3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explictly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what gcc 4.7 does.
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatiblities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
42 *** The display of warnings is now richer
44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
49 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
50 to gcc, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
62 *** Deprecated constructs
64 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
65 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
66 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
68 *** Useless semantic types
70 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
71 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
72 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
73 types that trigger the warning:
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
82 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
83 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
85 *** Undefined but unused symbols
87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
91 %destructor {} symbol2
96 *** Useless destructors or printers
98 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
99 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
100 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
101 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
103 %token <type1> token1
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
112 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
113 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
119 compare the previous version of bison:
122 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
123 $ bison -Werror foo.y
124 bison: warnings being treated as errors
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
127 with the new behavior:
130 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
131 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 $ bison -Werror foo.y
133 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
146 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
147 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
148 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
156 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
158 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
159 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
160 or more arguments. Instead of
162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
171 ** Java skeleton improvements
173 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
174 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
175 and "%define init_throws".
177 ** C++ skeletons improvements
179 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
181 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
182 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
183 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
185 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
189 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
191 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
192 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
193 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
194 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
195 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
196 factory invoked by the user actions).
198 ** Variable api.token.prefix
200 The variable api.token.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
201 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
202 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
209 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
210 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
211 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
212 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
214 ** Renamed %define variables
216 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
219 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
220 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
221 namespace -> api.namespace
223 ** Variable parse.error
225 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
226 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
229 ** Semantic predicates
231 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
232 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
233 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
234 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
235 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
238 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
240 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
241 reduce/reduce conflicts.
243 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
247 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
249 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
250 users to the appropriate place to report them.
252 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
254 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
255 generated, are removed.
257 All the generated headers are self-contained.
259 ** Changes in the format of error messages
261 This used to be the format of many error reports:
263 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
264 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
268 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
269 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
271 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
273 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
274 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
275 For instance the header generated from
277 %define api.prefix "calc"
278 %defines "lib/parse.h"
280 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
282 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
284 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
285 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
286 before rethrowing the exception.
288 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
291 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
293 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
296 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
297 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
298 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
302 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
304 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
305 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
308 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc)
310 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
311 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
312 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
313 then responsible to define her type.
315 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
316 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
319 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
320 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
323 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
327 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
328 suite have been fixed.
330 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
332 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
333 invalid C++. This is fixed.
335 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
337 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
339 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
341 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
345 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
346 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
347 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
349 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
353 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
357 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
359 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
361 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
363 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
364 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
367 ** Type names in actions
369 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
370 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
372 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
374 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
375 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
377 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
381 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
382 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
386 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
387 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
390 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
392 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
395 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
396 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
398 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
401 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
403 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
404 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
405 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
406 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
409 ** Generated Parser Headers
411 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
413 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
414 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
419 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
421 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
423 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
424 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
426 int bar_parse (void);
430 #define yyparse bar_parse
433 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
434 single compilation unit.
436 *** Exported symbols in C++
438 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
439 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
440 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
444 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
447 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
449 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
450 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
451 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
452 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
453 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
454 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
455 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
457 The following examples compares both:
459 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
460 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
461 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
467 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
468 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
470 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
471 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
472 > # if defined YYDEBUG
474 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
476 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
479 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
483 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
484 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
487 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
488 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
489 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
490 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
495 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
496 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
497 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
500 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
501 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
504 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
506 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
508 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
510 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
514 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
516 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
518 ** glr.c improvements:
520 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
522 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
523 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
525 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
527 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
528 when -std is passed to GCC).
530 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
532 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
533 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
537 *** C++11 compatibility:
539 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
544 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
545 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
547 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
548 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
550 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
552 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
553 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
554 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
556 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
558 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
559 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
561 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
565 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
566 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
567 documentation were fixed.
569 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
571 ** Changes in the manual:
573 *** %printer is documented
575 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
576 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
578 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
579 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
581 *** Several improvements have been made:
583 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
584 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
585 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
586 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
590 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
592 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
593 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
595 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
597 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
599 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
600 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
602 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
604 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
605 halts in the middle of its course.
607 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
609 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
611 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
612 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
613 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
614 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
615 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
619 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
620 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
623 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
624 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
627 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
628 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
630 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
632 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
633 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
635 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
636 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
637 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
639 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
640 will help to stabilize them.
642 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
644 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
645 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
646 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
647 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
648 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
649 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
650 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
651 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
652 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
654 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
655 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
656 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
657 file with these directives:
661 %define lr.type canonical-lr
663 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
664 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
665 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
668 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
671 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
673 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
674 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
675 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
676 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
677 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
678 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
679 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
680 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
681 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
682 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
685 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
686 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
687 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
688 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
691 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
692 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
693 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
694 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
695 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
696 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
697 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
698 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
701 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
702 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
704 %define parse.lac full
706 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
707 details including a few caveats.
709 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
712 ** %define improvements:
714 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
716 Each of these command-line options
719 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
722 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
724 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
726 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
728 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
729 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
730 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
731 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
733 *** Variables renamed:
735 The following %define variables
738 lr.keep_unreachable_states
743 lr.keep-unreachable-states
745 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
746 for backward compatibility.
748 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
750 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
751 within quotations marks. For example,
753 %define api.push-pull "push"
757 %define api.push-pull push
759 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
761 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
763 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
765 ** Character literals not of length one:
767 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
768 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
769 the following grammar to be the same token:
775 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
776 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
778 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
780 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
781 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
782 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
783 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
785 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
787 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
788 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
789 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
790 and "last" members, instead of
792 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
796 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
797 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
801 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
807 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
811 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
812 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
816 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
820 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
822 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
823 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
824 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
825 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
827 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
829 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
830 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
831 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
832 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
833 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
834 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
835 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
836 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
838 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
840 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
841 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
842 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
843 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
845 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
849 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
851 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
852 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
853 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
854 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
855 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
856 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
857 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
859 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
861 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
862 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
863 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
864 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
865 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
867 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
868 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
869 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
870 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
871 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
872 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
873 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
874 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
875 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
876 shifted or discarded.
878 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
879 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
880 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
881 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
883 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
884 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
885 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
886 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
887 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
888 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
889 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
890 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
891 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
892 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
893 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
894 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
897 ** Java skeleton fixes:
899 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
901 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
902 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
904 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
906 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
908 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
910 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
911 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
913 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
915 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
917 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
918 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
919 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
920 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
923 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
924 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
925 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
926 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
928 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
929 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
930 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
931 then have no effect on the conflict report.
933 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
935 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
936 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
938 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
940 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
942 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
943 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
944 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
945 suppress all warnings:
949 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
951 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
952 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
953 produced an assertion failure. For example:
957 This bug has been fixed.
959 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
961 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
962 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
964 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
967 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
969 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
972 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
973 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
974 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
975 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
977 ** Minor documentation fixes.
979 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
981 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
982 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
983 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
984 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
987 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
989 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
990 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
991 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
992 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
993 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
994 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
995 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
996 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
997 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
999 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1001 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1002 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1005 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1007 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1011 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1012 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1015 %code requires {CODE}
1016 %code provides {CODE}
1019 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1020 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1021 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1022 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1023 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1025 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1026 is still considered experimental.
1028 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1030 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1031 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1032 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1033 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1034 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1037 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1038 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1039 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1040 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1041 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1042 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1043 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1045 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1047 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1048 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1049 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1050 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1051 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1052 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1053 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1054 be removed altogether.
1056 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1057 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1058 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1059 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1060 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1061 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1062 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1063 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1064 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1065 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1067 ** Internationalization.
1069 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1070 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1073 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1075 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1076 declarations have been fixed.
1078 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1080 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1081 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1083 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1087 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1089 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1090 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1091 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1092 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1093 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1096 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1098 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1100 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1102 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1103 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1104 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1105 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1108 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1110 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1113 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1115 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1118 %define NAME "VALUE"
1120 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1124 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1125 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1129 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1130 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1131 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1132 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1133 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1135 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1136 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1138 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1140 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1141 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1143 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1144 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1145 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1149 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1150 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1151 %skeleton to select it.
1153 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1155 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1156 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1160 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1161 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1162 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1163 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1165 ** XML Automaton Report
1167 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1168 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1169 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1171 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1172 %defines. For example:
1176 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1177 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1178 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1179 instead of "unused".
