3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
5 ** Incompatible changes
9 Support for YYFAIL is removed (deprecated in Bison 2.4.2).
10 Support for yystype and yyltype (instead of YYSTYPE and YYLTYPE)
11 is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
12 Support for YYPARSE_PARAM is removed (deprecated in Bison 1.875).
16 *** Enhancements of the -Werror option
18 The -Werror=CATEGORY option is now recognized, and will treat specified
19 warnings as errors. The warnings need not have been explictly activated
20 using the -W option, this is similar to what gcc 4.7 does.
22 For example, given the following command line, Bison will treat both
23 warnings related to POSIX Yacc incompatiblities and S/R conflicts as
24 errors (and only those):
26 $ bison -Werror=yacc,error=conflicts-sr input.y
28 If no categories are specified, -Werror will make all active warnings into
29 errors. For example, the following line does the same the previous example:
31 $ bison -Werror -Wnone -Wyacc -Wconflicts-sr input.y
33 (By default -Wconflicts-sr,conflicts-rr,deprecated,other is enabled.)
35 Note that the categories in this -Werror option may not be prefixed with
36 "no-". However, -Wno-error[=CATEGORY] is valid.
38 Note that -y enables -Werror=yacc. Therefore it is now possible to require
39 Yacc-like behavior (e.g., always generate y.tab.c), but to report
40 incompatibilities as warnings: "-y -Wno-error=yacc".
42 *** The display of warnings is now richer
44 The option that controls a given warning is now displayed:
46 foo.y:4.6: warning: type clash on default action: <foo> != <bar> [-Wother]
48 In the case of warnings treated as errors, the prefix is changed from
49 "warning: " to "error: ", and the suffix is displayed, in a manner similar
50 to gcc, as [-Werror=CATEGORY].
52 For instance, where the previous version of Bison would report (and exit
55 bison: warnings being treated as errors
56 input.y:1.1: warning: stray ',' treated as white space
60 input.y:1.1: error: stray ',' treated as white space [-Werror=other]
62 *** Deprecated constructs
64 The new 'deprecated' warning category flags obsolete constructs whose
65 support will be discontinued. It is enabled by default. These warnings
66 used to be reported as 'other' warnings.
68 *** Useless semantic types
70 Bison now warns about useless (uninhabited) semantic types. Since
71 semantic types are not declared to Bison (they are defined in the opaque
72 %union structure), it is %printer/%destructor directives about useless
73 types that trigger the warning:
77 %printer {} <type1> <type3>
78 %destructor {} <type2> <type4>
80 nterm: term { $$ = $1; };
82 3.28-34: warning: type <type3> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
83 4.28-34: warning: type <type4> is used, but is not associated to any symbol
85 *** Undefined but unused symbols
87 Bison used to raise an error for undefined symbols that are not used in
88 the grammar. This is now only a warning.
91 %destructor {} symbol2
96 *** Useless destructors or printers
98 Bison now warns about useless destructors or printers. In the following
99 example, the printer for <type1>, and the destructor for <type2> are
100 useless: all symbols of <type1> (token1) already have a printer, and all
101 symbols of type <type2> (token2) already have a destructor.
103 %token <type1> token1
107 %printer {} token1 <type1> <type3>
108 %destructor {} token2 <type2> <type4>
112 The warnings and error messages about shift/reduce and reduce/reduce
113 conflicts have been normalized. For instance on the following foo.y file:
117 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
119 compare the previous version of bison:
122 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
123 $ bison -Werror foo.y
124 bison: warnings being treated as errors
125 foo.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
127 with the new behavior:
130 foo.y: warning: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Wconflicts-sr]
131 foo.y: warning: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
132 $ bison -Werror foo.y
133 foo.y: error: 1 shift/reduce conflict [-Werror=conflicts-sr]
134 foo.y: error: 2 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Werror=conflicts-rr]
136 When %expect or %expect-rr is used, such as with bar.y:
141 exp: exp '+' exp | '0' | '0';
146 bar.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce, 2 reduce/reduce
147 bar.y: expected 0 shift/reduce conflicts
148 bar.y: expected 0 reduce/reduce conflicts
153 bar.y: error: shift/reduce conflicts: 1 found, 0 expected
154 bar.y: error: reduce/reduce conflicts: 2 found, 0 expected
156 ** Additional yylex/yyparse arguments
158 The new directive %param declares additional arguments to both yylex and
159 yyparse. The %lex-param, %parse-param, and %param directives support one
160 or more arguments. Instead of
162 %lex-param {arg1_type *arg1}
163 %lex-param {arg2_type *arg2}
164 %parse-param {arg1_type *arg1}
165 %parse-param {arg2_type *arg2}
169 %param {arg1_type *arg1} {arg2_type *arg2}
171 ** Java skeleton improvements
173 The constants for token names were moved to the Lexer interface. Also, it
174 is possible to add code to the parser's constructors using "%code init"
175 and "%define init_throws".
177 ** C++ skeletons improvements
179 *** The parser header is no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
181 Using %defines is now optional. Without it, the needed support classes
182 are defined in the generated parser, instead of additional files (such as
183 location.hh, position.hh and stack.hh).
185 *** Locations are no longer mandatory (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
187 Both lalr1.cc and glr.cc no longer require %location.
189 *** syntax_error exception (lalr1.cc)
191 The C++ parser features a syntax_error exception, which can be
192 thrown from the scanner or from user rules to raise syntax errors.
193 This facilitates reporting errors caught in sub-functions (e.g.,
194 rejecting too large integral literals from a conversion function
195 used by the scanner, or rejecting invalid combinations from a
196 factory invoked by the user actions).
198 ** Variable api.tokens.prefix
200 The variable api.tokens.prefix changes the way tokens are identified in
201 the generated files. This is especially useful to avoid collisions
202 with identifiers in the target language. For instance
204 %token FILE for ERROR
205 %define api.tokens.prefix "TOK_"
207 start: FILE for ERROR;
209 will generate the definition of the symbols TOK_FILE, TOK_for, and
210 TOK_ERROR in the generated sources. In particular, the scanner must
211 use these prefixed token names, although the grammar itself still
212 uses the short names (as in the sample rule given above).
214 ** Variable api.namespace
216 The 'namespace' variable is renamed 'api.namespace'. Backward
217 compatibility is ensured, but upgrading is recommended.
219 ** Variable parse.error
221 This variable controls the verbosity of error messages. The use of the
222 %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of "%define parse.error
225 ** Semantic predicates
227 The new, experimental, semantic-predicate feature allows actions of the
228 form "%?{ BOOLEAN-EXPRESSION }", which cause syntax errors (as for
229 YYERROR) if the expression evaluates to 0, and are evaluated immediately
230 in GLR parsers, rather than being deferred. The result is that they allow
231 the programmer to prune possible parses based on the values of run-time
234 ** The directive %expect-rr is now an error in non GLR mode
236 It used to be an error only if used in non GLR mode, _and_ if there are
237 reduce/reduce conflicts.
239 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
243 Bugs and portability issues in the test suite have been fixed.
245 Some errors in translations have been addressed, and --help now directs
246 users to the appropriate place to report them.
248 Stray Info files shipped by accident are removed.
250 Incorrect definitions of YY_, issued by yacc.c when no parser header is
251 generated, are removed.
253 All the generated headers are self-contained.
255 ** Changes in the format of error messages
257 This used to be the format of many error reports:
259 foo.y:5.10-24: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
260 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
264 foo.y:5.10-25: result type clash on merge function 'merge': <t3> != <t2>
265 foo.y:4.13-27: previous declaration
267 ** Header guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
269 In order to avoid collisions, the header guards are now
270 YY_<PREFIX>_<FILE>_INCLUDED, instead of merely <PREFIX>_<FILE>.
271 For instance the header generated from
273 %define api.prefix "calc"
274 %defines "lib/parse.h"
276 will use YY_CALC_LIB_PARSE_H_INCLUDED as guard.
278 ** Exception safety (lalr1.cc)
280 The parse function now catches exceptions, uses the %destructors to
281 release memory (the lookahead symbol and the symbols pushed on the stack)
282 before rethrowing the exception.
284 This feature is somewhat experimental. User feedback would be
287 ** Fix compiler warnings in the generated parser (yacc.c, glr.c)
289 The compilation of pure parsers (%define api.pure) can trigger GCC
292 input.c: In function 'yyparse':
293 input.c:1503:12: warning: 'yylval' may be used uninitialized in this
294 function [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
298 This is now fixed; pragmas to avoid these warnings are no longer needed.
300 Warnings from clang ("equality comparison with extraneous parentheses" and
301 "function declared 'noreturn' should not return") have also been
304 ** New %define variable: api.location.type (glr.cc, lalr1.cc)
306 The %define variable api.location.type defines the name of the type to use
307 for locations. When defined, Bison no longer generates the position.hh
308 and location.hh files, nor does the parser will include them: the user is
309 then responsible to define her type.
