]> git.saurik.com Git - bison.git/blob - NEWS
Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/maint'
[bison.git] / NEWS
1 GNU Bison NEWS
2
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
4
5 ** Incompatible changes
6
7 *** Obsolete features
8
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).
13
14 ** Warnings
15
16 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
17
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explicitly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what GCC 4.7 does.
21
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatibilities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
25
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
27
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:
30
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
32
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
34
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
37
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".
41
42 *** The display of warnings is now richer
43
44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
45
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
47
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].
51
52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
53 with failure):
54
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
57
58 it now reports:
59
60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
61
62 *** Deprecated constructs
63
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.
67
68 *** Useless semantic types
69
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:
74
75 %token <type1> term
76 %type <type2> nterm
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
79 %%
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
81
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
84
85 *** Undefined but unused symbols
86
87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
89
90 %printer {} symbol1
91 %destructor {} symbol2
92 %type <type> symbol3
93 %%
94 exp: "a";
95
96 *** Useless destructors or printers
97
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.
102
103 %token <type1> token1
104 <type2> token2
105 <type3> token3
106 <type4> token4
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
109
110 *** Conflicts
111
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:
114
115 %glr-parser
116 %%
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
118
119 compare the previous version of bison:
120
121 $ bison foo.y
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
126
127 with the new behavior:
128
129 $ bison foo.y
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]
135
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
137
138 %expect 0
139 %glr-parser
140 %%
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
142
143 Former behavior:
144
145 $ bison bar.y
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
149
150 New one:
151
152 $ bison bar.y
153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
155
156 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
157
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
161
162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
166
167 one may now declare
168
169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
170
171 ** Java skeleton improvements
172
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".
176
177 ** C++ skeletons improvements
178
179 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
180
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).
184
185 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
186
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
188
189 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
190
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).
197
198 ** Variable api.token.prefix
199
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
203
204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.token.prefix "TOK_"
206 %%
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
208
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).
213
214 ** Renamed %define variables
215
216 The following variables have been renamed for consistency. Backward
217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
218
219 lr.default-reductions -> lr.default-reduction
220 lr.keep-unreachable-states -> lr.keep-unreachable-state
221 namespace -> api.namespace
222
223 ** Variable parse.error
224
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
227 verbose".
228
229 ** Semantic predicates
230
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
236 expressions.
237
238 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
239
240 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
241 reduce/reduce conflicts.
242
243 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
244
245 ** %language is no longer an experimental feature.
246
247 The introduction of this feature, in 2.4, was four years ago. The --language
248 option and the %language directive are no longer experimental.
249
250 ** New format for error reports: carets
251
252 Caret errors have been added to Bison, for example (taken from the
253 documentation):
254
255 input.y:3.20-23: error: ambiguous reference: '$exp'
256 exp: exp '+' exp { $exp = $1 + $2; };
257 ^^^^
258
259 The default behaviour for now is still not to display these unless explictly
260 asked with -fall of -fcaret. However, in a later release, it will be made the
261 default behavior (but may still be deactivated with -fno-caret).
262
263 ** New value for %define variable: api.pure full
264
265 The %define variable api.pure requests a pure (reentrant) parser. However,
266 for historical reasons, using it in a location-tracking Yacc parser resulted
267 in an yyerror function that did not take a location as a parameter. With this
268 new value, the user may request a better pure parser, where yyerror does take
269 a location as a parameter (in location-tracking parsers).
270
271 The use of "%define api.pure true" is deprecated in favor of this new
272 "%define api.pure full".
273
274 ** Changes in the format of error messages
275
276 This used to be the format of many error reports:
277
278 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
279 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
280
281 It is now:
282
283 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
284 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
285
286 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
287
288 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
289 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
290 before re-throwing the exception.
291
292 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
293 appreciated.
294
295 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc, lalr1.java)
296
297 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
298 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
299 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
300 then responsible to define her type.
301
302 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
303 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
304 them.
305
306 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
307 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
308 compatibility).
309
310 For consistency, lalr1.java's %define variables location_type and
311 position_type are deprecated in favor of api.location.type and
312 api.position.type.
313
314 ** Graph improvements in DOT and XSLT
315
316 The graphical presentation of the states is more readable: their shape is
317 now rectangular, the state number is clearly displayed, and the items are
318 numbered and left-justified.
319
320 The reductions are now explicitly represented as transitions to other
321 diamond shaped nodes.
322
323 These changes are present in both --graph output and xml2dot.xsl XSLT
324 processing, with minor (documented) differences.
325
326 Two nodes were added to the documentation: Xml and Graphviz.
327
328 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
329
330 ** Bug fixes
331
332 Warnings about uninitialized yylloc in yyparse have been fixed.
333
334 ** Documentation
335
336 The sections about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce conflicts resolution
337 have been fixed and extended.
338
339 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.5 (2012-11-07) [stable]
340
341 We consider compiler warnings about Bison generated parsers to be bugs.
342 Rather than working around them in your own project, please consider
343 reporting them to us.
344
345 ** Bug fixes
346
347 Warnings about uninitialized yylval and/or yylloc for push parsers with a
348 pure interface have been fixed for GCC 4.0 up to 4.8, and Clang 2.9 to
349 3.2.
350
351 Other issues in the test suite have been addressed.
352
353 Nul characters are correctly displayed in error messages.
354
355 When possible, yylloc is correctly initialized before calling yylex. It
356 is no longer necessary to initialize it in the %initial-action.
357
358 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.4 (2012-10-23) [stable]
359
360 Bison 2.6.3's --version was incorrect. This release fixes this issue.
361
362 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.3 (2012-10-22) [stable]
363
364 ** Bug fixes
365
366 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
367
368 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
369 users to the appropriate place to report them.
370
371 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
372
373 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
374 generated, are removed.
375
376 All the generated headers are self-contained.
377
378 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
379
380 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
381 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
382 For instance the header generated from
383
384 %define api.prefix "calc"
385 %defines "lib/parse.h"
386
387 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
388
389 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
390
391 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
392 warnings such as:
393
394 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
395 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
396 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
397 *++yyvsp = yylval;
398 ^
399
400 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
401
402 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
403 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
404 addressed.
405
406 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
407
408 ** Bug fixes
409
410 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
411 suite have been fixed.
412
413 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
414
415 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
416 invalid C++. This is fixed.
417
418 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
419
420 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
421
422 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
423
424 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
425
426 ** Future Changes
427
428 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
429 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
430 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
431
432 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
433
434 write:
435
436 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
437
438 ** Bug fixes
439
440 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
441
442 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
443
444 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
445
446 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
447 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
448 now does.
449
450 ** Type names in actions
451
452 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
453 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
454
455 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
456
457 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
458 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
459
460 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
461
462 ** Future changes
463
464 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
465 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
466
467 *** K&R C parsers
468
469 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
470 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
471 compilers.
472
473 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
474
475 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
476 YYLTYPE.
477
478 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
479 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
480
481 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
482 %error-verbose.
483
484 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
485
486 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
487 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
488 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
489 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
490 it.
491
492 ** Generated Parser Headers
493
494 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
495
496 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
497 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
498
499 #ifndef YY_FOO_H
500 # define YY_FOO_H
501 ...
502 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
503
504 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
505
506 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
507 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
508
509 int bar_parse (void);
510
511 rather than
512
513 #define yyparse bar_parse
514 int yyparse (void);
515
516 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
517 single compilation unit.
518
519 *** Exported symbols in C++
520
521 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
522 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
523 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
524
525 *** YYLSP_NEEDED
526
527 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
528 longer defined.
529
530 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
531
532 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
533 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
534 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
535 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
536 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
537 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
538 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
539
540 The following examples compares both:
541
542 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
543 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
544 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
545 %% %%
546 exp: 'a'; exp: 'a';
547
548 bison generates:
549
550 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
551 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
552
553 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
554 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
555 > # if defined YYDEBUG
556 > # if YYDEBUG
557 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
558 > # else
559 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
560 > # endif
561 > # else
562 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
563 > # endif
564 # endif | # endif
565
566 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
567 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
568 # endif # endif
569
570 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
571 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
572 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
573 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
574 FOO = 258 FOO = 258
575 }; };
576 # endif # endif
577
578 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
579 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
580 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
581 { {
582 int ival; int ival;
583 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
584 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
585 #endif #endif
586
587 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
588
589 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
590
591 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
592
593 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
594
595 ** Future changes:
596
597 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
598
599 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
600
601 ** glr.c improvements:
602
603 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
604
605 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
606 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
607
608 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
609
610 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
611 when -std is passed to GCC).
612
613 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
614
615 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
616 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
617
618 ** Changes for C++:
619
620 *** C++11 compatibility:
621
622 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
623 or higher.
624
625 *** Header guards
626
627 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
628 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
629
630 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
631 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
632 ...
633 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
634
635 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
636 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
637 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
638
639 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
640
641 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
642 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
643 ...
644 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
645
646 *** C++ locations:
647
648 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
649 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
650 documentation were fixed.
651
652 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
653
654 ** Changes in the manual:
655
656 *** %printer is documented
657
658 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
659 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
660
661 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
662 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
663
664 *** Several improvements have been made:
665
666 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
667 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
668 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
669 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
670
671 ** Building bison:
672
673 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
674
675 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
676 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
677
678 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
679
680 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
681
682 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
683 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
684
685 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
686
687 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
688 halts in the middle of its course.
689
690 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
691
692 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
693
694 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
695 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
696 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
697 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
698 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
699
700 ** Named references:
701
702 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
703 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
704 actions code.
705
706 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
707 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
708 as named references:
709
710 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
711 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
712
713 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
714
715 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
716 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
717
718 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
719 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
720 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
721
722 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
723 will help to stabilize them.
724
725 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
726
727 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
728 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
729 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
730 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
731 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
732 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
733 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
734 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
735 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
736
737 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
738 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
739 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
740 file with these directives:
741
742 %define lr.type lalr
743 %define lr.type ielr
744 %define lr.type canonical-lr
745
746 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
747 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
748 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
749 manual.
750
751 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
752 stabilize them.
753
754 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
755
756 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
757 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
758 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
759 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
760 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
761 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
762 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
763 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
764 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
765 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
766 tokens.
767
768 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
769 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
770 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
771 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
772 inconsistent states.
773
774 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
775 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
776 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
777 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
778 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
779 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
780 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
781 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
782 power.
783
784 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
785 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
786
787 %define parse.lac full
788
789 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
790 details including a few caveats.
791
792 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
793 stabilize it.
794
795 ** %define improvements:
796
797 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
798
799 Each of these command-line options
800
801 -D NAME[=VALUE]
802 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
803
804 -F NAME[=VALUE]
805 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
806
807 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
808
809 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
810
811 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
812 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
813 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
814 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
815
816 *** Variables renamed:
817
818 The following %define variables
819
820 api.push_pull
821 lr.keep_unreachable_states
822
823 have been renamed to
824
825 api.push-pull
826 lr.keep-unreachable-states
827
828 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
829 for backward compatibility.
830
831 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
832
833 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
834 within quotations marks. For example,
835
836 %define api.push-pull "push"
837
838 can be rewritten as
839
840 %define api.push-pull push
841
842 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
843
844 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
845
846 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
847
848 ** Character literals not of length one:
849
850 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
851 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
852 the following grammar to be the same token:
853
854 exp: exp '++'
855 | exp '+' exp
856 ;
857
858 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
859 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
860
861 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
862
863 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
864 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
865 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
866 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
867
868 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
869
870 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
871 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
872 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
873 and "last" members, instead of
874
875 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
876 do \
877 if (N) \
878 { \
879 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
880 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
881 } \
882 else \
883 { \
884 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
885 } \
886 while (false)
887
888 use:
889
890 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
891 do \
892 if (N) \
893 { \
894 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
895 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
896 } \
897 else \
898 { \
899 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
900 } \
901 while (false)
902
903 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
904
905 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
906 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
907 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
908 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
909
910 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
911
912 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
913 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
914 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
915 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
916 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
917 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
918 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
919 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
920
921 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
922
923 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
924 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
925 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
926 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
927
928 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
929
930 instead of
931
932 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
933
934 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
935 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
936 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
937 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
938 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
939 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
940 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
941
942 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
943
944 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
945 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
946 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
947 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
948 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
949
950 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
951 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
952 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
953 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
954 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
955 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
956 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
957 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
958 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
959 shifted or discarded.
960
961 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
962 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
963 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
964 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
965
966 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
967 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
968 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
969 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
970 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
971 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
972 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
973 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
974 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
975 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
976 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
977 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
978 by default.
979
980 ** Java skeleton fixes:
981
982 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
983
984 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
985 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
986
987 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
988
989 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
990
991 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
992
993 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
994 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
995
996 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
997
998 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
999
1000 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
1001 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
1002 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
1003 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
1004 example:
1005
1006 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
1007 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
1008 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
1009 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
1010
1011 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
1012 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
1013 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
1014 then have no effect on the conflict report.
1015
1016 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
1017
1018 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
1019 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
1020
1021 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
1022
1023 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
1024
1025 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
1026 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
1027 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
1028 suppress all warnings:
1029
1030 bison -Wnone gram.y
1031
1032 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
1033
1034 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
1035 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
1036 produced an assertion failure. For example:
1037
1038 %left END 0
1039
1040 This bug has been fixed.
1041
1042 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
1043
1044 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
1045 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
1046
1047 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
1048 been fixed.
1049
1050 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
1051
1052 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
1053 been fixed.
1054
1055 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
1056 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
1057 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
1058 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
1059
1060 ** Minor documentation fixes.
1061
1062 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
1063
1064 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
1065 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
1066 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
1067 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
1068 affected platforms.
1069
1070 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
1071
1072 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
1073 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
1074 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
1075 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
1076 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
1077 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
1078 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
1079 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
1080 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
1081
1082 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
1083
1084 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
1085 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1086 avoided.
1087
1088 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1089
1090 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1091
1092 %{CODE%}
1093
1094 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1095 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1096
1097 %code {CODE}
1098 %code requires {CODE}
1099 %code provides {CODE}
1100 %code top {CODE}
1101
1102 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1103 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1104 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1105 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1106 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1107
1108 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1109 is still considered experimental.
1110
1111 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1112
1113 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1114 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1115 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1116 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1117 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1118 specified by POSIX.
1119
1120 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1121 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1122 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1123 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1124 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1125 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1126 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1127
1128 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1129
1130 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1131 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1132 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1133 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1134 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1135 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1136 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1137 be removed altogether.
1138
1139 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1140 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1141 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1142 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1143 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1144 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1145 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1146 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1147 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1148 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1149
1150 ** Internationalization.
1151
1152 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1153 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1154 host system.
1155
1156 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1157
1158 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1159 declarations have been fixed.
1160
1161 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1162
1163 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1164 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1165
1166 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1167
1168 instead of
1169
1170 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1171
1172 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1173 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1174 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1175 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1176 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1177 feature.
1178
1179 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1180
1181 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1182
1183 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1184
1185 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1186 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1187 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1188 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1189 in future releases.
1190
1191 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1192
1193 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1194 fixed.
1195
1196 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1197
1198 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1199 are now deprecated:
1200
1201 %define NAME "VALUE"
1202
1203 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1204
1205 %define api.pure
1206
1207 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1208 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1209
1210 ** Push Parsing
1211
1212 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1213 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1214 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1215 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1216 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1217
1218 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1219 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1220
1221 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1222
1223 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1224 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1225
1226 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1227 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1228 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1229
1230 ** Java
1231
1232 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1233 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1234 %skeleton to select it.
1235
1236 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1237
1238 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1239 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1240
1241 ** %language
1242
1243 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1244 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1245 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1246 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1247
1248 ** XML Automaton Report
1249
1250 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1251 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1252 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1253
1254 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1255 %defines. For example:
1256
1257 %defines "parser.h"
1258
1259 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1260 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1261 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1262 instead of "unused".
1263
1264 ** Unreachable State Removal
1265
1266 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1267 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1268 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1269
1270 1. Removes unreachable states.
1271
1272 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1273 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1274 directives in existing grammar files.
1275
1276 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1277 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1278
1279 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1280
1281 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1282
1283 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1284 for further discussion.
1285
1286 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1287
1288 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1289 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1290 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1291 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1292 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1293 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1294 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1295 code.
1296
1297 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1298 name.
1299
1300 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1301 deprecated:
1302
1303 %file-prefix "parser"
1304 %name-prefix "c_"
1305 %output "parser.c"
1306
1307 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1308
1309 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1310 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1311 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1312 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1313 it:
1314
1315 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1316 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1317 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1318 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1319
1320 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1321 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1322 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1323 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1324
1325 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1326 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1327
1328 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1329
1330 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1331 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1332 about unused $2 in:
1333
1334 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1335
1336 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1337 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1338
1339 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1340
1341 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1342 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1343 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1344
1345 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1346 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1347
1348 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1349
1350 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1351 %printer's:
1352
1353 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1354 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1355 declared semantic type tags.
1356
1357 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1358 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1359 type tags.
1360
1361 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1362 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1363 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1364 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1365
1366 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1367 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1368 features.
1369
1370 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1371 details.
1372
1373 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1374 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1375 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1376
1377 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1378 completely removed from Bison.
1379
1380 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1381
1382 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1383 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1384 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1385 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1386 and is required by POSIX.
1387
1388 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1389 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1390
1391 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1392
1393 For example:
1394
1395 %union { char *string; }
1396 %token <string> STRING1
1397 %token <string> STRING2
1398 %type <string> string1
1399 %type <string> string2
1400 %union { char character; }
1401 %token <character> CHR
1402 %type <character> chr
1403 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1404 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1405 %destructor { } <character>
1406
1407 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1408 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1409 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1410 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1411 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1412
1413 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1414 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1415 future versions.]
1416
1417 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1418 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1419 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1420 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1421 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1422
1423 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1424 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1425
1426 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1427 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1428 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1429 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1430 declared after the first %union.
1431
1432 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1433 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1434 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1435 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1436 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1437 after the token definitions.
1438
1439 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1440 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1441
1442 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1443 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1444 %after-header.
1445
1446 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1447 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1448 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1449 convenient for you:
1450
1451 %before-header {
1452 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1453 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1454 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1455 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1456 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1457 }
1458 %start-header {
1459 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1460 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1461 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1462 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1463 }
1464 %union {
1465 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1466 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1467 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1468 }
1469 %end-header {
1470 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1471 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1472 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1473 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1474 * definitions. */
1475 }
1476 %after-header {
1477 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1478 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1479 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1480 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1481 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1482 }
1483
1484 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1485 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1486
1487 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1488 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1489
1490 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1491 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1492 in a future release.
1493
1494 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1495
1496 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1497 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1498
1499 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1500 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1501
1502 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1503
1504 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1505 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1506 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1507
1508 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1509
1510 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1511
1512 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1513 their contents together.
1514
1515 ** New warning: unused values
1516 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1517 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1518
1519 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1520 | exp "+" exp
1521 ;
1522
1523 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1524 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1525 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1526
1527 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1528 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1529 | exp "+" exp
1530 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1531 ;
1532
1533 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1534 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1535 values are used, e.g.:
1536
1537 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1538 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1539 ;
1540
1541 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1542 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1543
1544 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1545
1546 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1547 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1548
1549 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1550 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1551 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1552 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1553
1554 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1555 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1556 instead of warnings.
1557
1558 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1559 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1560 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1561
1562 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1563
1564 ** %require "VERSION"
1565 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1566 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1567
1568 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1569 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1570 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1571 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1572 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1573
1574 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1575 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1576 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1577 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1578
1579 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1580 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1581
1582 ** DJGPP support added.
1583 \f
1584 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1585
1586 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1587
1588 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1589 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1590 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1591 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1592 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1593 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1594
1595 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1596 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1597 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1598 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1599
1600 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1601 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1602 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1603
1604 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1605 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1606 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1607 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1608 unexpected "number"'.
1609 \f
1610 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1611
1612 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1613
1614 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1615 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1616 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1617 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1618 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1619
1620 - Error token location.
1621 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1622 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1623 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1624 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1625
1626 - Semicolon changes:
1627 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1628 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1629
1630 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1631 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1632 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1633 forget a closing quote.
1634
1635 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1636
1637 ** New features
1638
1639 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1640
1641 - New directive: %initial-action.
1642 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1643 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1644
1645 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1646 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1647
1648 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1649 This is a GNU extension.
1650
1651 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1652 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1653
1654 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1655
1656 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1657 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1658
1659 ** Bug fixes
1660
1661 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1662 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1663 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1664 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1665 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1666 these violations will become errors again.
1667
1668 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1669 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1670
1671 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1672 \f
1673 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1674
1675 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1676 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1677
1678 ** syntax error processing
1679
1680 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1681 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1682
1683 - %destructor
1684 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1685 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1686
1687 - %error-verbose
1688 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1689
1690 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1691 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1692
1693 ** POSIX conformance
1694
1695 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1696 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1697 compatibility with Yacc.
1698
1699 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1700 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1701 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1702 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1703 be consistent.
1704
1705 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1706 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1707
1708 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1709 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1710
1711 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1712 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1713
1714 - Yacc command and library now available
1715 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1716 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1717 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1718 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1719
1720 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1721
1722 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1723 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1724 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1725
1726 ** Other compatibility issues
1727
1728 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1729 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1730 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1731 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1732 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1733 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1734
1735 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1736 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1737
1738 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1739 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1740
1741 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1742 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1743 withdrawn in a future release.
1744
1745 ** GLR parser notes
1746
1747 - GLR and inline
1748 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1749 C keyword "inline".
1750
1751 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1752 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1753
1754 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1755 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1756 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1757 shortcomings:
1758
1759 - a single argument only can be added,
1760 - their types are weak (void *),
1761 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1762 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1763
1764 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1765 For instance:
1766
1767 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1768 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1769 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1770
1771 results in the following signatures:
1772
1773 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1774 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1775
1776 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1777
1778 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1779 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1780
1781 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1782 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1783 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1784
1785 ** #line in output files
1786 - --no-line works properly.
1787
1788 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1789 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1790 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1791 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1792 \f
1793 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1794
1795 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1796
1797 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1798
1799 ** GLR parsers
1800 Fix spurious parse errors.
1801
1802 ** Pure parsers
1803 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1804 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1805
1806 ** Type Clashes
1807 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1808 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1809
1810 untyped: ... typed;
1811
1812 but the converse remains an error:
1813
1814 typed: ... untyped;
1815
1816 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1817 The following code:
1818
1819 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1820
1821 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1822 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1823 \f
1824 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1825
1826 ** GLR parsing
1827 The declaration
1828 %glr-parser
1829 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1830 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1831 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1832 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1833
1834 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1835 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1836
1837 ** Output Directory
1838 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1839 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1840 now creates "bar.c".
1841
1842 ** Undefined token
1843 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1844 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1845
1846 ** Unknown token numbers
1847 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1848 no longer the case.
1849
1850 ** Error token
1851 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1852 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1853 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1854 will be mapped onto another number.
1855
1856 ** Verbose error messages
1857 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1858 error recovery is possible.
1859
1860 ** End token
1861 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1862
1863 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1864 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1865 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1866 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1867 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1868 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1869 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1870 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1871 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1872
1873 ** Traces
1874 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1875
1876 ** Larger grammars
1877 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1878 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1879 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1880 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1881
1882 ** Explicit initial rule
1883 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1884 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1885 graphs as rule 0.
1886
1887 ** Useless rules
1888 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1889 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1890
1891 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1892 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1893
1894 ** Rules never reduced
1895 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1896 reported.
1897
1898 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1899 On a grammar such as
1900
1901 %token useless useful
1902 %%
1903 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1904
1905 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1906 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1907
1908 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1909 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1910
1911 ** Default locations
1912 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1913 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1914 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1915 the computation of @$.
1916
1917 ** Token end-of-file
1918 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1919 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1920 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1921 For instance
1922 %token MYEOF 0
1923 or
1924 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1925
1926 ** Semantic parser
1927 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1928
1929 ** New translations
1930 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1931 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1932
1933 ** Incorrect token definitions
1934 When given
1935 %token 'a' "A"
1936 bison used to output
1937 #define 'a' 65
1938
1939 ** Token definitions as enums
1940 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1941 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1942 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1943
1944 ** Reports
1945 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1946 produces additional information:
1947 - itemset
1948 complete the core item sets with their closure
1949 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1950 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1951 - solved
1952 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1953 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1954 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1955
1956 ** Type clashes
1957 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1958 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1959
1960 %type <foo> bar
1961 %%
1962 bar: '0' {} '0';
1963
1964 This is fixed.
1965
1966 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1967 \f
1968 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1969
1970 ** C Skeleton
1971 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1972 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1973 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1974
1975 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1976 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1977 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1978 kludge will be disabled.
1979
1980 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1981 extended.
1982 \f
1983 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1984
1985 ** File name clashes are detected
1986 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1987 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1988
1989 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1990 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1991 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1992 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1993 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1994 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1995
1996 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1997 many portability hassles.
1998
1999 ** DJGPP support added.
2000
2001 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
2002 \f
2003 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
2004
2005 ** Fix C++ issues
2006 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
2007 under some conditions.
2008
2009 ** Catch invalid @n
2010 As is done with $n.
2011 \f
2012 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
2013
2014 ** Fix Yacc output file names
2015
2016 ** Portability fixes
2017
2018 ** Italian, Dutch translations
2019 \f
2020 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
2021
2022 ** Many Bug Fixes
2023
2024 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
2025 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
2026 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
2027 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
2028 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
2029
2030 ** Use of alloca in parsers
2031 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
2032 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
2033
2034 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
2035 problems as on AIX.
2036
2037 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
2038
2039 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
2040 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
2041
2042 ** User Actions
2043 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
2044 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
2045 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
2046
2047 ** Better C++ compliance
2048 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
2049 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
2050
2051 ** Reduced Grammars
2052 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
2053
2054 ** 64 bit hosts
2055 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
2056
2057 ** Error messages
2058 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
2059
2060 ** %expect
2061 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
2062 any warning.
2063
2064 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
2065
2066 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
2067
2068 ** Swedish translation
2069
2070 ** Parse errors
2071 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
2072 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
2073 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
2074
2075 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
2076 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
2077 previous allocations were not freed.
2078
2079 ** Fixed verbose output file.
2080 Some newlines were missing.
2081 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
2082
2083 ** Fixed conflict report.
2084 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2085
2086 ** %expect
2087 Was not used.
2088 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2089
2090 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2091
2092 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2093
2094 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2095
2096 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2097 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2098
2099 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2100
2101 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2102 New.
2103
2104 ** --output
2105 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2106 \f
2107 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2108
2109 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2110 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2111 argument.
2112
2113 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2114 experiment.
2115
2116 ** Portability fixes.
2117 \f
2118 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2119
2120 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2121 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2122 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2123 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2124
2125 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2126
2127 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2128
2129 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2130
2131 ** Russian translation added.
2132
2133 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2134
2135 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2136
2137 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2138
2139 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2140
2141 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2142
2143 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2144 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2145
2146 ** New directives.
2147 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2148 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2149
2150 ** @$
2151 Automatic location tracking.
2152 \f
2153 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2154
2155 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2156
2157 ** Added NLS.
2158
2159 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2160
2161 ** There is now a FAQ.
2162 \f
2163 * Changes in version 1.27:
2164
2165 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2166 some systems has been fixed.
2167 \f
2168 * Changes in version 1.26:
2169
2170 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2171
2172 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2173
2174 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2175
2176 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2177
2178 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2179
2180 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2181
2182 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2183 not provide alloca().
2184 \f
2185 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2186
2187 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2188 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2189
2190 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2191 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2192 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2193
2194 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2195 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2196 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2197 purposes.
2198
2199 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2200 directives in the parser file.
2201
2202 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2203 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2204
2205 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2206 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2207 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2208 a switch statement body.
2209 \f
2210 * Changes in version 1.23:
2211
2212 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2213 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2214 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2215 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2216
2217 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2218 \f
2219 * Changes in version 1.22:
2220
2221 --help option added.
2222 \f
2223 * Changes in version 1.20:
2224
2225 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2226
2227 -----
2228
2229 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2230
2231 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2232
2233 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2234 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2235 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2236 (at your option) any later version.
2237
2238 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2239 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2240 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2241 GNU General Public License for more details.
2242
2243 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2244 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2245
2246 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2247 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2248 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2249 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2250 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2251 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2252 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2253 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2254 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2255 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2256 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2257 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2258 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2259 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2260 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2261 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2262 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2263 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2264 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval Wconflicts
2265
2266 Local Variables:
2267 mode: outline
2268 fill-column: 76
2269 End: