4 * Changes in version ?.? (????-??-??):
6 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
8 The new directive %param declare additional argument to both yylex
9 and yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directive
10 support one or more arguments. Instead of
12 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
13 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
14 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
15 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
19 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
21 ** Java skeleton improvements
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".
27 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
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
34 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
36 start: FILE for ERROR;
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).
43 ** Variable api.namespace
45 The "namespace" variable is renamed "api.namespace". Backward
46 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
48 ** Variable parse.error
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".
54 * Changes in version 2.5 (????-??-??):
56 ** Named References Support
58 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
59 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
62 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
63 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
66 if_stmt : 'if' cond_expr 'then' then_stmt ';'
67 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
69 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
71 stmt[res] : 'if' expr[cond] 'then' stmt[then] 'else' stmt[else] ';'
72 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
74 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
75 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
76 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
78 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
79 will help to stabilize them.
81 ** IELR(1) and Canonical LR(1) Support
83 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
84 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
85 with the full language recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
86 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction in
87 parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
88 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
89 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
90 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
91 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
93 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
94 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
95 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
96 file with these directives:
100 %define lr.type canonical-lr
102 The default reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
103 adjusted using `%define lr.default-reductions'. See the documentation
104 for `%define lr.type' and `%define lr.default-reductions' in the
105 section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual for the
108 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
111 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now an error not a warning.
113 ** %define improvements.
115 *** Unrecognized variables are now an error not a warning.
117 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
119 *** Can now be invoked via the command line.
121 Each of these command-line options
124 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
127 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
129 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
131 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
133 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
134 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
135 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
136 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
138 *** Variables renamed.
140 The following %define variables
143 lr.keep_unreachable_states
148 lr.keep-unreachable-states
150 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
151 for backward compatibility.
153 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in grammar file.
155 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
156 within quotations marks. For example,
158 %define api.push-pull "push"
162 %define api.push-pull push
166 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and variables
167 (e.g. push-pull), symbol names may include dashes in any position,
168 similarly to periods and underscores. This is GNU extension over
169 POSIX Yacc whose use is reported by -Wyacc, and rejected in Yacc
172 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it.
174 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
175 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
176 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
177 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
178 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
179 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
180 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
181 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
183 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
185 As promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it is now an error if a token
186 that appears after a %prec directive is not defined by %token, %left,
187 %right, or %nonassoc. This is required by POSIX.
189 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
191 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
192 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
193 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
194 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
196 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
200 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
202 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
203 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
204 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
205 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
206 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
207 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
208 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
210 ** Character literals not of length one.
212 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
213 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
214 the following grammar to be the same token:
220 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
221 some future release, Bison will report an error instead.
223 ** Verbose error messages fixed for nonassociative tokens.
225 When %error-verbose is specified, syntax error messages produced by
226 the generated parser include the unexpected token as well as a list of
227 expected tokens. Previously, this list erroneously included tokens
228 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
229 were resolved with %nonassoc. Such tokens are now properly omitted
232 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions.
234 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
235 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
236 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
237 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
239 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (????-??-??):
241 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
242 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
243 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been fixed. As part of those fixes, fatal
244 Bison errors no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
247 ** `%prec IDENTIFIER' requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
249 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
250 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
251 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
252 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
253 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
254 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
255 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
257 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
259 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
260 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
263 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
265 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
269 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
270 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
273 %code requires {CODE}
274 %code provides {CODE}
277 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
278 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
279 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
280 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
281 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
283 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
284 is still considered experimental.
286 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
288 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
289 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
290 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
291 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
292 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
295 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
296 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
297 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
298 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
299 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
300 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE' is
301 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
303 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
305 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
306 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
307 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
308 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
309 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
310 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
311 %error-verbose and `#define YYERROR_VERBOSE'. Eventually, YYFAIL will
312 be removed altogether.
314 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
315 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
316 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
317 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
318 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
319 epilogue (that is, after the second `%%') in the Bison input file. In
320 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
321 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
322 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
323 2.4.2 is not necessary.
325 ** Internationalization.
327 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
328 message translations were not installed although supported by the
331 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
333 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
334 declarations have been fixed.
336 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
338 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
339 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
341 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
345 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
347 Some grammars still depend on this `feature'. Bison 2.4.1 restores
348 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
349 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
350 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
351 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
354 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
356 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
358 ** %language is an experimental feature.
360 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
361 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
362 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
363 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
366 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
368 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
371 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
373 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
378 ** The directive `%pure-parser' is now deprecated in favor of:
382 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
383 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
387 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
388 is, instead of invoking `yyparse', which pulls tokens from `yylex', you can
389 push one token at a time to the parser using `yypush_parse', which will
390 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
391 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
393 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
394 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
396 See the new section `A Push Parser' in the Bison manual for details.
398 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
399 feedback will help to stabilize it.
401 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
402 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
403 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
407 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
408 `data/lalr1.java'. Consider using the new %language directive instead of
409 %skeleton to select it.
411 See the new section `Java Parsers' in the Bison manual for details.
413 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
414 feedback will help to stabilize it.
418 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
419 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
420 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
421 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
423 ** XML Automaton Report
425 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
426 `--xml' option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
427 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
429 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
430 %defines. For example:
434 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
435 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
436 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
439 ** Unreachable State Removal
441 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
442 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
443 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
445 1. Removes unreachable states.
447 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
448 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
449 directives in existing grammar files.
451 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
452 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
454 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
456 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
458 See the %define entry in the `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison manual
459 for further discussion.
461 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the `.output' Report
463 When instructed to generate a `.output' file including lookahead sets
464 (using `--report=lookahead', for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
465 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
466 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
467 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
468 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
469 bug affected only the `.output' file and not the generated parser source
472 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default `.output' file
475 ** The `=' that used to be required in the following directives is now
478 %file-prefix "parser"
482 ** An Alternative to `%{...%}' -- `%code QUALIFIER {CODE}'
484 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
485 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
486 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
487 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
490 1. `%code {CODE}' replaces `%after-header {CODE}'
491 2. `%code requires {CODE}' replaces `%start-header {CODE}'
492 3. `%code provides {CODE}' replaces `%end-header {CODE}'
493 4. `%code top {CODE}' replaces `%before-header {CODE}'
495 See the %code entries in section `Bison Declaration Summary' in the Bison
496 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section `Prologue
497 Alternatives' for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
498 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
500 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
501 determine whether they should become permanent features.
503 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
505 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
506 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
509 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
511 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
512 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
514 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
516 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
517 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
518 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
520 To enable these warnings, specify the option `--warnings=midrule-values' or
521 `-W', which is a synonym for `--warnings=all'.
523 ** Default %destructor or %printer with `<*>' or `<>'
525 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
528 1. Place `<*>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
529 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
530 declared semantic type tags.
532 2. Place `<>' in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
533 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
536 Bison no longer supports the `%symbol-default' notation from Bison 2.3a.
537 `<*>' and `<>' combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
538 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
539 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
541 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
542 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
545 See the section `Freeing Discarded Symbols' in the Bison manual for further
548 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
549 by POSIX. However, see the end of section `Operator Precedence' in the Bison
550 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
552 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
553 completely removed from Bison.
555 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
557 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
558 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
559 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
560 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
561 and is required by POSIX.
563 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
564 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
566 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
570 %union { char *string; }
571 %token <string> STRING1
572 %token <string> STRING2
573 %type <string> string1
574 %type <string> string2
575 %union { char character; }
576 %token <character> CHR
577 %type <character> chr
578 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
579 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
580 %destructor { } <character>
582 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
583 semantic type tag other than `<character>', it passes its semantic value to
584 `free'. However, when the parser discards a `STRING1' or a `string1', it
585 also prints its line number to `stdout'. It performs only the second
586 `%destructor' in this case, so it invokes `free' only once.
588 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
589 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
592 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with `-y',
593 `--yacc', or `%yacc'), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
594 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
595 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
596 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
598 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
599 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
601 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
602 `%{ ... %}' syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
603 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
604 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
605 declared after the first %union.
607 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
608 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
609 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
610 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
611 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
612 after the token definitions.
614 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
615 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
617 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
618 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
621 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
622 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
623 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
627 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
628 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
629 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
630 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
631 * example is `#include "system.h"'. */
634 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
635 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
636 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
637 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
640 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
641 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
642 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
645 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
646 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
647 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
648 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
652 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
653 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
654 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
655 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
656 * Bison-generated definitions. */
659 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
660 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
662 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
663 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
665 ** The option `--report=look-ahead' has been changed to `--report=lookahead'.
666 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
669 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
671 ** GLR grammars should now use `YYRECOVERING ()' instead of `YYRECOVERING',
672 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
674 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
675 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
677 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
679 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
680 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
681 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
683 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
685 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
687 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
688 their contents together.
690 ** New warning: unused values
691 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
692 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
694 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
698 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
699 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
700 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
702 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
703 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
705 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
708 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
709 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
710 values are used, e.g.:
712 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
713 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
716 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
717 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
719 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
721 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
722 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
724 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
725 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
726 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
727 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
729 ** %expect, %expect-rr
730 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
733 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
734 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
735 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
737 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray `$' or `@' in an action.
739 ** %require "VERSION"
740 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
741 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
743 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
744 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
745 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
746 tokens are enumerations of the `yy::parser::token' struct, and the
747 semantic values have the `yy::parser::semantic_type' type.
749 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
750 `%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
751 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
752 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
754 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
755 fail using `%require "2.2"'.
757 ** DJGPP support added.
759 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
761 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
763 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
764 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
765 language is still English. For details, please see the new
766 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
767 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
768 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
770 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
771 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
772 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
773 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
775 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
776 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
777 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
779 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
780 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
781 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
782 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
783 unexpected "number"'.
785 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
787 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
789 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
790 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
791 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
792 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
793 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
795 - Error token location.
796 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
797 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
798 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
799 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
802 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
803 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
805 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
806 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
807 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
808 forget a closing quote.
810 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
814 - GLR grammars now support locations.
816 - New directive: %initial-action.
817 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
818 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
820 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
821 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
823 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., `%token FOO 0x12d'.
824 This is a GNU extension.
826 - The option `--report=lookahead' was changed to `--report=look-ahead'.
827 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
829 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
831 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
832 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
836 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
837 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
838 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
839 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
840 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
841 these violations will become errors again.
843 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
844 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
846 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
848 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
850 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
851 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
853 ** syntax error processing
855 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
856 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
859 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
860 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
863 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
865 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
866 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
870 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
871 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
872 compatibility with Yacc.
874 - `parse error' -> `syntax error'
875 Bison now uniformly uses the term `syntax error'; formerly, the code
876 and manual sometimes used the term `parse error' instead. POSIX
877 requires `syntax error' in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
880 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
881 declared before use. C99 requires this.
883 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
884 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
886 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
887 output as "foo\\bar.y".
889 - Yacc command and library now available
890 The Bison distribution now installs a `yacc' command, as POSIX requires.
891 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
892 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
893 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
895 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
897 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
898 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
899 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
901 ** Other compatibility issues
903 - %union directives can now have a tag before the `{', e.g., the
904 directive `%union foo {...}' now generates the C code
905 `typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;'; this is for Yacc compatibility.
906 The default union tag is `YYSTYPE', for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
907 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now `YYLTYPE' not `yyltype'.
908 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
910 - `;' is output before the terminating `}' of an action, for
911 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
913 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
914 `conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce'.
916 - `yystype' and `yyltype' are now obsolescent macros instead of being
917 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
918 withdrawn in a future release.
923 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
926 - `parsing stack overflow...' -> `parser stack overflow'
927 GLR parsers now report `parser stack overflow' as per the Bison manual.
929 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
930 e.g., it generates a warning for `bison -d -o foo.h foo.y' since
931 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
933 ** #line in output files
934 - --no-line works properly.
936 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
937 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
938 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
939 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
941 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
943 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
945 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
948 Fix spurious parse errors.
951 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
952 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
955 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
956 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
960 but the converse remains an error:
964 ** Values of mid-rule actions
967 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
969 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
970 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
972 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
977 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
978 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
979 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
980 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
982 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
983 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
986 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
987 specified, running `bison foo/bar.y' created `foo/bar.c'. It
991 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
992 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
994 ** Unknown token numbers
995 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
999 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1000 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1001 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1002 will be mapped onto another number.
1004 ** Verbose error messages
1005 They no longer report `..., expecting error or...' for states where
1006 error recovery is possible.
1009 Defaults to `$end' instead of `$'.
1011 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1012 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1013 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1014 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1015 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1016 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1017 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1018 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1019 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1022 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1025 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1026 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1027 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1028 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1030 ** Explicit initial rule
1031 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1032 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1036 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1037 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1039 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1040 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1042 ** Rules never reduced
1043 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1046 ** Incorrect `Token not used'
1047 On a grammar such as
1049 %token useless useful
1051 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1053 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1054 bison reported both `useful' and `useless' as useless tokens.
1056 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1057 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1059 ** Default locations
1060 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1061 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1062 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1063 the computation of @$.
1065 ** Token end-of-file
1066 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1067 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1068 error messages instead of `$end', which remains being the default.
1072 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1075 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1078 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1079 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1081 ** Incorrect token definitions
1082 When given `%token 'a' "A"', Bison used to output `#define 'a' 65'.
1084 ** Token definitions as enums
1085 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1086 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1087 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1090 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1091 produces additional information:
1093 complete the core item sets with their closure
1094 - lookahead [changed to `look-ahead' in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1095 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1097 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1098 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1099 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1102 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1103 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1111 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1113 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1116 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1117 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1118 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1120 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1121 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1122 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1123 kludge will be disabled.
1125 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1128 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1130 ** File name clashes are detected
1131 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1132 fatal error: header and parser would both be named `foo.x'
1134 ** A missing `;' at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1135 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1136 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1137 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1138 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1139 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1141 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1142 many portability hassles.
1144 ** DJGPP support added.
1146 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1148 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1151 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1152 under some conditions.
1157 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1159 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1161 ** Portability fixes
1163 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1165 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1169 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1170 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1171 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1172 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1173 does not trigger an error when the input file is named `plural.y'.
1175 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1176 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1177 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1179 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1182 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1184 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1185 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1188 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1189 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1190 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1192 ** Better C++ compliance
1193 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1194 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1197 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1200 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1203 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1206 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1209 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1211 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1213 ** Swedish translation
1216 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1217 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1218 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1220 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1221 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1222 previous allocations were not freed.
1224 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1225 Some newlines were missing.
1226 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1228 ** Fixed conflict report.
1229 Option -v was needed to get the result.
1233 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
1235 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
1237 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
1239 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
1241 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
1242 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
1244 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
1246 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
1250 New, aliasing `--output-file'.
1252 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
1254 ** `--defines' and `--graph' have now an optional argument which is the
1255 output file name. `-d' and `-g' do not change; they do not take any
1258 ** `%source_extension' and `%header_extension' are removed, failed
1261 ** Portability fixes.
1263 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
1265 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
1266 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
1267 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
1268 `-Dconst='. autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
1270 ** Added `-g' and `--graph'.
1272 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1274 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
1276 ** Russian translation added.
1278 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
1280 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
1282 ** Added `--locations' and `%locations'.
1284 ** Added `-S' and `--skeleton'.
1286 ** `%raw', `-r', `--raw' is disabled.
1288 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
1289 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
1292 `%yacc', `%fixed_output_files', `%defines', `%no_parser', `%verbose',
1293 `%debug', `%source_extension' and `%header_extension'.
1296 Automatic location tracking.
1298 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
1300 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
1304 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
1306 ** There is now a FAQ.
1308 * Changes in version 1.27:
1310 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
1311 some systems has been fixed.
1313 * Changes in version 1.26:
1315 ** Bison now uses automake.
1317 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
1319 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
1321 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
1323 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
1325 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
1327 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
1328 not provide alloca().
1330 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
1332 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
1333 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
1335 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
1336 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
1337 of chosing a name like LESSEQ.
1339 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
1340 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
1341 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
1344 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
1345 directives in the parser file.
1347 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
1348 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
1350 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
1351 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
1352 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
1353 a switch statement body.
1355 * Changes in version 1.23:
1357 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
1358 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
1359 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
1360 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
1362 Line numbers in output file corrected.
1364 * Changes in version 1.22:
1366 --help option added.
1368 * Changes in version 1.20:
1370 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
1378 Copyright (C) 1995-2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1380 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
1382 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1383 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1384 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1385 (at your option) any later version.
1387 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1388 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1389 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1390 GNU General Public License for more details.
1392 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1393 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.