
503 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
504 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
508 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
514 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
518 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
519 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
523 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
527 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
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.
534 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
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.
545 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
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
552 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
556 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
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.
566 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
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:
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.
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.
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
604 ** Java skeleton fixes:
606 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
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.
611 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
613 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
615 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
617 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
618 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
620 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
622 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
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
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
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.
640 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
642 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
643 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
645 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
647 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
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:
656 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
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:
664 This bug has been fixed.
666 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
668 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
669 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
671 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
674 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
676 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
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.
684 ** Minor documentation fixes.
686 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
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
694 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
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.]
706 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
708 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
709 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
712 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
714 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
718 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
719 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
722 %code requires {CODE}
723 %code provides {CODE}
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.
732 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
733 is still considered experimental.
735 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
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
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:
752 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
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.
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.
774 ** Internationalization.
776 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
777 message translations were not installed although supported by the
780 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
782 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
783 declarations have been fixed.
785 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
787 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
788 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
790 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
794 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
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
803 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
805 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
807 ** %language is an experimental feature.
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
815 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
817 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
820 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
822 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
827 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
831 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
832 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
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:
842 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
843 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
845 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
847 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
848 feedback will help to stabilize it.
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.
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.
860 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
862 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
863 feedback will help to stabilize it.
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".
872 ** XML Automaton Report
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.
878 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
879 %defines. For example:
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"
888 ** Unreachable State Removal
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:
894 1. Removes unreachable states.
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.
900 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
901 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
903 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
905 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
907 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
908 for further discussion.
910 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
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
921 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
924 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
927 %file-prefix "parser"
931 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
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
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}"
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.
949 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
950 determine whether they should become permanent features.
952 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
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
958 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
960 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
961 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
963 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
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).
969 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
970 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
972 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
974 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
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.
981 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
982 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
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 $$ or $n in a semantic action.
990 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
991 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
994 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
997 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
998 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
999 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1001 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1002 completely removed from Bison.
1004 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1006 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1007 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1008 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1009 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1010 and is required by POSIX.
1012 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1013 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1015 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1019 %union { char *string; }
1020 %token <string> STRING1
1021 %token <string> STRING2
1022 %type <string> string1
1023 %type <string> string2
1024 %union { char character; }
1025 %token <character> CHR
1026 %type <character> chr
1027 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1028 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1029 %destructor { } <character>
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.
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
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.
1047 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1048 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
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.
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.
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.
1066 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1067 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
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
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"'. */
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. */
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. */
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
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. */
1108 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1109 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
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.]
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.
1118 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1120 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1121 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
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.
1126 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
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.
1132 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1134 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1136 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1137 their contents together.
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:
1143 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1147 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1148 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1149 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1151 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1152 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1154 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1157 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1158 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1159 values are used, e.g.:
1161 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1162 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
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.
1168 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
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.
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.
1178 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1179 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1180 instead of warnings.
1182 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1183 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1184 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1186 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1188 ** %require "VERSION"
1189 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1190 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
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.
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.
1203 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1204 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1206 ** DJGPP support added.
1208 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1210 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
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.
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.
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.
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"'.
1234 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1236 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
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.
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.
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.
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.
1259 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1263 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1265 - New directive: %initial-action.
1266 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1267 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1269 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1270 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1272 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1273 This is a GNU extension.
1275 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1276 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1278 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1280 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1281 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
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.
1292 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1293 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1295 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1297 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1299 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1300 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1302 ** syntax error processing
1304 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1305 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1308 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1309 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1312 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1314 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1315 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1317 ** POSIX conformance
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.
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
1329 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1330 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1332 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1333 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1335 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1336 output as "foo\\bar.y".
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.
1344 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
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.
1350 ** Other compatibility issues
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.
1359 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1360 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1362 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1363 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
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.
1372 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1375 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1376 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
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
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.
1388 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1391 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1392 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1393 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1395 results in the following signatures:
1397 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1398 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1400 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1402 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1403 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
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.
1409 ** #line in output files
1410 - --no-line works properly.
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.
1417 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1419 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1421 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1424 Fix spurious parse errors.
1427 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1428 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1431 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1432 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1436 but the converse remains an error:
1440 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1443 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1445 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1446 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1448 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
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.
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.
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".
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.
1470 ** Unknown token numbers
1471 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
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.
1480 ** Verbose error messages
1481 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1482 error recovery is possible.
1485 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
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>.
1498 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
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.
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
1512 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1513 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1515 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1516 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1518 ** Rules never reduced
1519 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1522 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1523 On a grammar such as
1525 %token useless useful
1527 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1529 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1530 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1532 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1533 as they caused too many portability hassles.
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 @$.
1541 ** Token end-of-file
1542 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1543 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1544 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1548 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1551 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1554 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1555 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1557 ** Incorrect token definitions
1560 bison used to output
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.
1569 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1570 produces additional information:
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
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.
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:
1590 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1592 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
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.
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.
1604 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1607 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
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"
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.
1620 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1621 many portability hassles.
1623 ** DJGPP support added.
1625 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1627 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1630 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1631 under some conditions.
1636 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1638 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1640 ** Portability fixes
1642 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1644 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
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".
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.
1658 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1661 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1663 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1664 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
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; }.
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.]
1676 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1679 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1682 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1685 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1688 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1690 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1692 ** Swedish translation
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 '('
1699 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1700 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1701 previous allocations were not freed.
1703 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1704 Some newlines were missing.
1705 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1707 ** Fixed conflict report.
1708 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1712 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1714 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1716 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1718 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1720 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1721 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1723 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1725 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1729 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1731 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
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
1737 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1740 ** Portability fixes.
1742 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
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.
1749 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1751 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1753 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1755 ** Russian translation added.
1757 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1759 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1761 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1763 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1765 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1767 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1768 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1771 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1772 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1775 Automatic location tracking.
1777 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1779 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1783 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1785 ** There is now a FAQ.
1787 * Changes in version 1.27:
1789 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1790 some systems has been fixed.
1792 * Changes in version 1.26:
1794 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1796 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1798 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1800 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1802 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1804 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1806 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1807 not provide alloca().
1809 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1811 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1812 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
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.
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
1823 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1824 directives in the parser file.
1826 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1827 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
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.
1834 * Changes in version 1.23:
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.
1841 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1843 * Changes in version 1.22:
1845 --help option added.
1847 * Changes in version 1.20:
1849 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1853 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1855 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
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.
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.
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/>.
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