311 This can be used in programs with several parsers to factor their location
312 and position files: let one of them generate them, and the others just use
315 This feature was actually introduced, but not documented, in Bison 2.5,
316 under the name "location_type" (which is maintained for backward
319 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.2 (2012-08-03) [stable]
323 Buffer overruns, complaints from Flex, and portability issues in the test
324 suite have been fixed.
326 ** Spaces in %lex- and %parse-param (lalr1.cc, glr.cc)
328 Trailing end-of-lines in %parse-param or %lex-param would result in
329 invalid C++. This is fixed.
331 ** Spurious spaces and end-of-lines
333 The generated files no longer end (nor start) with empty lines.
335 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6.1 (2012-07-30) [stable]
337 Bison no longer executes user-specified M4 code when processing a grammar.
341 In addition to the removal of the features announced in Bison 2.6, the
342 next major release will remove the "Temporary hack for adding a semicolon
343 to the user action", as announced in the release 2.5. Instead of:
345 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
349 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
353 *** Type names are now properly escaped.
355 *** glr.cc: set_debug_level and debug_level work as expected.
357 *** Stray @ or $ in actions
359 While Bison used to warn about stray $ or @ in action rules, it did not
360 for other actions such as printers, destructors, or initial actions. It
363 ** Type names in actions
365 For consistency with rule actions, it is now possible to qualify $$ by a
366 type-name in destructors, printers, and initial actions. For instance:
368 %printer { fprintf (yyo, "(%d, %f)", $<ival>$, $<fval>$); } <*> <>;
370 will display two values for each typed and untyped symbol (provided
371 that YYSTYPE has both "ival" and "fval" fields).
373 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.6 (2012-07-19) [stable]
377 The next major release of Bison will drop support for the following
378 deprecated features. Please report disagreements to bug-bison@gnu.org.
382 Support for generating parsers in K&R C will be removed. Parsers
383 generated for C support ISO C90, and are tested with ISO C99 and ISO C11
386 *** Features deprecated since Bison 1.875
388 The definitions of yystype and yyltype will be removed; use YYSTYPE and
391 YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM, deprecated in favor of %parse-param and
392 %lex-param, will no longer be supported.
394 Support for the preprocessor symbol YYERROR_VERBOSE will be removed, use
397 *** The generated header will be included (yacc.c)
399 Instead of duplicating the content of the generated header (definition of
400 YYSTYPE, yyparse declaration etc.), the generated parser will include it,
401 as is already the case for GLR or C++ parsers. This change is deferred
402 because existing versions of ylwrap (e.g., Automake 1.12.1) do not support
405 ** Generated Parser Headers
407 *** Guards (yacc.c, glr.c, glr.cc)
409 The generated headers are now guarded, as is already the case for C++
410 parsers (lalr1.cc). For instance, with --defines=foo.h:
415 #endif /* !YY_FOO_H */
417 *** New declarations (yacc.c, glr.c)
419 The generated header now declares yydebug and yyparse. Both honor
420 --name-prefix=bar_, and yield
422 int bar_parse (void);
426 #define yyparse bar_parse
429 in order to facilitate the inclusion of several parser headers inside a
430 single compilation unit.
432 *** Exported symbols in C++
434 The symbols YYTOKEN_TABLE and YYERROR_VERBOSE, which were defined in the
435 header, are removed, as they prevent the possibility of including several
436 generated headers from a single compilation unit.
440 For the same reasons, the undocumented and unused macro YYLSP_NEEDED is no
443 ** New %define variable: api.prefix
445 Now that the generated headers are more complete and properly protected
446 against multiple inclusions, constant names, such as YYSTYPE are a
447 problem. While yyparse and others are properly renamed by %name-prefix,
448 YYSTYPE, YYDEBUG and others have never been affected by it. Because it
449 would introduce backward compatibility issues in projects not expecting
450 YYSTYPE to be renamed, instead of changing the behavior of %name-prefix,
451 it is deprecated in favor of a new %define variable: api.prefix.
453 The following examples compares both:
455 %name-prefix "bar_" | %define api.prefix "bar_"
456 %token <ival> FOO %token <ival> FOO
457 %union { int ival; } %union { int ival; }
463 #ifndef BAR_FOO_H #ifndef BAR_FOO_H
464 # define BAR_FOO_H # define BAR_FOO_H
466 /* Enabling traces. */ /* Enabling traces. */
467 # ifndef YYDEBUG | # ifndef BAR_DEBUG
468 > # if defined YYDEBUG
470 > # define BAR_DEBUG 1
472 > # define BAR_DEBUG 0
475 # define YYDEBUG 0 | # define BAR_DEBUG 0
479 # if YYDEBUG | # if BAR_DEBUG
480 extern int bar_debug; extern int bar_debug;
483 /* Tokens. */ /* Tokens. */
484 # ifndef YYTOKENTYPE | # ifndef BAR_TOKENTYPE
485 # define YYTOKENTYPE | # define BAR_TOKENTYPE
486 enum yytokentype { | enum bar_tokentype {
491 #if ! defined YYSTYPE \ | #if ! defined BAR_STYPE \
492 && ! defined YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED | && ! defined BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED
493 typedef union YYSTYPE | typedef union BAR_STYPE
496 } YYSTYPE; | } BAR_STYPE;
497 # define YYSTYPE_IS_DECLARED 1 | # define BAR_STYPE_IS_DECLARED 1
500 extern YYSTYPE bar_lval; | extern BAR_STYPE bar_lval;
502 int bar_parse (void); int bar_parse (void);
504 #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */ #endif /* !BAR_FOO_H */
506 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.5.1 (2012-06-05) [stable]
510 The next major release will drop support for generating parsers in K&R C.
512 ** yacc.c: YYBACKUP works as expected.
514 ** glr.c improvements:
516 *** Location support is eliminated when not requested:
518 GLR parsers used to include location-related code even when locations were
519 not requested, and therefore not even usable.
521 *** __attribute__ is preserved:
523 __attribute__ is no longer disabled when __STRICT_ANSI__ is defined (i.e.,
524 when -std is passed to GCC).
526 ** lalr1.java: several fixes:
528 The Java parser no longer throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if the
529 first token leads to a syntax error. Some minor clean ups.
533 *** C++11 compatibility:
535 C and C++ parsers use "nullptr" instead of "0" when __cplusplus is 201103L
540 The header files such as "parser.hh", "location.hh", etc. used a constant
541 name for preprocessor guards, for instance:
543 #ifndef BISON_LOCATION_HH
544 # define BISON_LOCATION_HH
546 #endif // !BISON_LOCATION_HH
548 The inclusion guard is now computed from "PREFIX/FILE-NAME", where lower
549 case characters are converted to upper case, and series of
550 non-alphanumerical characters are converted to an underscore.
552 With "bison -o lang++/parser.cc", "location.hh" would now include:
554 #ifndef YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
555 # define YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
557 #endif // !YY_LANG_LOCATION_HH
561 The position and location constructors (and their initialize methods)
562 accept new arguments for line and column. Several issues in the
563 documentation were fixed.
565 ** liby is no longer asking for "rpl_fprintf" on some platforms.
567 ** Changes in the manual:
569 *** %printer is documented
571 The "%printer" directive, supported since at least Bison 1.50, is finally
572 documented. The "mfcalc" example is extended to demonstrate it.
574 For consistency with the C skeletons, the C++ parsers now also support
575 "yyoutput" (as an alias to "debug_stream ()").
577 *** Several improvements have been made:
579 The layout for grammar excerpts was changed to a more compact scheme.
580 Named references are motivated. The description of the automaton
581 description file (*.output) is updated to the current format. Incorrect
582 index entries were fixed. Some other errors were fixed.
586 *** Conflicting prototypes with recent/modified Flex.
588 Fixed build problems with the current, unreleased, version of Flex, and
589 some modified versions of 2.5.35, which have modified function prototypes.
591 *** Warnings during the build procedure have been eliminated.
593 *** Several portability problems in the test suite have been fixed:
595 This includes warnings with some compilers, unexpected behavior of tools
596 such as diff, warning messages from the test suite itself, etc.
598 *** The install-pdf target works properly:
600 Running "make install-pdf" (or -dvi, -html, -info, and -ps) no longer
601 halts in the middle of its course.
603 * Changes in version 2.5 (2011-05-14):
605 ** Grammar symbol names can now contain non-initial dashes:
607 Consistently with directives (such as %error-verbose) and with
608 %define variables (e.g. push-pull), grammar symbol names may contain
609 dashes in any position except the beginning. This is a GNU
610 extension over POSIX Yacc. Thus, use of this extension is reported
611 by -Wyacc and rejected in Yacc mode (--yacc).
615 Historically, Yacc and Bison have supported positional references
616 ($n, $$) to allow access to symbol values from inside of semantic
619 Starting from this version, Bison can also accept named references.
620 When no ambiguity is possible, original symbol names may be used
623 if_stmt : "if" cond_expr "then" then_stmt ';'
624 { $if_stmt = mk_if_stmt($cond_expr, $then_stmt); }
626 In the more common case, explicit names may be declared:
628 stmt[res] : "if" expr[cond] "then" stmt[then] "else" stmt[else] ';'
629 { $res = mk_if_stmt($cond, $then, $else); }
631 Location information is also accessible using @name syntax. When
632 accessing symbol names containing dots or dashes, explicit bracketing
633 ($[sym.1]) must be used.
635 These features are experimental in this version. More user feedback
636 will help to stabilize them.
638 ** IELR(1) and canonical LR(1):
640 IELR(1) is a minimal LR(1) parser table generation algorithm. That
641 is, given any context-free grammar, IELR(1) generates parser tables
642 with the full language-recognition power of canonical LR(1) but with
643 nearly the same number of parser states as LALR(1). This reduction
644 in parser states is often an order of magnitude. More importantly,
645 because canonical LR(1)'s extra parser states may contain duplicate
646 conflicts in the case of non-LR(1) grammars, the number of conflicts
647 for IELR(1) is often an order of magnitude less as well. This can
648 significantly reduce the complexity of developing of a grammar.
650 Bison can now generate IELR(1) and canonical LR(1) parser tables in
651 place of its traditional LALR(1) parser tables, which remain the
652 default. You can specify the type of parser tables in the grammar
653 file with these directives:
657 %define lr.type canonical-lr
659 The default-reduction optimization in the parser tables can also be
660 adjusted using "%define lr.default-reductions". For details on both
661 of these features, see the new section "Tuning LR" in the Bison
664 These features are experimental. More user feedback will help to
667 ** LAC (Lookahead Correction) for syntax error handling:
669 Canonical LR, IELR, and LALR can suffer from a couple of problems
670 upon encountering a syntax error. First, the parser might perform
671 additional parser stack reductions before discovering the syntax
672 error. Such reductions can perform user semantic actions that are
673 unexpected because they are based on an invalid token, and they
674 cause error recovery to begin in a different syntactic context than
675 the one in which the invalid token was encountered. Second, when
676 verbose error messages are enabled (with %error-verbose or the
677 obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE"), the expected token list in the
678 syntax error message can both contain invalid tokens and omit valid
681 The culprits for the above problems are %nonassoc, default
682 reductions in inconsistent states, and parser state merging. Thus,
683 IELR and LALR suffer the most. Canonical LR can suffer only if
684 %nonassoc is used or if default reductions are enabled for
687 LAC is a new mechanism within the parsing algorithm that solves
688 these problems for canonical LR, IELR, and LALR without sacrificing
689 %nonassoc, default reductions, or state merging. When LAC is in
690 use, canonical LR and IELR behave almost exactly the same for both
691 syntactically acceptable and syntactically unacceptable input.
692 While LALR still does not support the full language-recognition
693 power of canonical LR and IELR, LAC at least enables LALR's syntax
694 error handling to correctly reflect LALR's language-recognition
697 Currently, LAC is only supported for deterministic parsers in C.
698 You can enable LAC with the following directive:
700 %define parse.lac full
702 See the new section "LAC" in the Bison manual for additional
703 details including a few caveats.
705 LAC is an experimental feature. More user feedback will help to
708 ** %define improvements:
710 *** Can now be invoked via the command line:
712 Each of these command-line options
715 --define=NAME[=VALUE]
718 --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
720 is equivalent to this grammar file declaration
722 %define NAME ["VALUE"]
724 except that the manner in which Bison processes multiple definitions
725 for the same NAME differs. Most importantly, -F and --force-define
726 quietly override %define, but -D and --define do not. For further
727 details, see the section "Bison Options" in the Bison manual.
729 *** Variables renamed:
731 The following %define variables
734 lr.keep_unreachable_states
739 lr.keep-unreachable-states
741 The old names are now deprecated but will be maintained indefinitely
742 for backward compatibility.
744 *** Values no longer need to be quoted in the grammar file:
746 If a %define value is an identifier, it no longer needs to be placed
747 within quotations marks. For example,
749 %define api.push-pull "push"
753 %define api.push-pull push
755 *** Unrecognized variables are now errors not warnings.
757 *** Multiple invocations for any variable is now an error not a warning.
759 ** Unrecognized %code qualifiers are now errors not warnings.
761 ** Character literals not of length one:
763 Previously, Bison quietly converted all character literals to length
764 one. For example, without warning, Bison interpreted the operators in
765 the following grammar to be the same token:
771 Bison now warns when a character literal is not of length one. In
772 some future release, Bison will start reporting an error instead.
774 ** Destructor calls fixed for lookaheads altered in semantic actions:
776 Previously for deterministic parsers in C, if a user semantic action
777 altered yychar, the parser in some cases used the old yychar value to
778 determine which destructor to call for the lookahead upon a syntax
779 error or upon parser return. This bug has been fixed.
781 ** C++ parsers use YYRHSLOC:
783 Similarly to the C parsers, the C++ parsers now define the YYRHSLOC
784 macro and use it in the default YYLLOC_DEFAULT. You are encouraged
785 to use it. If, for instance, your location structure has "first"
786 and "last" members, instead of
788 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
792 (Current).first = (Rhs)[1].location.first; \
793 (Current).last = (Rhs)[N].location.last; \
797 (Current).first = (Current).last = (Rhs)[0].location.last; \
803 # define YYLLOC_DEFAULT(Current, Rhs, N) \
807 (Current).first = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 1).first; \
808 (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, N).last; \
812 (Current).first = (Current).last = YYRHSLOC (Rhs, 0).last; \
816 ** YYLLOC_DEFAULT in C++:
818 The default implementation of YYLLOC_DEFAULT used to be issued in
819 the header file. It is now output in the implementation file, after
820 the user %code sections so that its #ifndef guard does not try to
821 override the user's YYLLOC_DEFAULT if provided.
823 ** YYFAIL now produces warnings and Java parsers no longer implement it:
825 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
826 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. More recently, it was
827 a documented feature of Bison's experimental Java parsers. As
828 promised in Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, any appearance of YYFAIL in a
829 semantic action now produces a deprecation warning, and Java parsers
830 no longer implement YYFAIL at all. For further details, including a
831 discussion of how to suppress C preprocessor warnings about YYFAIL
832 being unused, see the Bison 2.4.2 NEWS entry.
834 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action:
836 Previously, Bison appended a semicolon to every user action for
837 reductions when the output language defaulted to C (specifically, when
838 neither %yacc, %language, %skeleton, or equivalent command-line
839 options were specified). This allowed actions such as
841 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
845 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
847 As a first step in removing this misfeature, Bison now issues a
848 warning when it appends a semicolon. Moreover, in cases where Bison
849 cannot easily determine whether a semicolon is needed (for example, an
850 action ending with a cpp directive or a braced compound initializer),
851 it no longer appends one. Thus, the C compiler might now complain
852 about a missing semicolon where it did not before. Future releases of
853 Bison will cease to append semicolons entirely.
855 ** Verbose syntax error message fixes:
857 When %error-verbose or the obsolete "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
858 specified, syntax error messages produced by the generated parser
859 include the unexpected token as well as a list of expected tokens.
860 The effect of %nonassoc on these verbose messages has been corrected
861 in two ways, but a more complete fix requires LAC, described above:
863 *** When %nonassoc is used, there can exist parser states that accept no
864 tokens, and so the parser does not always require a lookahead token
865 in order to detect a syntax error. Because no unexpected token or
866 expected tokens can then be reported, the verbose syntax error
867 message described above is suppressed, and the parser instead
868 reports the simpler message, "syntax error". Previously, this
869 suppression was sometimes erroneously triggered by %nonassoc when a
870 lookahead was actually required. Now verbose messages are
871 suppressed only when all previous lookaheads have already been
872 shifted or discarded.
874 *** Previously, the list of expected tokens erroneously included tokens
875 that would actually induce a syntax error because conflicts for them
876 were resolved with %nonassoc in the current parser state. Such
877 tokens are now properly omitted from the list.
879 *** Expected token lists are still often wrong due to state merging
880 (from LALR or IELR) and default reductions, which can both add
881 invalid tokens and subtract valid tokens. Canonical LR almost
882 completely fixes this problem by eliminating state merging and
883 default reductions. However, there is one minor problem left even
884 when using canonical LR and even after the fixes above. That is,
885 if the resolution of a conflict with %nonassoc appears in a later
886 parser state than the one at which some syntax error is
887 discovered, the conflicted token is still erroneously included in
888 the expected token list. Bison's new LAC implementation,
889 described above, eliminates this problem and the need for
890 canonical LR. However, LAC is still experimental and is disabled
893 ** Java skeleton fixes:
895 *** A location handling bug has been fixed.
897 *** The top element of each of the value stack and location stack is now
898 cleared when popped so that it can be garbage collected.
900 *** Parser traces now print the top element of the stack.
902 ** -W/--warnings fixes:
904 *** Bison now properly recognizes the "no-" versions of categories:
906 For example, given the following command line, Bison now enables all
907 warnings except warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
909 bison -Wall,no-yacc gram.y
911 *** Bison now treats S/R and R/R conflicts like other warnings:
913 Previously, conflict reports were independent of Bison's normal
914 warning system. Now, Bison recognizes the warning categories
915 "conflicts-sr" and "conflicts-rr". This change has important
916 consequences for the -W and --warnings command-line options. For
919 bison -Wno-conflicts-sr gram.y # S/R conflicts not reported
920 bison -Wno-conflicts-rr gram.y # R/R conflicts not reported
921 bison -Wnone gram.y # no conflicts are reported
922 bison -Werror gram.y # any conflict is an error
924 However, as before, if the %expect or %expect-rr directive is
925 specified, an unexpected number of conflicts is an error, and an
926 expected number of conflicts is not reported, so -W and --warning
927 then have no effect on the conflict report.
929 *** The "none" category no longer disables a preceding "error":
931 For example, for the following command line, Bison now reports
932 errors instead of warnings for incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc:
934 bison -Werror,none,yacc gram.y
936 *** The "none" category now disables all Bison warnings:
938 Previously, the "none" category disabled only Bison warnings for
939 which there existed a specific -W/--warning category. However,
940 given the following command line, Bison is now guaranteed to
941 suppress all warnings:
945 ** Precedence directives can now assign token number 0:
947 Since Bison 2.3b, which restored the ability of precedence
948 directives to assign token numbers, doing so for token number 0 has
949 produced an assertion failure. For example:
953 This bug has been fixed.
955 * Changes in version 2.4.3 (2010-08-05):
957 ** Bison now obeys -Werror and --warnings=error for warnings about
958 grammar rules that are useless in the parser due to conflicts.
960 ** Problems with spawning M4 on at least FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9 have
963 ** Failures in the test suite for GCC 4.5 have been fixed.
965 ** Failures in the test suite for some versions of Sun Studio C++ have
968 ** Contrary to Bison 2.4.2's NEWS entry, it has been decided that
969 warnings about undefined %prec identifiers will not be converted to
970 errors in Bison 2.5. They will remain warnings, which should be
971 sufficient for POSIX while avoiding backward compatibility issues.
973 ** Minor documentation fixes.
975 * Changes in version 2.4.2 (2010-03-20):
977 ** Some portability problems that resulted in failures and livelocks
978 in the test suite on some versions of at least Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
979 RHEL4, and Tru64 have been addressed. As a result, fatal Bison
980 errors should no longer cause M4 to report a broken pipe on the
983 ** "%prec IDENTIFIER" requires IDENTIFIER to be defined separately.
985 POSIX specifies that an error be reported for any identifier that does
986 not appear on the LHS of a grammar rule and that is not defined by
987 %token, %left, %right, or %nonassoc. Bison 2.3b and later lost this
988 error report for the case when an identifier appears only after a
989 %prec directive. It is now restored. However, for backward
990 compatibility with recent Bison releases, it is only a warning for
991 now. In Bison 2.5 and later, it will return to being an error.
992 [Between the 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 releases, it was decided that this
993 warning will not be converted to an error in Bison 2.5.]
995 ** Detection of GNU M4 1.4.6 or newer during configure is improved.
997 ** Warnings from gcc's -Wundef option about undefined YYENABLE_NLS,
998 YYLTYPE_IS_TRIVIAL, and __STRICT_ANSI__ in C/C++ parsers are now
1001 ** %code is now a permanent feature.
1003 A traditional Yacc prologue directive is written in the form:
1007 To provide a more flexible alternative, Bison 2.3b introduced the
1008 %code directive with the following forms for C/C++:
1011 %code requires {CODE}
1012 %code provides {CODE}
1015 These forms are now considered permanent features of Bison. See the
1016 %code entries in the section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1017 manual for a summary of their functionality. See the section
1018 "Prologue Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the
1019 advantages of %code over the traditional Yacc prologue directive.
1021 Bison's Java feature as a whole including its current usage of %code
1022 is still considered experimental.
1024 ** YYFAIL is deprecated and will eventually be removed.
1026 YYFAIL has existed for many years as an undocumented feature of
1027 deterministic parsers in C generated by Bison. Previously, it was
1028 documented for Bison's experimental Java parsers. YYFAIL is no longer
1029 documented for Java parsers and is formally deprecated in both cases.
1030 Users are strongly encouraged to migrate to YYERROR, which is
1033 Like YYERROR, you can invoke YYFAIL from a semantic action in order to
1034 induce a syntax error. The most obvious difference from YYERROR is
1035 that YYFAIL will automatically invoke yyerror to report the syntax
1036 error so that you don't have to. However, there are several other
1037 subtle differences between YYERROR and YYFAIL, and YYFAIL suffers from
1038 inherent flaws when %error-verbose or "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE" is
1039 used. For a more detailed discussion, see:
1041 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bison-patches/2009-12/msg00024.html
1043 The upcoming Bison 2.5 will remove YYFAIL from Java parsers, but
1044 deterministic parsers in C will continue to implement it. However,
1045 because YYFAIL is already flawed, it seems futile to try to make new
1046 Bison features compatible with it. Thus, during parser generation,
1047 Bison 2.5 will produce a warning whenever it discovers YYFAIL in a
1048 rule action. In a later release, YYFAIL will be disabled for
1049 %error-verbose and "#define YYERROR_VERBOSE". Eventually, YYFAIL will
1050 be removed altogether.
1052 There exists at least one case where Bison 2.5's YYFAIL warning will
1053 be a false positive. Some projects add phony uses of YYFAIL and other
1054 Bison-defined macros for the sole purpose of suppressing C
1055 preprocessor warnings (from GCC cpp's -Wunused-macros, for example).
1056 To avoid Bison's future warning, such YYFAIL uses can be moved to the
1057 epilogue (that is, after the second "%%") in the Bison input file. In
1058 this release (2.4.2), Bison already generates its own code to suppress
1059 C preprocessor warnings for YYFAIL, so projects can remove their own
1060 phony uses of YYFAIL if compatibility with Bison releases prior to
1061 2.4.2 is not necessary.
1063 ** Internationalization.
1065 Fix a regression introduced in Bison 2.4: Under some circumstances,
1066 message translations were not installed although supported by the
1069 * Changes in version 2.4.1 (2008-12-11):
1071 ** In the GLR defines file, unexpanded M4 macros in the yylval and yylloc
1072 declarations have been fixed.
1074 ** Temporary hack for adding a semicolon to the user action.
1076 Bison used to prepend a trailing semicolon at the end of the user
1077 action for reductions. This allowed actions such as
1079 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3 };
1083 exp: exp "+" exp { $$ = $1 + $3; };
1085 Some grammars still depend on this "feature". Bison 2.4.1 restores
1086 the previous behavior in the case of C output (specifically, when
1087 neither %language or %skeleton or equivalent command-line options
1088 are used) to leave more time for grammars depending on the old
1089 behavior to be adjusted. Future releases of Bison will disable this
1092 ** A few minor improvements to the Bison manual.
1094 * Changes in version 2.4 (2008-11-02):
1096 ** %language is an experimental feature.
1098 We first introduced this feature in test release 2.3b as a cleaner
1099 alternative to %skeleton. Since then, we have discussed the possibility of
1100 modifying its effect on Bison's output file names. Thus, in this release,
1101 we consider %language to be an experimental feature that will likely evolve
1104 ** Forward compatibility with GNU M4 has been improved.
1106 ** Several bugs in the C++ skeleton and the experimental Java skeleton have been
1109 * Changes in version 2.3b (2008-05-27):
1111 ** The quotes around NAME that used to be required in the following directive
1114 %define NAME "VALUE"
1116 ** The directive "%pure-parser" is now deprecated in favor of:
1120 which has the same effect except that Bison is more careful to warn about
1121 unreasonable usage in the latter case.
1125 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in C with a push interface. That
1126 is, instead of invoking "yyparse", which pulls tokens from "yylex", you can
1127 push one token at a time to the parser using "yypush_parse", which will
1128 return to the caller after processing each token. By default, the push
1129 interface is disabled. Either of the following directives will enable it:
1131 %define api.push_pull "push" // Just push; does not require yylex.
1132 %define api.push_pull "both" // Push and pull; requires yylex.
1134 See the new section "A Push Parser" in the Bison manual for details.
1136 The current push parsing interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1137 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1139 ** The -g and --graph options now output graphs in Graphviz DOT format,
1140 not VCG format. Like --graph, -g now also takes an optional FILE argument
1141 and thus cannot be bundled with other short options.
1145 Bison can now generate an LALR(1) parser in Java. The skeleton is
1146 "data/lalr1.java". Consider using the new %language directive instead of
1147 %skeleton to select it.
1149 See the new section "Java Parsers" in the Bison manual for details.
1151 The current Java interface is experimental and may evolve. More user
1152 feedback will help to stabilize it.
1156 This new directive specifies the programming language of the generated
1157 parser, which can be C (the default), C++, or Java. Besides the skeleton
1158 that Bison uses, the directive affects the names of the generated files if
1159 the grammar file's name ends in ".y".
1161 ** XML Automaton Report
1163 Bison can now generate an XML report of the LALR(1) automaton using the new
1164 "--xml" option. The current XML schema is experimental and may evolve. More
1165 user feedback will help to stabilize it.
1167 ** The grammar file may now specify the name of the parser header file using
1168 %defines. For example:
1172 ** When reporting useless rules, useless nonterminals, and unused terminals,
1173 Bison now employs the terms "useless in grammar" instead of "useless",
1174 "useless in parser" instead of "never reduced", and "unused in grammar"
1175 instead of "unused".
1177 ** Unreachable State Removal
1179 Previously, Bison sometimes generated parser tables containing unreachable
1180 states. A state can become unreachable during conflict resolution if Bison
1181 disables a shift action leading to it from a predecessor state. Bison now:
1183 1. Removes unreachable states.
1185 2. Does not report any conflicts that appeared in unreachable states.
1186 WARNING: As a result, you may need to update %expect and %expect-rr
1187 directives in existing grammar files.
1189 3. For any rule used only in such states, Bison now reports the rule as
1190 "useless in parser due to conflicts".
1192 This feature can be disabled with the following directive:
1194 %define lr.keep_unreachable_states
1196 See the %define entry in the "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison manual
1197 for further discussion.
1199 ** Lookahead Set Correction in the ".output" Report
1201 When instructed to generate a ".output" file including lookahead sets
1202 (using "--report=lookahead", for example), Bison now prints each reduction's
1203 lookahead set only next to the associated state's one item that (1) is
1204 associated with the same rule as the reduction and (2) has its dot at the end
1205 of its RHS. Previously, Bison also erroneously printed the lookahead set
1206 next to all of the state's other items associated with the same rule. This
1207 bug affected only the ".output" file and not the generated parser source
1210 ** --report-file=FILE is a new option to override the default ".output" file
1213 ** The "=" that used to be required in the following directives is now
1216 %file-prefix "parser"
1220 ** An Alternative to "%{...%}" -- "%code QUALIFIER {CODE}"
1222 Bison 2.3a provided a new set of directives as a more flexible alternative to
1223 the traditional Yacc prologue blocks. Those have now been consolidated into
1224 a single %code directive with an optional qualifier field, which identifies
1225 the purpose of the code and thus the location(s) where Bison should generate
1228 1. "%code {CODE}" replaces "%after-header {CODE}"
1229 2. "%code requires {CODE}" replaces "%start-header {CODE}"
1230 3. "%code provides {CODE}" replaces "%end-header {CODE}"
1231 4. "%code top {CODE}" replaces "%before-header {CODE}"
1233 See the %code entries in section "Bison Declaration Summary" in the Bison
1234 manual for a summary of the new functionality. See the new section "Prologue
1235 Alternatives" for a detailed discussion including the advantages of %code
1236 over the traditional Yacc prologues.
1238 The prologue alternatives are experimental. More user feedback will help to
1239 determine whether they should become permanent features.
1241 ** Revised warning: unset or unused mid-rule values
1243 Since Bison 2.2, Bison has warned about mid-rule values that are set but not
1244 used within any of the actions of the parent rule. For example, Bison warns
1247 exp: '1' { $$ = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $1 + $4; };
1249 Now, Bison also warns about mid-rule values that are used but not set. For
1250 example, Bison warns about unset $$ in the mid-rule action in:
1252 exp: '1' { $1 = 1; } '+' exp { $$ = $2 + $4; };
1254 However, Bison now disables both of these warnings by default since they
1255 sometimes prove to be false alarms in existing grammars employing the Yacc
1256 constructs $0 or $-N (where N is some positive integer).
1258 To enable these warnings, specify the option "--warnings=midrule-values" or
1259 "-W", which is a synonym for "--warnings=all".
1261 ** Default %destructor or %printer with "<*>" or "<>"
1263 Bison now recognizes two separate kinds of default %destructor's and
1266 1. Place "<*>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1267 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols for which you have formally
1268 declared semantic type tags.
1270 2. Place "<>" in a %destructor/%printer symbol list to define a default
1271 %destructor/%printer for all grammar symbols without declared semantic
1274 Bison no longer supports the "%symbol-default" notation from Bison 2.3a.
1275 "<*>" and "<>" combined achieve the same effect with one exception: Bison no
1276 longer applies any %destructor to a mid-rule value if that mid-rule value is
1277 not actually ever referenced using either $$ or $n in a semantic action.
1279 The default %destructor's and %printer's are experimental. More user
1280 feedback will help to determine whether they should become permanent
1283 See the section "Freeing Discarded Symbols" in the Bison manual for further
1286 ** %left, %right, and %nonassoc can now declare token numbers. This is required
1287 by POSIX. However, see the end of section "Operator Precedence" in the Bison
1288 manual for a caveat concerning the treatment of literal strings.
1290 ** The nonfunctional --no-parser, -n, and %no-parser options have been
1291 completely removed from Bison.
1293 * Changes in version 2.3a, 2006-09-13:
1295 ** Instead of %union, you can define and use your own union type
1296 YYSTYPE if your grammar contains at least one <type> tag.
1297 Your YYSTYPE need not be a macro; it can be a typedef.
1298 This change is for compatibility with other Yacc implementations,
1299 and is required by POSIX.
1301 ** Locations columns and lines start at 1.
1302 In accordance with the GNU Coding Standards and Emacs.
1304 ** You may now declare per-type and default %destructor's and %printer's:
1308 %union { char *string; }
1309 %token <string> STRING1
1310 %token <string> STRING2
1311 %type <string> string1
1312 %type <string> string2
1313 %union { char character; }
1314 %token <character> CHR
1315 %type <character> chr
1316 %destructor { free ($$); } %symbol-default
1317 %destructor { free ($$); printf ("%d", @$.first_line); } STRING1 string1
1318 %destructor { } <character>
1320 guarantees that, when the parser discards any user-defined symbol that has a
1321 semantic type tag other than "<character>", it passes its semantic value to
1322 "free". However, when the parser discards a "STRING1" or a "string1", it
1323 also prints its line number to "stdout". It performs only the second
1324 "%destructor" in this case, so it invokes "free" only once.
1326 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the default
1327 %destructor's and %printer's were experimental, and they were rewritten in
1330 ** Except for LALR(1) parsers in C with POSIX Yacc emulation enabled (with "-y",
1331 "--yacc", or "%yacc"), Bison no longer generates #define statements for
1332 associating token numbers with token names. Removing the #define statements
1333 helps to sanitize the global namespace during preprocessing, but POSIX Yacc
1334 requires them. Bison still generates an enum for token names in all cases.
1336 ** Handling of traditional Yacc prologue blocks is now more consistent but
1337 potentially incompatible with previous releases of Bison.
1339 As before, you declare prologue blocks in your grammar file with the
1340 "%{ ... %}" syntax. To generate the pre-prologue, Bison concatenates all
1341 prologue blocks that you've declared before the first %union. To generate
1342 the post-prologue, Bison concatenates all prologue blocks that you've
1343 declared after the first %union.
1345 Previous releases of Bison inserted the pre-prologue into both the header
1346 file and the code file in all cases except for LALR(1) parsers in C. In the
1347 latter case, Bison inserted it only into the code file. For parsers in C++,
1348 the point of insertion was before any token definitions (which associate
1349 token numbers with names). For parsers in C, the point of insertion was
1350 after the token definitions.
1352 Now, Bison never inserts the pre-prologue into the header file. In the code
1353 file, it always inserts it before the token definitions.
1355 ** Bison now provides a more flexible alternative to the traditional Yacc
1356 prologue blocks: %before-header, %start-header, %end-header, and
1359 For example, the following declaration order in the grammar file reflects the
1360 order in which Bison will output these code blocks. However, you are free to
1361 declare these code blocks in your grammar file in whatever order is most
1365 /* Bison treats this block like a pre-prologue block: it inserts it into
1366 * the code file before the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1367 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to put
1368 * #include's that you want at the top of your code file. A common
1369 * example is '#include "system.h"'. */
1372 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1373 * In both files, the point of insertion is before any Bison-generated
1374 * token, semantic type, location type, and class definitions. This is a
1375 * good place to define %union dependencies, for example. */
1378 /* Unlike the traditional Yacc prologue blocks, the output order for the
1379 * new %*-header blocks is not affected by their declaration position
1380 * relative to any %union in the grammar file. */
1383 /* Bison inserts this block into both the header file and the code file.
1384 * In both files, the point of insertion is after the Bison-generated
1385 * definitions. This is a good place to declare or define public
1386 * functions or data structures that depend on the Bison-generated
1390 /* Bison treats this block like a post-prologue block: it inserts it into
1391 * the code file after the contents of the header file. It does *not*
1392 * insert it into the header file. This is a good place to declare or
1393 * define internal functions or data structures that depend on the
1394 * Bison-generated definitions. */
1397 If you have multiple occurrences of any one of the above declarations, Bison
1398 will concatenate the contents in declaration order.
1400 [Although we failed to mention this here in the 2.3a release, the prologue
1401 alternatives were experimental, and they were rewritten in future versions.]
1403 ** The option "--report=look-ahead" has been changed to "--report=lookahead".
1404 The old spelling still works, but is not documented and may be removed
1405 in a future release.
1407 * Changes in version 2.3, 2006-06-05:
1409 ** GLR grammars should now use "YYRECOVERING ()" instead of "YYRECOVERING",
1410 for compatibility with LALR(1) grammars.
1412 ** It is now documented that any definition of YYSTYPE or YYLTYPE should
1413 be to a type name that does not contain parentheses or brackets.
1415 * Changes in version 2.2, 2006-05-19:
1417 ** The distribution terms for all Bison-generated parsers now permit
1418 using the parsers in nonfree programs. Previously, this permission
1419 was granted only for Bison-generated LALR(1) parsers in C.
1421 ** %name-prefix changes the namespace name in C++ outputs.
1423 ** The C++ parsers export their token_type.
1425 ** Bison now allows multiple %union declarations, and concatenates
1426 their contents together.
1428 ** New warning: unused values
1429 Right-hand side symbols whose values are not used are reported,
1430 if the symbols have destructors. For instance:
1432 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; }
1436 will trigger a warning about $$ and $5 in the first rule, and $3 in
1437 the second ($1 is copied to $$ by the default rule). This example
1438 most likely contains three errors, and could be rewritten as:
1440 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp
1441 { $$ = $1 ? $3 : $5; free ($1 ? $5 : $3); free ($1); }
1443 { $$ = $1 ? $1 : $3; if ($1) free ($3); }
1446 However, if the original actions were really intended, memory leaks
1447 and all, the warnings can be suppressed by letting Bison believe the
1448 values are used, e.g.:
1450 exp: exp "?" exp ":" exp { $1 ? $1 : $3; (void) ($$, $5); }
1451 | exp "+" exp { $$ = $1; (void) $3; }
1454 If there are mid-rule actions, the warning is issued if no action
1455 uses it. The following triggers no warning: $1 and $3 are used.
1457 exp: exp { push ($1); } '+' exp { push ($3); sum (); };
1459 The warning is intended to help catching lost values and memory leaks.
1460 If a value is ignored, its associated memory typically is not reclaimed.
1462 ** %destructor vs. YYABORT, YYACCEPT, and YYERROR.
1463 Destructors are now called when user code invokes YYABORT, YYACCEPT,
1464 and YYERROR, for all objects on the stack, other than objects
1465 corresponding to the right-hand side of the current rule.
1467 ** %expect, %expect-rr
1468 Incorrect numbers of expected conflicts are now actual errors,
1469 instead of warnings.
1471 ** GLR, YACC parsers.
1472 The %parse-params are available in the destructors (and the
1473 experimental printers) as per the documentation.
1475 ** Bison now warns if it finds a stray "$" or "@" in an action.
1477 ** %require "VERSION"
1478 This specifies that the grammar file depends on features implemented
1479 in Bison version VERSION or higher.
1481 ** lalr1.cc: The token and value types are now class members.
1482 The tokens were defined as free form enums and cpp macros. YYSTYPE
1483 was defined as a free form union. They are now class members:
1484 tokens are enumerations of the "yy::parser::token" struct, and the
1485 semantic values have the "yy::parser::semantic_type" type.
1487 If you do not want or can update to this scheme, the directive
1488 '%define "global_tokens_and_yystype" "1"' triggers the global
1489 definition of tokens and YYSTYPE. This change is suitable both
1490 for previous releases of Bison, and this one.
1492 If you wish to update, then make sure older version of Bison will
1493 fail using '%require "2.2"'.
1495 ** DJGPP support added.
1497 * Changes in version 2.1, 2005-09-16:
1499 ** The C++ lalr1.cc skeleton supports %lex-param.
1501 ** Bison-generated parsers now support the translation of diagnostics like
1502 "syntax error" into languages other than English. The default
1503 language is still English. For details, please see the new
1504 Internationalization section of the Bison manual. Software
1505 distributors should also see the new PACKAGING file. Thanks to
1506 Bruno Haible for this new feature.
1508 ** Wording in the Bison-generated parsers has been changed slightly to
1509 simplify translation. In particular, the message "memory exhausted"
1510 has replaced "parser stack overflow", as the old message was not
1511 always accurate for modern Bison-generated parsers.
1513 ** Destructors are now called when the parser aborts, for all symbols left
1514 behind on the stack. Also, the start symbol is now destroyed after a
1515 successful parse. In both cases, the behavior was formerly inconsistent.
1517 ** When generating verbose diagnostics, Bison-generated parsers no longer
1518 quote the literal strings associated with tokens. For example, for
1519 a syntax error associated with '%token NUM "number"' they might
1520 print 'syntax error, unexpected number' instead of 'syntax error,
1521 unexpected "number"'.
1523 * Changes in version 2.0, 2004-12-25:
1525 ** Possibly-incompatible changes
1527 - Bison-generated parsers no longer default to using the alloca function
1528 (when available) to extend the parser stack, due to widespread
1529 problems in unchecked stack-overflow detection. You can "#define
1530 YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA 1" to require the use of alloca, but please read
1531 the manual to determine safe values for YYMAXDEPTH in that case.
1533 - Error token location.
1534 During error recovery, the location of the syntax error is updated
1535 to cover the whole sequence covered by the error token: it includes
1536 the shifted symbols thrown away during the first part of the error
1537 recovery, and the lookahead rejected during the second part.
1539 - Semicolon changes:
1540 . Stray semicolons are no longer allowed at the start of a grammar.
1541 . Semicolons are now required after in-grammar declarations.
1543 - Unescaped newlines are no longer allowed in character constants or
1544 string literals. They were never portable, and GCC 3.4.0 has
1545 dropped support for them. Better diagnostics are now generated if
1546 forget a closing quote.
1548 - NUL bytes are no longer allowed in Bison string literals, unfortunately.
1552 - GLR grammars now support locations.
1554 - New directive: %initial-action.
1555 This directive allows the user to run arbitrary code (including
1556 initializing @$) from yyparse before parsing starts.
1558 - A new directive "%expect-rr N" specifies the expected number of
1559 reduce/reduce conflicts in GLR parsers.
1561 - %token numbers can now be hexadecimal integers, e.g., "%token FOO 0x12d".
1562 This is a GNU extension.
1564 - The option "--report=lookahead" was changed to "--report=look-ahead".
1565 [However, this was changed back after 2.3.]
1567 - Experimental %destructor support has been added to lalr1.cc.
1569 - New configure option --disable-yacc, to disable installation of the
1570 yacc command and -ly library introduced in 1.875 for POSIX conformance.
1574 - For now, %expect-count violations are now just warnings, not errors.
1575 This is for compatibility with Bison 1.75 and earlier (when there are
1576 reduce/reduce conflicts) and with Bison 1.30 and earlier (when there
1577 are too many or too few shift/reduce conflicts). However, in future
1578 versions of Bison we plan to improve the %expect machinery so that
1579 these violations will become errors again.
1581 - Within Bison itself, numbers (e.g., goto numbers) are no longer
1582 arbitrarily limited to 16-bit counts.
1584 - Semicolons are now allowed before "|" in grammar rules, as POSIX requires.
1586 * Changes in version 1.875, 2003-01-01:
1588 ** The documentation license has been upgraded to version 1.2
1589 of the GNU Free Documentation License.
1591 ** syntax error processing
1593 - In Yacc-style parsers YYLLOC_DEFAULT is now used to compute error
1594 locations too. This fixes bugs in error-location computation.
1597 It is now possible to reclaim the memory associated to symbols
1598 discarded during error recovery. This feature is still experimental.
1601 This new directive is preferred over YYERROR_VERBOSE.
1603 - #defining yyerror to steal internal variables is discouraged.
1604 It is not guaranteed to work forever.
1606 ** POSIX conformance
1608 - Semicolons are once again optional at the end of grammar rules.
1609 This reverts to the behavior of Bison 1.33 and earlier, and improves
1610 compatibility with Yacc.
1612 - "parse error" -> "syntax error"
1613 Bison now uniformly uses the term "syntax error"; formerly, the code
1614 and manual sometimes used the term "parse error" instead. POSIX
1615 requires "syntax error" in diagnostics, and it was thought better to
1618 - The documentation now emphasizes that yylex and yyerror must be
1619 declared before use. C99 requires this.
1621 - Bison now parses C99 lexical constructs like UCNs and
1622 backslash-newline within C escape sequences, as POSIX 1003.1-2001 requires.
1624 - File names are properly escaped in C output. E.g., foo\bar.y is
1625 output as "foo\\bar.y".
1627 - Yacc command and library now available
1628 The Bison distribution now installs a "yacc" command, as POSIX requires.
1629 Also, Bison now installs a small library liby.a containing
1630 implementations of Yacc-compatible yyerror and main functions.
1631 This library is normally not useful, but POSIX requires it.
1633 - Type clashes now generate warnings, not errors.
1635 - If the user does not define YYSTYPE as a macro, Bison now declares it
1636 using typedef instead of defining it as a macro.
1637 For consistency, YYLTYPE is also declared instead of defined.
1639 ** Other compatibility issues
1641 - %union directives can now have a tag before the "{", e.g., the
1642 directive "%union foo {...}" now generates the C code
1643 "typedef union foo { ... } YYSTYPE;"; this is for Yacc compatibility.
1644 The default union tag is "YYSTYPE", for compatibility with Solaris 9 Yacc.
1645 For consistency, YYLTYPE's struct tag is now "YYLTYPE" not "yyltype".
1646 This is for compatibility with both Yacc and Bison 1.35.
1648 - ";" is output before the terminating "}" of an action, for
1649 compatibility with Bison 1.35.
1651 - Bison now uses a Yacc-style format for conflict reports, e.g.,
1652 "conflicts: 2 shift/reduce, 1 reduce/reduce".
1654 - "yystype" and "yyltype" are now obsolescent macros instead of being
1655 typedefs or tags; they are no longer documented and are planned to be
1656 withdrawn in a future release.
1661 Users of Bison have to decide how they handle the portability of the
1664 - "parsing stack overflow..." -> "parser stack overflow"
1665 GLR parsers now report "parser stack overflow" as per the Bison manual.
1667 ** %parse-param and %lex-param
1668 The macros YYPARSE_PARAM and YYLEX_PARAM provide a means to pass
1669 additional context to yyparse and yylex. They suffer from several
1672 - a single argument only can be added,
1673 - their types are weak (void *),
1674 - this context is not passed to ancillary functions such as yyerror,
1675 - only yacc.c parsers support them.
1677 The new %parse-param/%lex-param directives provide a more precise control.
1680 %parse-param {int *nastiness}
1681 %lex-param {int *nastiness}
1682 %parse-param {int *randomness}
1684 results in the following signatures:
1686 int yylex (int *nastiness);
1687 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1689 or, if both %pure-parser and %locations are used:
1691 int yylex (YYSTYPE *lvalp, YYLTYPE *llocp, int *nastiness);
1692 int yyparse (int *nastiness, int *randomness);
1694 ** Bison now warns if it detects conflicting outputs to the same file,
1695 e.g., it generates a warning for "bison -d -o foo.h foo.y" since
1696 that command outputs both code and header to foo.h.
1698 ** #line in output files
1699 - --no-line works properly.
1701 ** Bison can no longer be built by a K&R C compiler; it requires C89 or
1702 later to be built. This change originally took place a few versions
1703 ago, but nobody noticed until we recently asked someone to try
1704 building Bison with a K&R C compiler.
1706 * Changes in version 1.75, 2002-10-14:
1708 ** Bison should now work on 64-bit hosts.
1710 ** Indonesian translation thanks to Tedi Heriyanto.
1713 Fix spurious parse errors.
1716 Some people redefine yyerror to steal yyparse' private variables.
1717 Reenable this trick until an official feature replaces it.
1720 In agreement with POSIX and with other Yaccs, leaving a default
1721 action is valid when $$ is untyped, and $1 typed:
1725 but the converse remains an error:
1729 ** Values of mid-rule actions
1732 foo: { ... } { $$ = $1; } ...
1734 was incorrectly rejected: $1 is defined in the second mid-rule
1735 action, and is equal to the $$ of the first mid-rule action.
1737 * Changes in version 1.50, 2002-10-04:
1742 causes Bison to produce a Generalized LR (GLR) parser, capable of handling
1743 almost any context-free grammar, ambiguous or not. The new declarations
1744 %dprec and %merge on grammar rules allow parse-time resolution of
1745 ambiguities. Contributed by Paul Hilfinger.
1747 Unfortunately Bison 1.50 does not work properly on 64-bit hosts
1748 like the Alpha, so please stick to 32-bit hosts for now.
1751 When not in Yacc compatibility mode, when the output file was not
1752 specified, running "bison foo/bar.y" created "foo/bar.c". It
1753 now creates "bar.c".
1756 The undefined token was systematically mapped to 2 which prevented
1757 the use of 2 by the user. This is no longer the case.
1759 ** Unknown token numbers
1760 If yylex returned an out of range value, yyparse could die. This is
1764 According to POSIX, the error token must be 256.
1765 Bison extends this requirement by making it a preference: *if* the
1766 user specified that one of her tokens is numbered 256, then error
1767 will be mapped onto another number.
1769 ** Verbose error messages
1770 They no longer report "..., expecting error or..." for states where
1771 error recovery is possible.
1774 Defaults to "$end" instead of "$".
1776 ** Error recovery now conforms to documentation and to POSIX
1777 When a Bison-generated parser encounters a syntax error, it now pops
1778 the stack until it finds a state that allows shifting the error
1779 token. Formerly, it popped the stack until it found a state that
1780 allowed some non-error action other than a default reduction on the
1781 error token. The new behavior has long been the documented behavior,
1782 and has long been required by POSIX. For more details, please see
1783 Paul Eggert, "Reductions during Bison error handling" (2002-05-20)
1784 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2002-05/msg00038.html>.
1787 Popped tokens and nonterminals are now reported.
1790 Larger grammars are now supported (larger token numbers, larger grammar
1791 size (= sum of the LHS and RHS lengths), larger LALR tables).
1792 Formerly, many of these numbers ran afoul of 16-bit limits;
1793 now these limits are 32 bits on most hosts.
1795 ** Explicit initial rule
1796 Bison used to play hacks with the initial rule, which the user does
1797 not write. It is now explicit, and visible in the reports and
1801 Before, Bison reported the useless rules, but, although not used,
1802 included them in the parsers. They are now actually removed.
1804 ** Useless rules, useless nonterminals
1805 They are now reported, as a warning, with their locations.
1807 ** Rules never reduced
1808 Rules that can never be reduced because of conflicts are now
1811 ** Incorrect "Token not used"
1812 On a grammar such as
1814 %token useless useful
1816 exp: '0' %prec useful;
1818 where a token was used to set the precedence of the last rule,
1819 bison reported both "useful" and "useless" as useless tokens.
1821 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31
1822 as they caused too many portability hassles.
1824 ** Default locations
1825 By an accident of design, the default computation of @$ was
1826 performed after another default computation was performed: @$ = @1.
1827 The latter is now removed: YYLLOC_DEFAULT is fully responsible of
1828 the computation of @$.
1830 ** Token end-of-file
1831 The token end of file may be specified by the user, in which case,
1832 the user symbol is used in the reports, the graphs, and the verbose
1833 error messages instead of "$end", which remains being the default.
1837 %token MYEOF 0 "end of file"
1840 This old option, which has been broken for ages, is removed.
1843 Brazilian Portuguese, thanks to Alexandre Folle de Menezes.
1844 Croatian, thanks to Denis Lackovic.
1846 ** Incorrect token definitions
1849 bison used to output
1852 ** Token definitions as enums
1853 Tokens are output both as the traditional #define's, and, provided
1854 the compiler supports ANSI C or is a C++ compiler, as enums.
1855 This lets debuggers display names instead of integers.
1858 In addition to --verbose, bison supports --report=THINGS, which
1859 produces additional information:
1861 complete the core item sets with their closure
1862 - lookahead [changed to "look-ahead" in 1.875e through 2.3, but changed back]
1863 explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
1865 describe shift/reduce conflicts solving.
1866 Bison used to systematically output this information on top of
1867 the report. Solved conflicts are now attached to their states.
1870 Previous versions don't complain when there is a type clash on
1871 the default action if the rule has a mid-rule action, such as in:
1879 ** GNU M4 is now required when using Bison.
1881 * Changes in version 1.35, 2002-03-25:
1884 Some projects use Bison's C parser with C++ compilers, and define
1885 YYSTYPE as a class. The recent adjustment of C parsers for data
1886 alignment and 64 bit architectures made this impossible.
1888 Because for the time being no real solution for C++ parser
1889 generation exists, kludges were implemented in the parser to
1890 maintain this use. In the future, when Bison has C++ parsers, this
1891 kludge will be disabled.
1893 This kludge also addresses some C++ problems when the stack was
1896 * Changes in version 1.34, 2002-03-12:
1898 ** File name clashes are detected
1899 $ bison foo.y -d -o foo.x
1900 fatal error: header and parser would both be named "foo.x"
1902 ** A missing ";" at the end of a rule triggers a warning
1903 In accordance with POSIX, and in agreement with other
1904 Yacc implementations, Bison will mandate this semicolon in the near
1905 future. This eases the implementation of a Bison parser of Bison
1906 grammars by making this grammar LALR(1) instead of LR(2). To
1907 facilitate the transition, this release introduces a warning.
1909 ** Revert the C++ namespace changes introduced in 1.31, as they caused too
1910 many portability hassles.
1912 ** DJGPP support added.
1914 ** Fix test suite portability problems.
1916 * Changes in version 1.33, 2002-02-07:
1919 Groff could not be compiled for the definition of size_t was lacking
1920 under some conditions.
1925 * Changes in version 1.32, 2002-01-23:
1927 ** Fix Yacc output file names
1929 ** Portability fixes
1931 ** Italian, Dutch translations
1933 * Changes in version 1.31, 2002-01-14:
1937 ** GNU Gettext and %expect
1938 GNU Gettext asserts 10 s/r conflicts, but there are 7. Now that
1939 Bison dies on incorrect %expectations, we fear there will be
1940 too many bug reports for Gettext, so _for the time being_, %expect
1941 does not trigger an error when the input file is named "plural.y".
1943 ** Use of alloca in parsers
1944 If YYSTACK_USE_ALLOCA is defined to 0, then the parsers will use
1945 malloc exclusively. Since 1.29, but was not NEWS'ed.
1947 alloca is used only when compiled with GCC, to avoid portability
1950 ** yyparse now returns 2 if memory is exhausted; formerly it dumped core.
1952 ** When the generated parser lacks debugging code, YYDEBUG is now 0
1953 (as POSIX requires) instead of being undefined.
1956 Bison has always permitted actions such as { $$ = $1 }: it adds the
1957 ending semicolon. Now if in Yacc compatibility mode, the semicolon
1958 is no longer output: one has to write { $$ = $1; }.
1960 ** Better C++ compliance
1961 The output parsers try to respect C++ namespaces.
1962 [This turned out to be a failed experiment, and it was reverted later.]
1965 Fixed bugs when reporting useless nonterminals.
1968 The parsers work properly on 64 bit hosts.
1971 Some calls to strerror resulted in scrambled or missing error messages.
1974 When the number of shift/reduce conflicts is correct, don't issue
1977 ** The verbose report includes the rule line numbers.
1979 ** Rule line numbers are fixed in traces.
1981 ** Swedish translation
1984 Verbose parse error messages from the parsers are better looking.
1985 Before: parse error: unexpected `'/'', expecting `"number"' or `'-'' or `'(''
1986 Now: parse error: unexpected '/', expecting "number" or '-' or '('
1988 ** Fixed parser memory leaks.
1989 When the generated parser was using malloc to extend its stacks, the
1990 previous allocations were not freed.
1992 ** Fixed verbose output file.
1993 Some newlines were missing.
1994 Some conflicts in state descriptions were missing.
1996 ** Fixed conflict report.
1997 Option -v was needed to get the result.
2001 Mismatches are errors, not warnings.
2003 ** Fixed incorrect processing of some invalid input.
2005 ** Fixed CPP guards: 9foo.h uses BISON_9FOO_H instead of 9FOO_H.
2007 ** Fixed some typos in the documentation.
2009 ** %token MY_EOF 0 is supported.
2010 Before, MY_EOF was silently renumbered as 257.
2012 ** doc/refcard.tex is updated.
2014 ** %output, %file-prefix, %name-prefix.
2018 New, aliasing "--output-file".
2020 * Changes in version 1.30, 2001-10-26:
2022 ** "--defines" and "--graph" have now an optional argument which is the
2023 output file name. "-d" and "-g" do not change; they do not take any
2026 ** "%source_extension" and "%header_extension" are removed, failed
2029 ** Portability fixes.
2031 * Changes in version 1.29, 2001-09-07:
2033 ** The output file does not define const, as this caused problems when used
2034 with common autoconfiguration schemes. If you still use ancient compilers
2035 that lack const, compile with the equivalent of the C compiler option
2036 "-Dconst=". Autoconf's AC_C_CONST macro provides one way to do this.
2038 ** Added "-g" and "--graph".
2040 ** The Bison manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2042 ** The input and the output files has automatically a similar extension.
2044 ** Russian translation added.
2046 ** NLS support updated; should hopefully be less troublesome.
2048 ** Added the old Bison reference card.
2050 ** Added "--locations" and "%locations".
2052 ** Added "-S" and "--skeleton".
2054 ** "%raw", "-r", "--raw" is disabled.
2056 ** Special characters are escaped when output. This solves the problems
2057 of the #line lines with path names including backslashes.
2060 "%yacc", "%fixed_output_files", "%defines", "%no_parser", "%verbose",
2061 "%debug", "%source_extension" and "%header_extension".
2064 Automatic location tracking.
2066 * Changes in version 1.28, 1999-07-06:
2068 ** Should compile better now with K&R compilers.
2072 ** Fixed a problem with escaping the double quote character.
2074 ** There is now a FAQ.
2076 * Changes in version 1.27:
2078 ** The make rule which prevented bison.simple from being created on
2079 some systems has been fixed.
2081 * Changes in version 1.26:
2083 ** Bison now uses Automake.
2085 ** New mailing lists: <bug-bison@gnu.org> and <help-bison@gnu.org>.
2087 ** Token numbers now start at 257 as previously documented, not 258.
2089 ** Bison honors the TMPDIR environment variable.
2091 ** A couple of buffer overruns have been fixed.
2093 ** Problems when closing files should now be reported.
2095 ** Generated parsers should now work even on operating systems which do
2096 not provide alloca().
2098 * Changes in version 1.25, 1995-10-16:
2100 ** Errors in the input grammar are not fatal; Bison keeps reading
2101 the grammar file, and reports all the errors found in it.
2103 ** Tokens can now be specified as multiple-character strings: for
2104 example, you could use "<=" for a token which looks like <=, instead
2105 of choosing a name like LESSEQ.
2107 ** The %token_table declaration says to write a table of tokens (names
2108 and numbers) into the parser file. The yylex function can use this
2109 table to recognize multiple-character string tokens, or for other
2112 ** The %no_lines declaration says not to generate any #line preprocessor
2113 directives in the parser file.
2115 ** The %raw declaration says to use internal Bison token numbers, not
2116 Yacc-compatible token numbers, when token names are defined as macros.
2118 ** The --no-parser option produces the parser tables without including
2119 the parser engine; a project can now use its own parser engine.
2120 The actions go into a separate file called NAME.act, in the form of
2121 a switch statement body.
2123 * Changes in version 1.23:
2125 The user can define YYPARSE_PARAM as the name of an argument to be
2126 passed into yyparse. The argument should have type void *. It should
2127 actually point to an object. Grammar actions can access the variable
2128 by casting it to the proper pointer type.
2130 Line numbers in output file corrected.
2132 * Changes in version 1.22:
2134 --help option added.
2136 * Changes in version 1.20:
2138 Output file does not redefine const for C++.
2142 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2144 This file is part of Bison, the GNU Parser Generator.
2146 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2147 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2148 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2149 (at your option) any later version.
2151 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2152 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2153 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2154 GNU General Public License for more details.
2156 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2157 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2159 LocalWords: yacc YYBACKUP glr GCC lalr ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException nullptr
2160 LocalWords: cplusplus liby rpl fprintf mfcalc Wyacc stmt cond expr mk sym lr
2161 LocalWords: IELR ielr Lookahead YYERROR nonassoc LALR's api lookaheads yychar
2162 LocalWords: destructor lookahead YYRHSLOC YYLLOC Rhs ifndef YYFAIL cpp sr rr
2163 LocalWords: preprocessor initializer Wno Wnone Werror FreeBSD prec livelocks
2164 LocalWords: Solaris AIX UX RHEL Tru LHS gcc's Wundef YYENABLE NLS YYLTYPE VCG
2165 LocalWords: yyerror cpp's Wunused yylval yylloc prepend yyparse yylex yypush
2166 LocalWords: Graphviz xml nonterminals midrule destructor's YYSTYPE typedef ly
2167 LocalWords: CHR chr printf stdout namespace preprocessing enum pre include's
2168 LocalWords: YYRECOVERING nonfree destructors YYABORT YYACCEPT params enums de
2169 LocalWords: struct yystype DJGPP lex param Haible NUM alloca YYSTACK NUL goto
2170 LocalWords: YYMAXDEPTH Unescaped UCNs YYLTYPE's yyltype typedefs inline Yaccs
2171 LocalWords: Heriyanto Reenable dprec Hilfinger Eggert MYEOF Folle Menezes EOF
2172 LocalWords: Lackovic define's itemset Groff Gettext malloc NEWS'ed YYDEBUG YY
2173 LocalWords: namespaces strerror const autoconfiguration Dconst Autoconf's FDL
2174 LocalWords: Automake TMPDIR LESSEQ ylwrap endif yydebug YYTOKEN YYLSP ival hh
2175 LocalWords: extern YYTOKENTYPE TOKENTYPE yytokentype tokentype STYPE lval pdf
2176 LocalWords: lang yyoutput dvi html ps POSIX lvalp llocp Wother nterm arg init
2177 LocalWords: TOK calc yyo fval