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1 Bison News
2 ----------
3
4 * Changes in version ?.? (????-??-??):
5
6 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
7
8 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
9 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives
10 support one or more arguments. Instead of
11
12 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
13 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
14 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
15 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
16
17 one may now declare
18
19 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
20
21 ** Java skeleton improvements
22
23 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface.
24 Also, it is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using
25 "%code init" and "%define init_throws".
26
27 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
28
29 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
30 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
31 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
32
33 %token FILE for ERROR
34 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
35 %%
36 start: FILE for ERROR;
37
38 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
39 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
40 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
41 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
42
43 ** Variable api.namespace
44
45 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
46 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
47
48 ** Variable parse.error
49
50 The variable error controls the verbosity of error messages. The
51 use of the %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of
52 %define parse.error "verbose".
53
54 ** Semantic predicates
55
56 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of
57 the form %?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }, which cause syntax errors (as for
58 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
59 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they
60 allow the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of
61 runtime expressions.
62
63 * Changes in version 2.5 (????-??-??):
64
65 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
66
67 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
68 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
69 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
70 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
71 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
72
73 ** Named references:
74
75 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
76 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
77 actions code.
78
79 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
80 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
81 as named references:
82
83 if_stmt : 'if' cond_expr 'then' then_stmt ';'
84 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
85
86 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
87
88 stmt[res] : 'if' expr[cond] 'then' stmt[then] 'else' stmt[else] ';'
89 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
90
91 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
92 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
93 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
94
95 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
96 will help to stabilize them.
97
98 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
99
100 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
101 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
102 with the full language recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
103 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
104 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
105 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
106 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
107 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
108 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
109
110 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
111 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
112 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
113 file with these directives:
114
115 %define lr.type lalr
116 %define lr.type ielr
117 %define lr.type canonical-lr
118
119 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
120 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. For details on both
121 of these features, see the new section `Tuning LR' in the Bison
122 manual.
123
124 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
125 stabilize them.
126
127 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
128
129 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
130 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
131 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
132 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
133 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
134 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
135 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
136 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
137 obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'), the expected token list in the
138 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
139 tokens.
140
141 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
142 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
143 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
144 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
145 inconsistent states.
146
147 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
148 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
149 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
150 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
151 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
152 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
153 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
154 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
155 power.
156
157 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
158 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
159
160 %define parse.lac full
161
162 See the new section `LAC' in the Bison manual for additional
163 details including a few caveats.
164
165 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
166 stabilize it.
167
168 ** %define improvements:
169
170 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
171
172 Each of these command-line options
173
174 -D NAME[=VALUE]
175 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
176
177 -F NAME[=VALUE]
178 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
179
180 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
181
182 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
183
184 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
185 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
186 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
187 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
188
189 *** Variables renamed:
190
191 The following %define variables
192
193 api.push_pull
194 lr.keep_unreachable_states
195
196 have been renamed to
197
198 api.push-pull
199 lr.keep-unreachable-states
200
201 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
202 for backward compatibility.
203
204 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in grammar file:
205
206 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
207 within quotations marks. For example,
208
209 %define api.push-pull "push"
210
211 can be rewritten as
212
213 %define api.push-pull push
214
215 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
216
217 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
218
219 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
220
221 ** Character literals not of length one:
222
223 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
224 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
225 the following grammar to be the same token:
226
227 exp: exp '++'
228 | exp '+' exp
229 ;
230
231 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
232 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
233
234 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
235
236 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
237 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
238 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
239 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
240
241 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
242
243 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
244 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
245 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
246 and "last" members, instead of
247
248 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
249 do \
250 if (N) \
251 { \
252 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
253 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
254 } \
255 else \
256 { \
257 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
258 } \
259 while (false)
260
261 use:
262
263 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
264 do \
265 if (N) \
266 { \
267 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
268 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
269 } \
270 else \
271 { \
272 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
273 } \
274 while (false)
275
276 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
277
278 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
279 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
280 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
281 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
282
283 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
284
285 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
286 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
287 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
288 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
289 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
290 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
291 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
292 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
293
294 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
295
296 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
297 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
298 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
299 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
300
301 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
302
303 instead of
304
305 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
306
307 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
308 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
309 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
310 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
311 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
312 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
313 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
314
315 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
316
317 When %error-verbose or the obsolete `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
318 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
319 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
320 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
321 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
322
323 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
324 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
325 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
326 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
327 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
328 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
329 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
330 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
331 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
332 shifted or discarded.
333
334 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
335 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
336 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
337 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
338
339 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
340 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
341 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
342 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
343 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
344 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
345 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
346 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
347 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
348 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
349 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
350 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
351 by default.
352
353 ** Java skeleton fixes:
354
355 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
356
357 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
358 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
359
360 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
361
362 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
363
364 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
365
366 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
367 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
368
369 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
370
371 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
372
373 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
374 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
375
376 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
377
378 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings.
379
380 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
381 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
382 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
383 suppress all warnings:
384
385 bison -Wnone gram.y
386
387 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
388
389 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
390 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
391
392 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
393 been fixed.
394
395 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
396
397 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
398 been fixed.
399
400 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
401 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
402 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
403 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
404
405 ** Minor documentation fixes.
406
407 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
408
409 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
410 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
411 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
412 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
413 affected platforms.
414
415 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
416
417 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
418 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
419 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
420 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
421 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
422 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
423 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
424 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
425 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
426
427 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
428
429 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
430 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
431 avoided.
432
433 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
434
435 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
436
437 %{CODE%}
438
439 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
440 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
441
442 %code {CODE}
443 %code requires {CODE}
444 %code provides {CODE}
445 %code top {CODE}
446
447 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
448 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
449 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
450 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
451 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
452
453 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
454 is still considered experimental.
455
456 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
457
458 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
459 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
460 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
461 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
462 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
463 specified by POSIX.
464
465 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
466 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
467 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
468 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
469 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
470 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
471 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
472
473 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
474
475 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
476 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
477 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
478 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
479 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
480 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
481 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
482 be removed altogether.
483
484 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
485 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
486 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
487 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
488 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
489 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
490 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
491 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
492 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
493 2.4.2 is not necessary.
494
495 ** Internationalization.
496
497 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
498 message translations were not installed although supported by the
499 host system.
500
501 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
502
503 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
504 declarations have been fixed.
505
506 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
507
508 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
509 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
510
511 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
512
513 instead of
514
515 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
516
517 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
518 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
519 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
520 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
521 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
522 feature.
523
524 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
525
526 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
527
528 ** %language is an experimental feature.
529
530 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
531 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
532 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
533 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
534 in future releases.
535
536 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
537
538 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
539 fixed.
540
541 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
542
543 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
544 are now deprecated:
545
546 %define NAME "VALUE"
547
548 ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
549
550 %define api.pure
551
552 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
553 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
554
555 ** Push Parsing
556
557 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
558 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
559 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
560 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
561 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
562
563 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
564 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
565
566 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
567
568 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
569 feedback will help to stabilize it.
570
571 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
572 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
573 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
574
575 ** Java
576
577 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
578 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
579 %skeleton to select it.
580
581 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
582
583 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
584 feedback will help to stabilize it.
585
586 ** %language
587
588 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
589 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
590 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
591 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
592
593 ** XML Automaton Report
594
595 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
596 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
597 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
598
599 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
600 %defines. For example:
601
602 %defines "parser.h"
603
604 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
605 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
606 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
607 instead of "unused".
608
609 ** Unreachable State Removal
610
611 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
612 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
613 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
614
615 1. Removes unreachable states.
616
617 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
618 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
619 directives in existing grammar files.
620
621 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
622 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
623
624 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
625
626 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
627
628 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
629 for further discussion.
630
631 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
632
633 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
634 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
635 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
636 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
637 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
638 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
639 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
640 code.
641
642 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
643 name.
644
645 ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
646 deprecated:
647
648 %file-prefix "parser"
649 %name-prefix "c_"
650 %output "parser.c"
651
652 ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
653
654 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
655 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
656 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
657 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
658 it:
659
660 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
661 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
662 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
663 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
664
665 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
666 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
667 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
668 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
669
670 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
671 determine whether they should become permanent features.
672
673 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
674
675 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
676 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
677 about unused $2 in:
678
679 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
680
681 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
682 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
683
684 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
685
686 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
687 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
688 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
689
690 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
691 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
692
693 ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
694
695 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
696 %printer's:
697
698 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
699 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
700 declared semantic type tags.
701
702 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
703 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
704 type tags.
705
706 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
707 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
708 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
709 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
710
711 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
712 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
713 features.
714
715 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
716 details.
717
718 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
719 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
720 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
721
722 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
723 completely removed from Bison.
724
725 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
726
727 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
728 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
729 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
730 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
731 and is required by POSIX.
732
733 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
734 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
735
736 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
737
738 For example:
739
740 %union { char *string; }
741 %token <string> STRING1
742 %token <string> STRING2
743 %type <string> string1
744 %type <string> string2
745 %union { char character; }
746 %token <character> CHR
747 %type <character> chr
748 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
749 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
750 %destructor { } <character>
751
752 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
753 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
754 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
755 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
756 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
757
758 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
759 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
760 future versions.]
761
762 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
763 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
764 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
765 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
766 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
767
768 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
769 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
770
771 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
772 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
773 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
774 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
775 declared after the first %union.
776
777 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
778 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
779 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
780 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
781 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
782 after the token definitions.
783
784 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
785 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
786
787 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
788 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
789 %after-header.
790
791 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
792 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
793 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
794 convenient for you:
795
796 %before-header {
797 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
798 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
799 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
800 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
801 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
802 }
803 %start-header {
804 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
805 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
806 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
807 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
808 }
809 %union {
810 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
811 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
812 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
813 }
814 %end-header {
815 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
816 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
817 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
818 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
819 * definitions. */
820 }
821 %after-header {
822 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
823 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
824 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
825 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
826 * Bison-generated definitions. */
827 }
828
829 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
830 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
831
832 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
833 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
834
835 ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
836 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
837 in a future release.
838
839 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
840
841 ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
842 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
843
844 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
845 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
846
847 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
848
849 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
850 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
851 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
852
853 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
854
855 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
856
857 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
858 their contents together.
859
860 ** New warning: unused values
861 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
862 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
863
864 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
865 | exp "+" exp
866 ;
867
868 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
869 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
870 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
871
872 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
873 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
874 | exp "+" exp
875 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
876 ;
877
878 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
879 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
880 values are used, e.g.:
881
882 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
883 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
884 ;
885
886 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
887 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
888
889 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
890
891 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
892 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
893
894 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
895 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
896 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
897 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
898
899 ** %expect, %expect-rr
900 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
901 instead of warnings.
902
903 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
904 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
905 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
906
907 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
908
909 ** %require "VERSION"
910 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
911 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
912
913 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
914 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
915 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
916 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
917 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
918
919 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
920 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
921 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
922 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
923
924 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
925 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
926
927 ** DJGPP support added.
928 \f
929 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
930
931 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
932
933 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
934 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
935 language is still English. For details, please see the new
936 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
937 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
938 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
939
940 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
941 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
942 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
943 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
944
945 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
946 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
947 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
948
949 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
950 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
951 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
952 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
953 unexpected "number"'.
954 \f
955 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
956
957 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
958
959 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
960 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
961 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
962 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
963 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
964
965 - Error token location.
966 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
967 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
968 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
969 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
970
971 - Semicolon changes:
972 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
973 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
974
975 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
976 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
977 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
978 forget a closing quote.
979
980 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
981
982 ** New features
983
984 - GLR grammars now support locations.
985
986 - New directive: %initial-action.
987 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
988 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
989
990 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
991 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
992
993 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
994 This is a GNU extension.
995
996 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
997 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
998
999 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1000
1001 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1002 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1003
1004 ** Bug fixes
1005
1006 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1007 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1008 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1009 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1010 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1011 these violations will become errors again.
1012
1013 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1014 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1015
1016 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1017 \f
1018 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1019
1020 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1021 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1022
1023 ** syntax error processing
1024
1025 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1026 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1027
1028 - %destructor
1029 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1030 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1031
1032 - %error-verbose
1033 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1034
1035 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1036 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1037
1038 ** POSIX conformance
1039
1040 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1041 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1042 compatibility with Yacc.
1043
1044 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
1045 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
1046 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
1047 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1048 be consistent.
1049
1050 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1051 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1052
1053 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1054 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1055
1056 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1057 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1058
1059 - Yacc command and library now available
1060 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
1061 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1062 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1063 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1064
1065 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1066
1067 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1068 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1069 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1070
1071 ** Other compatibility issues
1072
1073 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
1074 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
1075 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1076 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1077 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
1078 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1079
1080 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
1081 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1082
1083 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1084 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
1085
1086 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1087 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1088 withdrawn in a future release.
1089
1090 ** GLR parser notes
1091
1092 - GLR and inline
1093 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1094 C keyword `inline'.
1095
1096 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
1097 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
1098
1099 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1100 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
1101 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1102
1103 ** #line in output files
1104 - --no-line works properly.
1105
1106 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1107 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1108 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1109 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1110 \f
1111 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1112
1113 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1114
1115 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1116
1117 ** GLR parsers
1118 Fix spurious parse errors.
1119
1120 ** Pure parsers
1121 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1122 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1123
1124 ** Type Clashes
1125 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1126 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1127
1128 untyped: ... typed;
1129
1130 but the converse remains an error:
1131
1132 typed: ... untyped;
1133
1134 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1135 The following code:
1136
1137 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1138
1139 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1140 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1141 \f
1142 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1143
1144 ** GLR parsing
1145 The declaration
1146 %glr-parser
1147 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1148 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1149 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1150 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1151
1152 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1153 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1154
1155 ** Output Directory
1156 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1157 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
1158 now creates `bar.c'.
1159
1160 ** Undefined token
1161 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1162 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1163
1164 ** Unknown token numbers
1165 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1166 no longer the case.
1167
1168 ** Error token
1169 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1170 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1171 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1172 will be mapped onto another number.
1173
1174 ** Verbose error messages
1175 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1176 error recovery is possible.
1177
1178 ** End token
1179 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1180
1181 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1182 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1183 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1184 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1185 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1186 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1187 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1188 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1189 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1190
1191 ** Traces
1192 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1193
1194 ** Larger grammars
1195 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1196 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1197 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1198 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1199
1200 ** Explicit initial rule
1201 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1202 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1203 graphs as rule 0.
1204
1205 ** Useless rules
1206 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1207 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1208
1209 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1210 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1211
1212 ** Rules never reduced
1213 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1214 reported.
1215
1216 ** Incorrect `Token not used'
1217 On a grammar such as
1218
1219 %token useless useful
1220 %%
1221 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1222
1223 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1224 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1225
1226 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1227 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1228
1229 ** Default locations
1230 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1231 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1232 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1233 the computation of @$.
1234
1235 ** Token end-of-file
1236 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1237 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1238 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1239 For instance
1240 %token MYEOF 0
1241 or
1242 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1243
1244 ** Semantic parser
1245 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1246
1247 ** New translations
1248 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1249 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1250
1251 ** Incorrect token definitions
1252 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1253
1254 ** Token definitions as enums
1255 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1256 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1257 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1258
1259 ** Reports
1260 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1261 produces additional information:
1262 - itemset
1263 complete the core item sets with their closure
1264 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1265 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1266 - solved
1267 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1268 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1269 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1270
1271 ** Type clashes
1272 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1273 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1274
1275 %type <foo> bar
1276 %%
1277 bar: '0' {} '0';
1278
1279 This is fixed.
1280
1281 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1282 \f
1283 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1284
1285 ** C Skeleton
1286 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1287 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1288 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1289
1290 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1291 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1292 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1293 kludge will be disabled.
1294
1295 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1296 extended.
1297 \f
1298 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1299
1300 ** File name clashes are detected
1301 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1302 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1303
1304 ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1305 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1306 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1307 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1308 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1309 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1310
1311 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1312 many portability hassles.
1313
1314 ** DJGPP support added.
1315
1316 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1317 \f
1318 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1319
1320 ** Fix C++ issues
1321 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1322 under some conditions.
1323
1324 ** Catch invalid @n
1325 As is done with $n.
1326 \f
1327 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1328
1329 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1330
1331 ** Portability fixes
1332
1333 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1334 \f
1335 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1336
1337 ** Many Bug Fixes
1338
1339 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1340 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1341 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1342 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1343 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1344
1345 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1346 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1347 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1348
1349 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1350 problems as on AIX.
1351
1352 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1353
1354 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1355 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1356
1357 ** User Actions
1358 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1359 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1360 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1361
1362 ** Better C++ compliance
1363 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1364 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1365
1366 ** Reduced Grammars
1367 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1368
1369 ** 64 bit hosts
1370 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1371
1372 ** Error messages
1373 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1374
1375 ** %expect
1376 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1377 any warning.
1378
1379 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1380
1381 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1382
1383 ** Swedish translation
1384
1385 ** Parse errors
1386 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1387 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1388 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1389
1390 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1391 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1392 previous allocations were not freed.
1393
1394 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1395 Some newlines were missing.
1396 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1397
1398 ** Fixed conflict report.
1399 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1400
1401 ** %expect
1402 Was not used.
1403 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1404
1405 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1406
1407 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1408
1409 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1410
1411 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1412 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1413
1414 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1415
1416 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1417 New.
1418
1419 ** --output
1420 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1421 \f
1422 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1423
1424 ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1425 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1426 argument.
1427
1428 ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1429 experiment.
1430
1431 ** Portability fixes.
1432 \f
1433 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1434
1435 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1436 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1437 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1438 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1439
1440 ** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1441
1442 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1443
1444 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1445
1446 ** Russian translation added.
1447
1448 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1449
1450 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1451
1452 ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1453
1454 ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1455
1456 ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1457
1458 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1459 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1460
1461 ** New directives.
1462 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1463 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1464
1465 ** @$
1466 Automatic location tracking.
1467 \f
1468 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1469
1470 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1471
1472 ** Added NLS.
1473
1474 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1475
1476 ** There is now a FAQ.
1477 \f
1478 * Changes in version 1.27:
1479
1480 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1481 some systems has been fixed.
1482 \f
1483 * Changes in version 1.26:
1484
1485 ** Bison now uses automake.
1486
1487 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1488
1489 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1490
1491 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1492
1493 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1494
1495 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1496
1497 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1498 not provide alloca().
1499 \f
1500 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1501
1502 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1503 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1504
1505 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1506 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1507 of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1508
1509 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1510 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1511 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1512 purposes.
1513
1514 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1515 directives in the parser file.
1516
1517 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1518 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1519
1520 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1521 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1522 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1523 a switch statement body.
1524 \f
1525 * Changes in version 1.23:
1526
1527 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1528 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1529 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1530 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1531
1532 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1533 \f
1534 * Changes in version 1.22:
1535
1536 --help option added.
1537 \f
1538 * Changes in version 1.20:
1539
1540 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1541
1542 Local Variables:
1543 mode: outline
1544 End:
1545
1546 -----
1547
1548 Copyright (C) 1995-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1549
1550 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1551
1552 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1553 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1554 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1555 (at your option) any later version.
1556
1557 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1558 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1559 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1560 GNU General Public License for more details.
1561
1562 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1563 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.