Bison - News: Bison 3.3 released [stable]

Bison 3.3 released [stable]

Item posted by Akim Demaille <akim> on Sat 26 Jan 2019 02:15:08 PM UTC.

We are very happy to announce the release of Bison 3.3!

The new option --update replaces deprecated features with their modern
spelling, but also applies fixes such as eliminating duplicate directives,
etc.  It is now possible to annotate rules with their number of expected
conflicts.  Bison can be made relocatable.  The symbol declaration syntax
was overhauled, and in particular, %nterm, that exists since the origins of
Bison, is now an officially supported (and documented!) feature.  C++
parsers now feature genuine symbol constructors, and use noexcept/constexpr.
The GLR parsers in C++ now support the syntax_error exceptions.  There are
also many smaller improvements, including a fix for a bug which is at least
31 years old.

Please see the NEWS below for more details.

Many thanks to Askar Safin, Derek Clegg, Étienne Renault, Frank Heckenbach,
Rici Lake, Wolfgang Thaller and the members of the Bison mailing lists for
their feedback during the development of this version.

Here are the compressed sources:
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.3.tar.gz   (4.1MB)
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.3.tar.xz   (2.1MB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.3.tar.gz.sig
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-3.3.tar.xz.sig

Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
  https://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

[*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
.sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:

  gpg --verify bison-3.3.tar.gz.sig

If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 0DDCAA3278D5264E

and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
  Autoconf 2.69
  Automake 1.16.1
  Flex 2.6.4
  Gettext 0.19.8.1
  Gnulib v0.1-2382-g34881aff4

NEWS

* Noteworthy changes in release 3.3 (2019-01-26) [stable]

A new mailing list was created, Bison Announce.  It is low traffic, and is
only about announcing new releases and important messages (e.g., polls about
major decisions to make).

https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bison-announce

** Backward incompatible changes

  Support for DJGPP, which has been unmaintained and untested for years, is
  removed.

** Deprecated features

  A new feature, --update (see below) helps adjusting existing grammars to
  deprecations.

*** Deprecated directives

  The %error-verbose directive is deprecated in favor of '%define
  parse.error verbose' since Bison 3.0, but no warning was issued.

  The '%name-prefix "xx"' directive is deprecated in favor of '%define
  api.prefix {xx}' since Bison 3.0, but no warning was issued.  These
  directives are slightly different, you might need to adjust your code.
  %name-prefix renames only symbols with external linkage, while api.prefix
  also renames types and macros, including YYDEBUG, YYTOKENTYPE,
  yytokentype, YYSTYPE, YYLTYPE, etc.

  Users of Flex that move from '%name-prefix "xx"' to '%define api.prefix
  {xx}' will typically have to update YY_DECL from

    #define YY_DECL int xxlex (YYSTYPE *yylval, YYLTYPE *yylloc)

  to

    #define YY_DECL int xxlex (XXSTYPE *yylval, XXLTYPE *yylloc)

*** Deprecated %define variable names

  The following variables, mostly related to parsers in Java, have been
  renamed for consistency.  Backward compatibility is ensured, but upgrading
  is recommended.

    abstract           -> api.parser.abstract
    annotations        -> api.parser.annotations
    extends            -> api.parser.extends
    final              -> api.parser.final
    implements         -> api.parser.implements
    parser_class_name  -> api.parser.class
    public             -> api.parser.public
    strictfp           -> api.parser.strictfp

** New features

*** Generation of fix-its for IDEs/Editors

  When given the new option -ffixit (aka -fdiagnostics-parseable-fixits),
  bison now generates machine readable editing instructions to fix some
  issues.  Currently, this is mostly limited to updating deprecated
  directives and removing duplicates.  For instance:

    $ cat foo.y
    %error-verbose
    %define parser_class_name "Parser"
    %define api.parser.class "Parser"
    %%
    exp:;

  See the "fix-it:" lines below:

    $ bison -ffixit foo.y
    foo.y:1.1-14: warning: deprecated directive, use '%define parse.error verbose' [-Wdeprecated]
     %error-verbose
     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    fix-it:"foo.y":{1:1-1:15}:"%define parse.error verbose"
    foo.y:2.1-34: warning: deprecated directive, use '%define api.parser.class {Parser}' [-Wdeprecated]
     %define parser_class_name "Parser"
     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    fix-it:"foo.y":{2:1-2:35}:"%define api.parser.class {Parser}"
    foo.y:3.1-33: error: %define variable 'api.parser.class' redefined
     %define api.parser.class "Parser"
     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    foo.y:2.1-34:     previous definition
     %define parser_class_name "Parser"
     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    fix-it:"foo.y":{3:1-3:34}:""
    foo.y: warning: fix-its can be applied.  Rerun with option '--update'. [-Wother]

  This uses the same output format as GCC and Clang.