1181 ** Unreachable State Removal
1183 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1184 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1185 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1187 1. Removes unreachable states.
1189 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1190 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1191 directives in existing grammar files.
1193 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1194 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1196 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1198 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1200 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1201 for further discussion.
1203 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1205 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1206 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1207 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1208 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1209 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1210 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1211 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1214 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1217 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1220 %file-prefix "parser"
1224 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1226 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1227 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1228 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1229 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1232 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1233 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1234 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1235 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1237 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1238 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1239 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1240 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1242 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1243 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1245 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1247 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1248 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1251 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1253 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1254 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1256 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1258 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1259 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1260 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1262 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1263 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1265 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1267 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1270 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1271 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1272 declared semantic type tags.
1274 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1275 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1278 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1279 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1280 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1281 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1283 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1284 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1287 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1290 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1291 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1292 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1294 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1295 completely removed from Bison.
1297 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1299 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1300 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1301 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1302 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1303 and is required by POSIX.
1305 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1306 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1308 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1312 %union { char *string; }
1313 %token <string> STRING1
1314 %token <string> STRING2
1315 %type <string> string1
1316 %type <string> string2
1317 %union { char character; }
1318 %token <character> CHR
1319 %type <character> chr
1320 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1321 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1322 %destructor { } <character>
1324 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1325 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1326 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1327 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1328 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1330 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1331 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1334 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1335 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1336 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1337 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1338 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1340 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1341 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1343 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1344 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1345 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1346 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1347 declared after the first %union.
1349 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1350 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1351 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1352 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1353 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1354 after the token definitions.
1356 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1357 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1359 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1360 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1363 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1364 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1365 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1369 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1370 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1371 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1372 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1373 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1376 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1377 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1378 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1379 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1382 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1383 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1384 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1387 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1388 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1389 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1390 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1394 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1395 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1396 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1397 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1398 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1401 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1402 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1404 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1405 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1407 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1408 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1409 in a future release.
1411 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1413 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1414 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1416 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1417 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1419 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1421 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1422 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1423 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1425 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1427 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1429 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1430 their contents together.
1432 ** New warning: unused values
1433 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1434 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1436 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1440 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1441 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1442 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1444 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1445 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1447 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1450 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1451 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1452 values are used, e.g.:
1454 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1455 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1458 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1459 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1461 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1463 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1464 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1466 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1467 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1468 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1469 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1471 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1472 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1473 instead of warnings.
1475 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1476 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1477 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1479 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1481 ** %require "VERSION"
1482 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1483 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1485 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1486 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1487 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1488 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1489 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1491 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1492 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1493 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1494 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1496 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1497 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1499 ** DJGPP support added.
1501 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1503 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1505 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1506 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1507 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1508 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1509 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1510 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1512 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1513 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1514 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1515 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1517 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1518 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1519 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1521 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1522 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1523 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1524 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1525 unexpected "number"'.
1527 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1529 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1531 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1532 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1533 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1534 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1535 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1537 - Error token location.
1538 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1539 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1540 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1541 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1543 - Semicolon changes:
1544 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1545 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1547 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1548 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1549 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1550 forget a closing quote.
1552 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1556 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1558 - New directive: %initial-action.
1559 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1560 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1562 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1563 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1565 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1566 This is a GNU extension.
1568 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1569 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1571 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1573 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1574 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1578 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1579 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1580 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1581 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1582 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1583 these violations will become errors again.
1585 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1586 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1588 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1590 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1592 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1593 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1595 ** syntax error processing
1597 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1598 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1601 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1602 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1605 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1607 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1608 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1610 ** POSIX conformance
1612 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1613 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1614 compatibility with Yacc.
1616 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1617 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1618 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1619 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1622 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1623 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1625 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1626 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1628 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1629 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1631 - Yacc command and library now available
1632 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1633 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1634 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1635 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1637 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1639 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1640 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1641 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1643 ** Other compatibility issues
1645 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1646 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1647 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1648 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1649 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1650 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1652 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1653 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1655 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1656 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1658 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1659 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1660 withdrawn in a future release.
1665 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1668 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1669 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1671 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1672 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1673 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1676 - a single argument only can be added,
1677 - their types are weak (void *),
1678 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1679 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1681 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1684 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1685 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1686 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1688 results in the following signatures:
1690 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1691 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1693 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1695 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1696 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1698 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1699 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1700 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1702 ** #line in output files
1703 - --no-line works properly.
1705 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1706 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1707 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1708 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1710 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1712 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1714 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1717 Fix spurious parse errors.
1720 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1721 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1724 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1725 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1729 but the converse remains an error:
1733 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1736 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1738 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1739 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1741 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1746 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1747 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1748 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1749 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1751 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1752 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1755 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1756 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1757 now creates "bar.c".
1760 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1761 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1763 ** Unknown token numbers
1764 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1768 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1769 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1770 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1771 will be mapped onto another number.
1773 ** Verbose error messages
1774 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1775 error recovery is possible.
1778 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1780 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1781 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1782 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1783 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1784 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1785 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1786 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1787 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1788 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1791 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1794 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1795 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1796 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1797 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1799 ** Explicit initial rule
1800 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1801 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1805 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1806 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1808 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1809 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1811 ** Rules never reduced
1812 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1815 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1816 On a grammar such as
1818 %token useless useful
1820 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1822 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1823 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1825 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1826 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1828 ** Default locations
1829 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1830 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1831 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1832 the computation of @$.
1834 ** Token end-of-file
1835 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1836 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1837 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1841 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1844 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1847 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1848 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1850 ** Incorrect token definitions
1853 bison used to output
1856 ** Token definitions as enums
1857 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1858 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1859 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1862 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1863 produces additional information:
1865 complete the core item sets with their closure
1866 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1867 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1869 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1870 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1871 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1874 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1875 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1883 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1885 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1888 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1889 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1890 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1892 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1893 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1894 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1895 kludge will be disabled.
1897 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1900 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1902 ** File name clashes are detected
1903 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1904 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1906 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1907 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1908 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1909 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1910 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1911 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1913 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1914 many portability hassles.
1916 ** DJGPP support added.
1918 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1920 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1923 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1924 under some conditions.
1929 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1931 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1933 ** Portability fixes
1935 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1937 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1941 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1942 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1943 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1944 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1945 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1947 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1948 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1949 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1951 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1954 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1956 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1957 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1960 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1961 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1962 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1964 ** Better C++ compliance
1965 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1966 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1969 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1972 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1975 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1978 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1981 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1983 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1985 ** Swedish translation
1988 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1989 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1990 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1992 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1993 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1994 previous allocations were not freed.
1996 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1997 Some newlines were missing.
1998 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2000 ** Fixed conflict report.
2001 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2005 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2007 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2009 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2011 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2013 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2014 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2016 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2018 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2022 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2024 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2026 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2027 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2030 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2033 ** Portability fixes.
2035 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2037 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2038 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2039 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2040 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2042 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2044 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2046 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2048 ** Russian translation added.
2050 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2052 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2054 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2056 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2058 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2060 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2061 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2064 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2065 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2068 Automatic location tracking.
2070 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2072 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2076 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2078 ** There is now a FAQ.
2080 * Changes in version 1.27:
2082 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2083 some systems has been fixed.
2085 * Changes in version 1.26:
2087 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2089 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2091 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2093 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2095 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2097 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2099 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2100 not provide alloca().
2102 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2104 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2105 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2107 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2108 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2109 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2111 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2112 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2113 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2116 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2117 directives in the parser file.
2119 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2120 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2122 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2123 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2124 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2125 a switch statement body.
2127 * Changes in version 1.23:
2129 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2130 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2131 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2132 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2134 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2136 * Changes in version 1.22:
2138 --help option added.
2140 * Changes in version 1.20:
2142 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2146 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2148 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2150 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2151 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2152 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2153 (at your option) any later version.
2155 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2156 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2157 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2158 GNU General Public License for more details.
2160 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2161 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2163 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2164 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2165 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2166 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2167 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2168 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2169 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2170 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2171 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2172 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2173 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2174 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2175 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2176 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2177 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2178 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2179 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2180 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2181 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval