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