3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 *** Portability issues in the test suite.
9 *** Fixes of the -Werror option
11 Options such as "-Werror -Wno-error=foo" were still turning "foo"
12 diagnostics into errors instead of warnings. This is fixed.
14 Actually, for consistency with GCC, "-Wno-error=foo -Werror" now also
15 leaves "foo" diagnostics as warnings. Similarly, with "-Werror=foo
16 -Wno-error", "foo" diagnostics are now errors.
18 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2013-07-25) [stable]
20 ** WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
22 Like other GNU packages, Bison will start using some of the C99 features
23 for its own code, especially the definition of variables after statements.
24 The generated C parsers still aim at C90.
26 ** Backward incompatible changes
30 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2): use YYERROR.
32 Support for yystype and yyltype is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875):
33 use YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE.
35 Support for YYLEX_PARAM and YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison
36 1.875): use %lex-param, %parse-param, or %param.
38 Missing semicolons at the end of actions are no longer added (as announced
41 *** Use of YACC='bison -y'
43 TL;DR: With Autoconf <= 2.69, pass -Wno-yacc to (AM_)YFLAGS if you use
46 Traditional Yacc generates 'y.tab.c' whatever the name of the input file.
47 Therefore Makefiles written for Yacc expect 'y.tab.c' (and possibly
48 'y.tab.h' and 'y.outout') to be generated from 'foo.y'.
50 To this end, for ages, AC_PROG_YACC, Autoconf's macro to look for an
51 implementation of Yacc, was using Bison as 'bison -y'. While it does
52 ensure compatible output file names, it also enables warnings for
53 incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc. In other words, 'bison -y' triggers
54 warnings for Bison extensions.
56 Autoconf 2.70+ fixes this incompatibility by using YACC='bison -o y.tab.c'
57 (which also generates 'y.tab.h' and 'y.output' when needed).
58 Alternatively, disable Yacc warnings by passing '-Wno-yacc' to your Yacc
59 flags (YFLAGS, or AM_YFLAGS with Automake).
63 *** The epilogue is no longer affected by internal #defines (glr.c)
65 The glr.c skeleton uses defines such as #define yylval (yystackp->yyval) in
66 generated code. These weren't properly undefined before the inclusion of
67 the user epilogue, so functions such as the following were butchered by the
68 preprocessor expansion:
70 int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval);
72 This is fixed: yylval, yynerrs, yychar, and yylloc are now valid
73 identifiers for user-provided variables.
75 *** stdio.h is no longer needed when locations are enabled (yacc.c)
77 Changes in Bison 2.7 introduced a dependency on FILE and fprintf when
78 locations are enabled. This is fixed.
80 *** Warnings about useless %pure-parser/%define api.pure are restored
82 ** Diagnostics reported by Bison
84 Most of these features were contributed by Théophile Ranquet and Victor
89 Version 2.7 introduced caret errors, for a prettier output. These are now
90 activated by default. The old format can still be used by invoking Bison
91 with -fno-caret (or -fnone).
93 Some error messages that reproduced excerpts of the grammar are now using
94 the caret information only. For instance on:
101 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
102 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts: exp: 'a' [-Wother]
106 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
107 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
111 and "bison -fno-caret" reports:
113 in.y: warning: 1 reduce/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-rr]
114 in.y:2.12-14: warning: rule useless in parser due to conflicts [-Wother]
116 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
118 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
119 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
120 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
122 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
123 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
124 errors (and only those):
126 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
128 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
129 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
131 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
133 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
135 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
136 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
138 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
139 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
140 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
142 *** The display of warnings is now richer
144 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
146 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
148 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
149 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
150 to GCC, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
152 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
155 bison: warnings being treated as errors
156 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
160 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
162 *** Deprecated constructs
164 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
165 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
166 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
168 *** Useless semantic types
170 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
171 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
172 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
173 types that trigger the warning:
177 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
178 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
180 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
182 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
183 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
185 *** Undefined but unused symbols
187 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
188 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
191 %destructor {} symbol2
196 *** Useless destructors or printers
198 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
199 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
200 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
201 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
203 %token <type1> token1
207 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
208 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
212 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
213 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
217 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
219 compare the previous version of bison:
222 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
223 $ bison -Werror foo.y
224 bison: warnings being treated as errors
225 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
227 with the new behavior:
230 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
231 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
232 $ bison -Werror foo.y
233 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
234 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
236 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
241 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
246 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
247 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
248 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
253 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
254 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
256 ** Incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
258 The 'yacc' category is no longer part of '-Wall', enable it explicitly
261 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
263 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
264 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
265 or more arguments. Instead of
267 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
268 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
269 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
270 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
274 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
276 ** Types of values for %define variables
278 Bison used to make no difference between '%define foo bar' and '%define
279 foo "bar"'. The former is now called a 'keyword value', and the latter a
280 'string value'. A third kind was added: 'code values', such as '%define
283 Keyword variables are used for fixed value sets, e.g.,
287 Code variables are used for value in the target language, e.g.,
289 %define api.value.type {struct semantic_type}
291 String variables are used remaining cases, e.g. file names.
293 ** Variable api.token.prefix
295 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
296 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
297 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
299 %token FILE for ERROR
300 %define api.token.prefix {TOK_}
302 start: FILE for ERROR;
304 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
305 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
306 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
307 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
309 ** Variable api.value.type
311 This new %define variable supersedes the #define macro YYSTYPE. The use
312 of YYSTYPE is discouraged. In particular, #defining YYSTYPE *and* either
313 using %union or %defining api.value.type results in undefined behavior.
315 Either define api.value.type, or use "%union":
322 %token <ival> INT "integer"
323 %token <sval> STRING "string"
324 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <ival>
325 %destructor { free ($$); } <sval>
328 yylval.ival = 42; return INT;
329 yylval.sval = "42"; return STRING;
331 The %define variable api.value.type supports both keyword and code values.
333 The keyword value 'union' means that the user provides genuine types, not
334 union member names such as "ival" and "sval" above (WARNING: will fail if
335 -y/--yacc/%yacc is enabled).
337 %define api.value.type union
338 %token <int> INT "integer"
339 %token <char *> STRING "string"
340 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <int>
341 %destructor { free ($$); } <char *>
344 yylval.INT = 42; return INT;
345 yylval.STRING = "42"; return STRING;
347 The keyword value variant is somewhat equivalent, but for C++ special
348 provision is made to allow classes to be used (more about this below).
350 %define api.value.type variant
351 %token <int> INT "integer"
352 %token <std::string> STRING "string"
354 Code values (in braces) denote user defined types. This is where YYSTYPE
372 %define api.value.type {struct my_value}
373 %token <u.ival> INT "integer"
374 %token <u.sval> STRING "string"
375 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "%d", $$); } <u.ival>
376 %destructor { free ($$); } <u.sval>
379 yylval.u.ival = 42; return INT;
380 yylval.u.sval = "42"; return STRING;
382 ** Variable parse.error
384 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
385 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
388 ** Renamed %define variables
390 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
391 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
393 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
394 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
395 namespace -> api.namespace
396 stype -> api.value.type
398 ** Semantic predicates
400 Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
402 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
403 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
404 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
405 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
406 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
409 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
411 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
412 reduce/reduce conflicts.
414 ** Tokens are numbered in their order of appearance
416 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
418 With '%token A B', A had a number less than the one of B. However,
419 precedence declarations used to generate a reversed order. This is now
420 fixed, and introducing tokens with any of %token, %left, %right,
421 %precedence, or %nonassoc yields the same result.
423 When mixing declarations of tokens with a litteral character (e.g., 'a')
424 or with an identifier (e.g., B) in a precedence declaration, Bison
425 numbered the litteral characters first. For example
429 would lead to the tokens declared in this order: 'c' 'd' A B. Again, the
430 input order is now preserved.
432 These changes were made so that one can remove useless precedence and
433 associativity declarations (i.e., map %nonassoc, %left or %right to
434 %precedence, or to %token) and get exactly the same output.
436 ** Useless precedence and associativity
438 Contributed by Valentin Tolmer.
440 When developing and maintaining a grammar, useless associativity and
441 precedence directives are common. They can be a nuisance: new ambiguities
442 arising are sometimes masked because their conflicts are resolved due to
443 the extra precedence or associativity information. Furthermore, it can
444 hinder the comprehension of a new grammar: one will wonder about the role
445 of a precedence, where in fact it is useless. The following changes aim
446 at detecting and reporting these extra directives.
448 *** Precedence warning category
450 A new category of warning, -Wprecedence, was introduced. It flags the
451 useless precedence and associativity directives.
453 *** Useless associativity
455 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared associativity that is never
456 used to resolve conflicts. In that case, using %precedence is sufficient;
457 the parsing tables will remain unchanged. Solving these warnings may raise
458 useless precedence warnings, as the symbols no longer have associativity.
472 warning: useless associativity for '+', use %precedence [-Wprecedence]
476 *** Useless precedence
478 Bison now warns about symbols with a declared precedence and no declared
479 associativity (i.e., declared with %precedence), and whose precedence is
480 never used. In that case, the symbol can be safely declared with %token
481 instead, without modifying the parsing tables. For example:
485 exp: "var" '=' "number";
489 warning: useless precedence for '=' [-Wprecedence]
493 *** Useless precedence and associativity
495 In case of both useless precedence and associativity, the issue is flagged
500 exp: "var" '=' "number";
504 warning: useless precedence and associativity for '=' [-Wprecedence]
510 With help from Joel E. Denny and Gabriel Rassoul.
512 Empty rules (i.e., with an empty right-hand side) can now be explicitly
513 marked by the new %empty directive. Using %empty on a non-empty rule is
514 an error. The new -Wempty-rule warning reports empty rules without
515 %empty. On the following grammar:
525 3.4-5: warning: empty rule without %empty [-Wempty-rule]
528 5.8-13: error: %empty on non-empty rule
532 ** Java skeleton improvements
534 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
535 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
536 and "%define init_throws".
537 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
539 The Java skeleton now supports push parsing.
540 Contributed by Dennis Heimbigner.
542 ** C++ skeletons improvements
544 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
546 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
547 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
548 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
550 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
552 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
554 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
556 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
557 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
558 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
559 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
560 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
561 factory invoked by the user actions).
563 *** %define api.value.type variant
565 This is based on a submission from Michiel De Wilde. With help
566 from Théophile Ranquet.
568 In this mode, complex C++ objects can be used as semantic values. For
571 %token <::std::string> TEXT;
574 %type <::std::string> item;
575 %type <::std::list<std::string>> list;
578 list { std::cout << $1 << std::endl; }
582 %empty { /* Generates an empty string list. */ }
583 | list item ";" { std::swap ($$, $1); $$.push_back ($2); }
587 TEXT { std::swap ($$, $1); }
588 | NUMBER { $$ = string_cast ($1); }
591 *** %define api.token.constructor
593 When variants are enabled, Bison can generate functions to build the
594 tokens. This guarantees that the token type (e.g., NUMBER) is consistent
595 with the semantic value (e.g., int):
597 parser::symbol_type yylex ()
599 parser::location_type loc = ...;
601 return parser::make_TEXT ("Hello, world!", loc);
603 return parser::make_NUMBER (42, loc);
605 return parser::make_SEMICOLON (loc);
611 There are operator- and operator-= for 'location'. Negative line/column
612 increments can no longer underflow the resulting value.
614 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7.1 (2013-04-15) [stable]
618 *** Fix compiler attribute portability (yacc.c)
620 With locations enabled, __attribute__ was used unprotected.
622 *** Fix some compiler warnings (lalr1.cc)
624 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.7 (2012-12-12) [stable]
628 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
630 Restored C90 compliance (yet no report was ever made).
632 ** Diagnostics are improved
634 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
636 *** Changes in the format of error messages
638 This used to be the format of many error reports:
640 input.y:2.7-12: %type redeclaration for exp
641 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
645 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
646 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
648 *** New format for error reports: carets
650 Caret errors have been added to Bison:
652 input.y:2.7-12: error: %type redeclaration for exp
655 input.y:1.7-12: previous declaration
661 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
662 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
664 input.y:3.1-3: refers to: $exp at $$
665 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
667 input.y:3.6-8: refers to: $exp at $1
668 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
670 input.y:3.14-16: refers to: $exp at $3
671 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $3; };
674 The default behavior for now is still not to display these unless
675 explicitly asked with -fcaret (or -fall). However, in a later release, it
676 will be made the default behavior (but may still be deactivated with
679 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
681 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
682 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser
683 resulted in a yyerror function that did not take a location as a
684 parameter. With this new value, the user may request a better pure parser,
685 where yyerror does take a location as a parameter (in location-tracking
688 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
689 "%define api.pure full".
691 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
693 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
694 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
695 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
696 then responsible to define her type.
698 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
699 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
702 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
703 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
706 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
707 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
710 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
712 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
713 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
714 before re-throwing the exception.
716 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
719 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
721 Contributed by Théophile Ranquet.
723 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
724 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
725 numbered and left-justified.
727 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
728 diamond shaped nodes.
730 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
731 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
733 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
735 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The
736 --language option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
740 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
741 have been fixed and extended.
743 Although introduced more than four years ago, XML and Graphviz reports
744 were not properly documented.
746 The translation of mid-rule actions is now described.
748 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
750 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
751 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
752 reporting them to us.
756 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
757 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
760 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
762 Null characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
764 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
765 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
767 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
769 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
771 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
775 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
777 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
778 users to the appropriate place to report them.
780 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
782 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
783 generated, are removed.
785 All the generated headers are self-contained.
787 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
789 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
790 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
791 For instance the header generated from
793 %define api.prefix "calc"
794 %defines "lib/parse.h"
796 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
798 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
800 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
803 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
804 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
805 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
809 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
811 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
812 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
815 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
819 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
820 suite have been fixed.
822 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
824 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
825 invalid C++. This is fixed.
827 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
829 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
831 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
833 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
837 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
838 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
839 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
841 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
845 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
849 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
851 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
853 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
855 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
856 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
859 ** Type names in actions
861 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
862 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
864 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
866 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
867 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
869 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
873 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
874 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
878 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
879 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
882 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
884 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
887 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
888 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
890 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
893 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
895 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
896 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
897 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
898 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
901 ** Generated Parser Headers
903 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
905 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
906 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
911 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
913 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
915 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
916 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
918 int bar_parse (void);
922 #define yyparse bar_parse
925 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
926 single compilation unit.
928 *** Exported symbols in C++
930 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
931 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
932 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
936 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
939 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
941 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
942 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
943 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
944 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
945 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
946 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
947 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
949 The following examples compares both:
951 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
952 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
953 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
959 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
960 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
962 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
963 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
964 > # if defined YYDEBUG
966 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
968 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
971 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
975 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
976 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
979 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
980 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
981 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
982 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
987 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
988 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
989 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
992 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
993 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
996 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
998 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
1000 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
1002 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
1006 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
1008 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
1010 ** glr.c improvements:
1012 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
1014 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
1015 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
1017 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
1019 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
1020 when -std is passed to GCC).
1022 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
1024 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
1025 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
1029 *** C++11 compatibility:
1031 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
1036 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
1037 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
1039 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
1040 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
1042 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
1044 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
1045 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
1046 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
1048 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
1050 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1051 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1053 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
1057 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
1058 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
1059 documentation were fixed.
1061 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
1063 ** Changes in the manual:
1065 *** %printer is documented
1067 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
1068 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
1070 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
1071 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
1073 *** Several improvements have been made:
1075 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
1076 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
1077 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
1078 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
1082 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
1084 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
1085 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
1087 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
1089 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
1091 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
1092 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
1094 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
1096 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
1097 halts in the middle of its course.
1099 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
1101 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
1103 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
1104 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
1105 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
1106 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
1107 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
1109 ** Named references:
1111 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
1112 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
1115 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
1116 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
1117 as named references:
1119 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
1120 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
1122 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
1124 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
1125 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
1127 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
1128 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
1129 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
1131 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
1132 will help to stabilize them.
1133 Contributed by Alex Rozenman.
1135 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
1137 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
1138 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
1139 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
1140 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
1141 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
1142 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
1143 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
1144 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
1145 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
1147 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
1148 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
1149 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
1150 file with these directives:
1152 %define lr.type lalr
1153 %define lr.type ielr
1154 %define lr.type canonical-lr
1156 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
1157 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
1158 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
1161 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1164 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling
1166 Contributed by Joel E. Denny.
1168 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
1169 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
1170 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
1171 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
1172 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
1173 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
1174 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
1175 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
1176 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
1177 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
1180 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
1181 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
1182 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
1183 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
1184 inconsistent states.
1186 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
1187 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
1188 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
1189 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
1190 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
1191 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
1192 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
1193 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
1196 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
1197 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
1199 %define parse.lac full
1201 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
1202 details including a few caveats.
1204 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
1207 ** %define improvements:
1209 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
1211 Each of these command-line options
1214 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
1217 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
1219 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
1221 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
1223 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
1224 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
1225 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
1226 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
1228 *** Variables renamed:
1230 The following %define variables
1233 lr.keep_unreachable_states
1235 have been renamed to
1238 lr.keep-unreachable-states
1240 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
1241 for backward compatibility.
1243 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
1245 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
1246 within quotations marks. For example,
1248 %define api.push-pull "push"
1252 %define api.push-pull push
1254 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
1256 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
1258 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
1260 ** Character literals not of length one:
1262 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
1263 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
1264 the following grammar to be the same token:
1270 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
1271 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
1273 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
1275 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
1276 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
1277 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
1278 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
1280 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
1282 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
1283 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
1284 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
1285 and "last" members, instead of
1287 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1291 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
1292 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
1296 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
1302 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
1306 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
1307 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
1311 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
1315 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
1317 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
1318 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
1319 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
1320 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
1322 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
1324 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1325 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
1326 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
1327 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
1328 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
1329 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
1330 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
1331 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
1333 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
1335 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
1336 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
1337 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
1338 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
1340 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1344 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1346 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
1347 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
1348 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
1349 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
1350 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
1351 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
1352 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
1354 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
1356 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1357 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
1358 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
1359 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
1360 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
1362 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
1363 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
1364 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
1365 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
1366 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
1367 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
1368 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
1369 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
1370 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
1371 shifted or discarded.
1373 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
1374 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
1375 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
1376 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
1378 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
1379 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
1380 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
1381 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
1382 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
1383 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
1384 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
1385 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
1386 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
1387 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
1388 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
1389 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
1392 ** Java skeleton fixes:
1394 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
1396 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
1397 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
1399 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
1401 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
1403 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
1405 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
1406 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1408 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
1410 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
1412 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1413 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1414 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1415 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1418 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1419 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1420 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1421 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1423 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1424 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1425 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1426 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1428 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1430 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1431 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1433 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1435 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1437 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1438 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1439 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1440 suppress all warnings:
1444 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1446 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1447 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1448 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1452 This bug has been fixed.
1454 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1456 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1457 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1459 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1462 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1464 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1467 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1468 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1469 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1470 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1472 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1474 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1476 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1477 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1478 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1479 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1482 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1484 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1485 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1486 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1487 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1488 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1489 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1490 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1491 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1492 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1494 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1496 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1497 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1500 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1502 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1506 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1507 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1510 %code requires {CODE}
1511 %code provides {CODE}
1514 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1515 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1516 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1517 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1518 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1520 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1521 is still considered experimental.
1523 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1525 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1526 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1527 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1528 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1529 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1532 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1533 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1534 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1535 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1536 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1537 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1538 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1540 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1542 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1543 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1544 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1545 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1546 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1547 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1548 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1549 be removed altogether.
1551 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1552 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1553 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1554 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1555 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1556 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1557 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1558 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1559 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1560 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1562 ** Internationalization.
1564 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1565 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1568 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1570 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1571 declarations have been fixed.
1573 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1575 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1576 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1578 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1582 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1584 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1585 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1586 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1587 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1588 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1591 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1593 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1595 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1597 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1598 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1599 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1600 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1603 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1605 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1608 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1610 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1613 %define NAME "VALUE"
1615 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1619 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1620 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1624 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1625 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1626 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1627 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1628 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1630 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1631 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1633 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1635 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1636 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1638 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1639 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1640 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1644 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1645 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1646 %skeleton to select it.
1648 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1650 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1651 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1652 Contributed by Paolo Bonzini.
1656 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1657 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1658 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1659 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1661 ** XML Automaton Report
1663 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1664 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1665 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1666 Contributed by Wojciech Polak.
1668 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1669 %defines. For example:
1673 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1674 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1675 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1676 instead of "unused".
1678 ** Unreachable State Removal
1680 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1681 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1682 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1684 1. Removes unreachable states.
1686 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1687 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1688 directives in existing grammar files.
1690 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1691 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1693 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1695 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1697 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1698 for further discussion.
1700 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1702 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1703 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1704 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1705 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1706 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1707 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1708 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1711 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1714 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1717 %file-prefix "parser"
1721 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1723 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1724 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1725 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1726 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1729 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1730 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1731 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1732 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1734 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1735 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1736 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1737 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1739 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1740 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1742 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1744 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1745 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1748 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1750 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1751 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1753 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1755 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1756 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1757 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1759 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1760 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1762 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1764 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1767 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1768 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1769 declared semantic type tags.
1771 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1772 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1775 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1776 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1777 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1778 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1780 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1781 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1784 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1787 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1788 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1789 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1791 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1792 completely removed from Bison.
1794 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1796 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1797 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1798 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1799 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1800 and is required by POSIX.
1802 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1803 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1805 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1809 %union { char *string; }
1810 %token <string> STRING1
1811 %token <string> STRING2
1812 %type <string> string1
1813 %type <string> string2
1814 %union { char character; }
1815 %token <character> CHR
1816 %type <character> chr
1817 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1818 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1819 %destructor { } <character>
1821 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1822 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1823 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1824 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1825 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1827 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1828 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1831 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1832 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1833 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1834 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1835 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1837 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1838 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1840 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1841 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1842 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1843 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1844 declared after the first %union.
1846 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1847 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1848 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1849 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1850 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1851 after the token definitions.
1853 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1854 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1856 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1857 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1860 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1861 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1862 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1866 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1867 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1868 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1869 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1870 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1873 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1874 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1875 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1876 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1879 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1880 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1881 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1884 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1885 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1886 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1887 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1891 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1892 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1893 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1894 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1895 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1898 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1899 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1901 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1902 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1904 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1905 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1906 in a future release.
1908 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1910 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1911 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1913 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1914 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1916 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1918 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1919 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1920 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1922 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1924 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1926 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1927 their contents together.
1929 ** New warning: unused values
1930 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1931 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1933 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1937 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1938 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1939 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1941 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1942 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1944 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1947 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1948 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1949 values are used, e.g.:
1951 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1952 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1955 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1956 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1958 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1960 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1961 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1963 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1964 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1965 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1966 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1968 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1969 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1970 instead of warnings.
1972 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1973 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1974 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1976 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1978 ** %require "VERSION"
1979 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1980 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1982 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1983 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1984 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1985 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1986 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1988 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1989 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1990 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1991 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1993 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1994 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1996 ** DJGPP support added.
1998 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
2000 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
2002 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
2003 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
2004 language is still English. For details, please see the new
2005 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
2006 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
2007 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
2009 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
2010 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
2011 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
2012 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
2014 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
2015 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
2016 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
2018 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
2019 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
2020 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
2021 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
2022 unexpected "number"'.
2024 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
2026 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
2028 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
2029 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
2030 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
2031 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
2032 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
2034 - Error token location.
2035 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
2036 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
2037 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
2038 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
2040 - Semicolon changes:
2041 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
2042 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
2044 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
2045 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
2046 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
2047 forget a closing quote.
2049 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
2053 - GLR grammars now support locations.
2055 - New directive: %initial-action.
2056 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
2057 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
2059 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
2060 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
2062 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
2063 This is a GNU extension.
2065 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
2066 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
2068 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
2070 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
2071 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
2075 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
2076 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
2077 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
2078 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
2079 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
2080 these violations will become errors again.
2082 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
2083 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
2085 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
2087 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
2089 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
2090 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
2092 ** syntax error processing
2094 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
2095 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
2098 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
2099 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
2102 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
2104 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
2105 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
2107 ** POSIX conformance
2109 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
2110 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
2111 compatibility with Yacc.
2113 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
2114 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
2115 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
2116 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
2119 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
2120 declared before use. C99 requires this.
2122 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
2123 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
2125 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
2126 output as "foo\\bar.y".
2128 - Yacc command and library now available
2129 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
2130 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
2131 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
2132 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
2134 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
2136 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
2137 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
2138 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
2140 ** Other compatibility issues
2142 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
2143 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
2144 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
2145 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
2146 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
2147 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
2149 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
2150 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
2152 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
2153 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
2155 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
2156 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
2157 withdrawn in a future release.
2162 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
2165 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
2166 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
2168 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
2169 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
2170 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
2173 - a single argument only can be added,
2174 - their types are weak (void *),
2175 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
2176 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
2178 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
2181 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
2182 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
2183 %parse-param {int *randomness}
2185 results in the following signatures:
2187 int yylex (int *nastiness);
2188 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2190 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
2192 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
2193 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
2195 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
2196 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
2197 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
2199 ** #line in output files
2200 - --no-line works properly.
2202 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
2203 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
2204 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
2205 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
2207 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
2209 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
2211 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
2214 Fix spurious parse errors.
2217 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
2218 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
2221 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
2222 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
2226 but the converse remains an error:
2230 ** Values of mid-rule actions
2233 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
2235 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
2236 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
2238 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
2243 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
2244 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
2245 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
2246 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
2248 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
2249 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
2252 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
2253 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
2254 now creates "bar.c".
2257 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
2258 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
2260 ** Unknown token numbers
2261 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
2265 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
2266 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
2267 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
2268 will be mapped onto another number.
2270 ** Verbose error messages
2271 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
2272 error recovery is possible.
2275 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
2277 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
2278 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
2279 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
2280 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
2281 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
2282 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
2283 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
2284 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
2285 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
2288 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
2291 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
2292 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
2293 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
2294 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
2296 ** Explicit initial rule
2297 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
2298 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
2302 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
2303 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
2305 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
2306 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
2308 ** Rules never reduced
2309 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
2312 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
2313 On a grammar such as
2315 %token useless useful
2317 exp: '0' %prec useful;
2319 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
2320 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
2322 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
2323 as they caused too many portability hassles.
2325 ** Default locations
2326 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
2327 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
2328 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
2329 the computation of @$.
2331 ** Token end-of-file
2332 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
2333 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
2334 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
2338 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
2341 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
2344 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
2345 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
2347 ** Incorrect token definitions
2350 bison used to output
2353 ** Token definitions as enums
2354 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
2355 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
2356 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
2359 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
2360 produces additional information:
2362 complete the core item sets with their closure
2363 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
2364 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
2366 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
2367 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
2368 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
2371 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
2372 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
2380 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
2382 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
2385 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
2386 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
2387 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
2389 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
2390 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
2391 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
2392 kludge will be disabled.
2394 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
2397 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
2399 ** File name clashes are detected
2400 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
2401 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
2403 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
2404 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
2405 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
2406 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
2407 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
2408 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
2410 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
2411 many portability hassles.
2413 ** DJGPP support added.
2415 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2417 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2420 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2421 under some conditions.
2426 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2428 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2430 ** Portability fixes
2432 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2434 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2438 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2439 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2440 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2441 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2442 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2444 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2445 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2446 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2448 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2451 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2453 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2454 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2457 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2458 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2459 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2461 ** Better C++ compliance
2462 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2463 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2466 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2469 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2472 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2475 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2478 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2480 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2482 ** Swedish translation
2485 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2486 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2487 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2489 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2490 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2491 previous allocations were not freed.
2493 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2494 Some newlines were missing.
2495 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2497 ** Fixed conflict report.
2498 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2502 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2504 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2506 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2508 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2510 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2511 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2513 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2515 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2519 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2521 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2523 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2524 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2527 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2530 ** Portability fixes.
2532 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2534 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2535 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2536 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2537 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2539 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2541 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2543 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2545 ** Russian translation added.
2547 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2549 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2551 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2553 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2555 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2557 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2558 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2561 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2562 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2565 Automatic location tracking.
2567 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2569 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2573 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2575 ** There is now a FAQ.
2577 * Changes in version 1.27:
2579 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2580 some systems has been fixed.
2582 * Changes in version 1.26:
2584 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2586 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2588 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2590 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2592 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2594 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2596 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2597 not provide alloca().
2599 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2601 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2602 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2604 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2605 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2606 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2608 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2609 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2610 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2613 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2614 directives in the parser file.
2616 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2617 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2619 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2620 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2621 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2622 a switch statement body.
2624 * Changes in version 1.23:
2626 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2627 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2628 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2629 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2631 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2633 * Changes in version 1.22:
2635 --help option added.
2637 * Changes in version 1.20:
2639 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2643 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2645 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2647 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2648 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2649 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2650 (at your option) any later version.
2652 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2653 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2654 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2655 GNU General Public License for more details.
2657 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2658 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2660 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2661 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2662 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2663 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2664 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2665 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2666 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2667 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2668 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2669 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2670 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2671 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2672 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2673 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2674 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2675 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2676 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2677 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2678 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts parsers yystackp yyval yynerrs
2679 LocalWords: Théophile Ranquet Santet fno fnone stype associativity Tolmer
2680 LocalWords: Wprecedence Rassoul Wempty Paolo Bonzini parser's Michiel loc
2681 LocalWords: redeclaration sval fcaret reentrant XSLT xsl Wmaybe yyvsp Tedi
2682 LocalWords: pragmas noreturn untyped Rozenman unexpanded Wojciech Polak
2683 LocalWords: Alexandre MERCHANTABILITY yytype