3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
7 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
9 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
11 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The --language
12 option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
14 ** New format for error reports: carets
16 Caret errors have been added to Bison, for example (taken from the
19 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
20 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $2; };
23 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless explictly
24 asked with -fall of -fcaret. However, in a later release, it will be made the
25 default behavior (but may still be deactivated with -fno-caret).
27 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
29 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
30 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser resulted
31 in an yyerror function that did not take a location as a parameter. With this
32 new value, the user may request a better pure parser, where yyerror does take
33 a location as a parameter (in location-tracking parsers).
35 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
36 "%define api.pure full".
38 ** Changes in the format of error messages
40 This used to be the format of many error reports:
42 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
43 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
47 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
48 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
50 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
52 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
53 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
54 before re-throwing the exception.
56 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
59 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
61 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
62 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
63 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
64 then responsible to define her type.
66 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
67 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
70 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
71 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
74 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
75 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
78 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
80 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
81 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
82 numbered and left-justified.
84 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
87 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
88 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
90 Two nodes were added to the documentation: Xml and Graphviz.
94 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
95 have been fixed and extended.
97 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
99 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
100 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
101 reporting them to us.
105 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
106 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
109 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
111 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
113 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
114 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
116 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
118 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
120 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
124 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
126 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
127 users to the appropriate place to report them.
129 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
131 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
132 generated, are removed.
134 All the generated headers are self-contained.
136 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
138 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
139 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
140 For instance the header generated from
142 %define api.prefix "calc"
143 %defines "lib/parse.h"
145 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
147 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
149 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
152 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
153 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
154 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
158 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
160 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
161 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
164 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
168 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
169 suite have been fixed.
171 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
173 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
174 invalid C++. This is fixed.
176 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
178 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
180 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
182 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
186 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
187 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
188 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
190 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
194 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
198 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
200 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
202 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
204 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
205 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
208 ** Type names in actions
210 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
211 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
213 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
215 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
216 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
218 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
222 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
223 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
227 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
228 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
231 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
233 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
236 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
237 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
239 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
242 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
244 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
245 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
246 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
247 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
250 ** Generated Parser Headers
252 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
254 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
255 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
260 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
262 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
264 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
265 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
267 int bar_parse (void);
271 #define yyparse bar_parse
274 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
275 single compilation unit.
277 *** Exported symbols in C++
279 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
280 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
281 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
285 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
288 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
290 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
291 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
292 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
293 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
294 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
295 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
296 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
298 The following examples compares both:
300 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
301 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
302 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
308 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
309 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
311 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
312 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
313 > # if defined YYDEBUG
315 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
317 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
320 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
324 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
325 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
328 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
329 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
330 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
331 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
336 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
337 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
338 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
341 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
342 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
345 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
347 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
349 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
351 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
355 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
357 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
359 ** glr.c improvements:
361 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
363 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
364 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
366 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
368 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
369 when -std is passed to GCC).
371 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
373 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
374 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
378 *** C++11 compatibility:
380 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
385 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
386 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
388 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
389 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
391 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
393 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
394 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
395 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
397 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
399 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
400 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
402 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
406 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
407 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
408 documentation were fixed.
410 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
412 ** Changes in the manual:
414 *** %printer is documented
416 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
417 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
419 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
420 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
422 *** Several improvements have been made:
424 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
425 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
426 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
427 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
431 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
433 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
434 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
436 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
438 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
440 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
441 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
443 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
445 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
446 halts in the middle of its course.
448 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
450 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
452 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
453 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
454 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
455 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
456 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
460 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
461 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
464 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
465 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
468 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
469 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
471 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
473 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
474 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
476 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
477 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
478 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
480 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
481 will help to stabilize them.
483 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
485 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
486 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
487 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
488 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
489 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
490 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
491 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
492 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
493 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
495 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
496 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
497 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
498 file with these directives:
502 %define lr.type canonical-lr
504 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
505 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
506 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
509 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
512 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
514 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
515 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
516 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
517 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
518 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
519 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
520 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
521 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
522 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
523 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
526 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
527 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
528 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
529 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
532 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
533 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
534 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
535 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
536 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
537 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
538 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
539 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
542 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
543 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
545 %define parse.lac full
547 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
548 details including a few caveats.
550 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
553 ** %define improvements:
555 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
557 Each of these command-line options
560 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
563 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
565 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
567 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
569 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
570 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
571 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
572 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
574 *** Variables renamed:
576 The following %define variables
579 lr.keep_unreachable_states
584 lr.keep-unreachable-states
586 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
587 for backward compatibility.
589 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
591 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
592 within quotations marks. For example,
594 %define api.push-pull "push"
598 %define api.push-pull push
600 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
602 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
604 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
606 ** Character literals not of length one:
608 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
609 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
610 the following grammar to be the same token:
616 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
617 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
619 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
621 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
622 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
623 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
624 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
626 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
628 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
629 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
630 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
631 and "last" members, instead of
633 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
637 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
638 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
642 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
648 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
652 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
653 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
657 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
661 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
663 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
664 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
665 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
666 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
668 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
670 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
671 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
672 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
673 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
674 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
675 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
676 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
677 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
679 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
681 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
682 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
683 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
684 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
686 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
690 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
692 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
693 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
694 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
695 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
696 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
697 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
698 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
700 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
702 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
703 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
704 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
705 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
706 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
708 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
709 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
710 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
711 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
712 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
713 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
714 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
715 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
716 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
717 shifted or discarded.
719 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
720 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
721 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
722 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
724 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
725 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
726 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
727 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
728 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
729 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
730 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
731 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
732 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
733 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
734 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
735 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
738 ** Java skeleton fixes:
740 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
742 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
743 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
745 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
747 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
749 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
751 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
752 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
754 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
756 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
758 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
759 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
760 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
761 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
764 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
765 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
766 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
767 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
769 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
770 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
771 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
772 then have no effect on the conflict report.
774 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
776 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
777 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
779 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
781 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
783 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
784 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
785 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
786 suppress all warnings:
790 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
792 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
793 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
794 produced an assertion failure. For example:
798 This bug has been fixed.
800 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
802 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
803 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
805 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
808 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
810 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
813 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
814 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
815 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
816 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
818 ** Minor documentation fixes.
820 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
822 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
823 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
824 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
825 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
828 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
830 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
831 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
832 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
833 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
834 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
835 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
836 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
837 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
838 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
840 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
842 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
843 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
846 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
848 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
852 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
853 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
856 %code requires {CODE}
857 %code provides {CODE}
860 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
861 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
862 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
863 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
864 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
866 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
867 is still considered experimental.
869 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
871 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
872 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
873 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
874 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
875 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
878 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
879 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
880 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
881 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
882 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
883 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
884 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
886 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
888 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
889 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
890 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
891 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
892 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
893 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
894 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
895 be removed altogether.
897 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
898 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
899 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
900 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
901 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
902 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
903 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
904 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
905 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
906 2.4.2 is not necessary.
908 ** Internationalization.
910 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
911 message translations were not installed although supported by the
914 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
916 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
917 declarations have been fixed.
919 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
921 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
922 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
924 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
928 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
930 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
931 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
932 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
933 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
934 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
937 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
939 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
941 ** %language is an experimental feature.
943 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
944 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
945 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
946 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
949 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
951 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
954 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
956 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
961 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
965 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
966 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
970 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
971 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
972 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
973 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
974 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
976 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
977 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
979 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
981 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
982 feedback will help to stabilize it.
984 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
985 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
986 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
990 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
991 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
992 %skeleton to select it.
994 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
996 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
997 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1001 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1002 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1003 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1004 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1006 ** XML Automaton Report
1008 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1009 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1010 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1012 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1013 %defines. For example:
1017 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1018 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1019 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1020 instead of "unused".
1022 ** Unreachable State Removal
1024 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1025 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1026 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1028 1. Removes unreachable states.
1030 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1031 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1032 directives in existing grammar files.
1034 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1035 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1037 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1039 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1041 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1042 for further discussion.
1044 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1046 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1047 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1048 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1049 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1050 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1051 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1052 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1055 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1058 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1061 %file-prefix "parser"
1065 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1067 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1068 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1069 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1070 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1073 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1074 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1075 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1076 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1078 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1079 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1080 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1081 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1083 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1084 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1086 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1088 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1089 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1092 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1094 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1095 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1097 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1099 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1100 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1101 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1103 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1104 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1106 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1108 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1111 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1112 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1113 declared semantic type tags.
1115 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1116 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1119 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1120 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1121 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1122 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1124 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1125 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1128 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1131 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1132 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1133 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1135 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1136 completely removed from Bison.
1138 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1140 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1141 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1142 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1143 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1144 and is required by POSIX.
1146 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1147 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1149 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1153 %union { char *string; }
1154 %token <string> STRING1
1155 %token <string> STRING2
1156 %type <string> string1
1157 %type <string> string2
1158 %union { char character; }
1159 %token <character> CHR
1160 %type <character> chr
1161 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1162 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1163 %destructor { } <character>
1165 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1166 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1167 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1168 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1169 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1171 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1172 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1175 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1176 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1177 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1178 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1179 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1181 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1182 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1184 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1185 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1186 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1187 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1188 declared after the first %union.
1190 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1191 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1192 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1193 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1194 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1195 after the token definitions.
1197 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1198 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1200 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1201 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1204 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1205 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1206 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1210 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1211 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1212 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1213 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1214 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1217 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1218 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1219 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1220 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1223 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1224 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1225 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1228 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1229 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1230 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1231 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1235 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1236 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1237 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1238 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1239 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1242 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1243 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1245 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1246 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1248 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1249 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1250 in a future release.
1252 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1254 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1255 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1257 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1258 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1260 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1262 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1263 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1264 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1266 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1268 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1270 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1271 their contents together.
1273 ** New warning: unused values
1274 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1275 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1277 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1281 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1282 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1283 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1285 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1286 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1288 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1291 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1292 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1293 values are used, e.g.:
1295 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1296 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1299 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1300 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1302 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1304 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1305 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1307 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1308 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1309 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1310 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1312 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1313 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1314 instead of warnings.
1316 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1317 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1318 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1320 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1322 ** %require "VERSION"
1323 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1324 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1326 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1327 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1328 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1329 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1330 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1332 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1333 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1334 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1335 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1337 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1338 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1340 ** DJGPP support added.
1342 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1344 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1346 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1347 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1348 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1349 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1350 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1351 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1353 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1354 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1355 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1356 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1358 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1359 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1360 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1362 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1363 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1364 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1365 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1366 unexpected "number"'.
1368 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1370 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1372 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1373 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1374 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1375 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1376 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1378 - Error token location.
1379 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1380 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1381 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1382 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1384 - Semicolon changes:
1385 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1386 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1388 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1389 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1390 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1391 forget a closing quote.
1393 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1397 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1399 - New directive: %initial-action.
1400 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1401 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1403 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1404 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1406 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1407 This is a GNU extension.
1409 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1410 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1412 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1414 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1415 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1419 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1420 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1421 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1422 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1423 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1424 these violations will become errors again.
1426 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1427 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1429 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1431 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1433 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1434 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1436 ** syntax error processing
1438 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1439 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1442 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1443 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1446 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1448 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1449 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1451 ** POSIX conformance
1453 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1454 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1455 compatibility with Yacc.
1457 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1458 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1459 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1460 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1463 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1464 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1466 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1467 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1469 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1470 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1472 - Yacc command and library now available
1473 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1474 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1475 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1476 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1478 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1480 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1481 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1482 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1484 ** Other compatibility issues
1486 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1487 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1488 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1489 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1490 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1491 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1493 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1494 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1496 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1497 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1499 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1500 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1501 withdrawn in a future release.
1506 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1509 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1510 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1512 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1513 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1514 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1517 - a single argument only can be added,
1518 - their types are weak (void *),
1519 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1520 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1522 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1525 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1526 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1527 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1529 results in the following signatures:
1531 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1532 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1534 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1536 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1537 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1539 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1540 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1541 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1543 ** #line in output files
1544 - --no-line works properly.
1546 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1547 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1548 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1549 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1551 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1553 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1555 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1558 Fix spurious parse errors.
1561 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1562 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1565 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1566 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1570 but the converse remains an error:
1574 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1577 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1579 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1580 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1582 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1587 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1588 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1589 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1590 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1592 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1593 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1596 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1597 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1598 now creates "bar.c".
1601 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1602 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1604 ** Unknown token numbers
1605 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1609 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1610 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1611 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1612 will be mapped onto another number.
1614 ** Verbose error messages
1615 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1616 error recovery is possible.
1619 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1621 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1622 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1623 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1624 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1625 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1626 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1627 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1628 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1629 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1632 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1635 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1636 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1637 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1638 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1640 ** Explicit initial rule
1641 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1642 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1646 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1647 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1649 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1650 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1652 ** Rules never reduced
1653 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1656 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1657 On a grammar such as
1659 %token useless useful
1661 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1663 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1664 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1666 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1667 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1669 ** Default locations
1670 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1671 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1672 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1673 the computation of @$.
1675 ** Token end-of-file
1676 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1677 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1678 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1682 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1685 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1688 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1689 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1691 ** Incorrect token definitions
1694 bison used to output
1697 ** Token definitions as enums
1698 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1699 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1700 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1703 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1704 produces additional information:
1706 complete the core item sets with their closure
1707 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1708 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1710 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1711 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1712 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1715 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1716 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1724 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1726 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1729 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1730 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1731 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1733 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1734 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1735 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1736 kludge will be disabled.
1738 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1741 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1743 ** File name clashes are detected
1744 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1745 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1747 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1748 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1749 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1750 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1751 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1752 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1754 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1755 many portability hassles.
1757 ** DJGPP support added.
1759 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1761 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1764 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1765 under some conditions.
1770 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1772 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1774 ** Portability fixes
1776 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1778 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1782 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1783 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1784 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1785 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1786 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1788 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1789 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1790 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1792 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1795 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1797 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1798 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1801 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1802 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1803 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1805 ** Better C++ compliance
1806 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1807 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1810 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1813 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1816 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1819 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1822 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1824 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1826 ** Swedish translation
1829 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1830 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1831 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1833 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1834 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1835 previous allocations were not freed.
1837 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1838 Some newlines were missing.
1839 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1841 ** Fixed conflict report.
1842 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1846 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1848 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1850 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1852 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1854 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1855 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1857 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1859 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1863 New, aliasing "--output-file".
1865 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1867 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
1868 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
1871 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
1874 ** Portability fixes.
1876 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1878 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1879 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1880 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1881 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1883 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
1885 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1887 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1889 ** Russian translation added.
1891 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1893 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1895 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
1897 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
1899 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
1901 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1902 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1905 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
1906 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
1909 Automatic location tracking.
1911 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1913 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1917 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1919 ** There is now a FAQ.
1921 * Changes in version 1.27:
1923 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1924 some systems has been fixed.
1926 * Changes in version 1.26:
1928 ** Bison now uses Automake.
1930 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1932 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1934 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1936 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1938 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1940 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1941 not provide alloca().
1943 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1945 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1946 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1948 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1949 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1950 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
1952 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1953 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1954 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1957 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1958 directives in the parser file.
1960 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1961 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1963 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1964 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1965 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1966 a switch statement body.
1968 * Changes in version 1.23:
1970 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1971 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1972 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1973 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1975 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1977 * Changes in version 1.22:
1979 --help option added.
1981 * Changes in version 1.20:
1983 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1987 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1989 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1991 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1992 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1993 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1994 (at your option) any later version.
1996 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1997 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1998 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1999 GNU General Public License for more details.
2001 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2002 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2004 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2005 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2006 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2007 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2008 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2009 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2010 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2011 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2012 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2013 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2014 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2015 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2016 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2017 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2018 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2019 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2020 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2021 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp calc yyo fval Wmaybe
2022 LocalWords: yyvsp pragmas noreturn java's