*** Updating grammar files

  Fixes can be applied on the fly.  The previous example ends with the
  suggestion to re-run bison with the option -u/--update, which results in a
  cleaner grammar file.

    $ bison --update foo.y
    [...]
    bison: file 'foo.y' was updated (backup: 'foo.y~')

    $ cat foo.y
    %define parse.error verbose
    %define api.parser.class {Parser}
    %%
    exp:;

*** Bison is now relocatable

  If you pass '--enable-relocatable' to 'configure', Bison is relocatable.

  A relocatable program can be moved or copied to a different location on
  the file system.  It can also be used through mount points for network
  sharing.  It is possible to make symbolic links to the installed and moved
  programs, and invoke them through the symbolic link.

*** %expect and %expect-rr modifiers on individual rules

  One can now document (and check) which rules participate in shift/reduce
  and reduce/reduce conflicts.  This is particularly important GLR parsers,
  where conflicts are a normal occurrence.  For example,

      %glr-parser
      %expect 1
      %%

      ...

      argument_list:
        arguments %expect 1
      | arguments ','
      | %empty
      ;

      arguments:
        expression
      | argument_list ',' expression
      ;

      ...

  Looking at the output from -v, one can see that the shift-reduce conflict
  here is due to the fact that the parser does not know whether to reduce
  arguments to argument_list until it sees the token _after_ the following
  ','.  By marking the rule with %expect 1 (because there is a conflict in
  one state), we document the source of the 1 overall shift-reduce conflict.

  In GLR parsers, we can use %expect-rr in a rule for reduce/reduce
  conflicts.  In this case, we mark each of the conflicting rules.  For
  example,

      %glr-parser
      %expect-rr 1

      %%

      stmt:
        target_list '=' expr ';'
      | expr_list ';'
      ;

      target_list:
        target
      | target ',' target_list
      ;

      target:
        ID %expect-rr 1
      ;

      expr_list:
        expr
      | expr ',' expr_list
      ;

      expr:
        ID %expect-rr 1
      | ...
      ;

  In a statement such as

      x, y = 3, 4;

  the parser must reduce x to a target or an expr, but does not know which
  until it sees the '='.  So we notate the two possible reductions to
  indicate that each conflicts in one rule.

  This feature needs user feedback, and might evolve in the future.

*** C++: Actual token constructors

  When variants and token constructors are enabled, in addition to the
  type-safe named token constructors (make_ID, make_INT, etc.), we now
  generate genuine constructors for symbol_type.

  For instance with these declarations

    %token           ':'
       <std::string> ID
       <int>         INT;

  you may use these constructors:

    symbol_type (int token, const std::string&);
    symbol_type (int token, const int&);
    symbol_type (int token);

  which should be used in a Flex-scanner as follows.

    %%
    [a-z]+   return yy::parser::symbol_type (ID, yytext);
    [0-9]+   return yy::parser::symbol_type (INT, text_to_int (yytext);
    ":"      return yy::parser::symbol_type (’:’);
    <<EOF>>  return yy::parser::symbol_type (0);

  Correct matching between token types and value types is checked via
  'assert'.  For instance, 'symbol_type (ID, 42)' would abort (while
  'make_ID (42)' would not even compile).

*** C++: Variadic emplace

  If your application requires C++11 and you don't use symbol constructors,
  you may now use a variadic emplace for semantic values:

    %define api.value.type variant
    %token <std::pair<int, int>> PAIR

  in your scanner:

    int yylex (parser::semantic_type *lvalp)
    {
      lvalp->emplace <std::pair<int, int>> (1, 2);
      return parser::token::PAIR;
    }

*** C++: Syntax error exceptions in GLR

  The glr.cc skeleton now supports syntax_error exceptions thrown from user
  actions, or from the scanner.

*** More POSIX Yacc compatibility warnings

  More Bison specific directives are now reported with -y or -Wyacc.  This
  change was ready since the release of Bison 3.0 in September 2015.  It was
  delayed because Autoconf used to define YACC as `bison -y`, which resulted
  in numerous warnings for Bison users that use the GNU Build System.

  If you still experience that problem, either redefine YACC as `bison -o
  y.tab.c`, or pass -Wno-yacc to Bison.

*** The tables yyrhs and yyphrs are back

  Because no Bison skeleton uses them, these tables were removed (no longer
  passed to the skeletons, not even computed) in 2008.  However, some users
  have expressed interest in being able to use them in their own skeletons.

** Bug fixes

*** Incorrect number of reduce-reduce conflicts

  On a grammar such as

     exp: "num" | "num" | "num"

  bison used to report a single RR conflict, instead of two.  This is now
  fixed.  This was the oldest (known) bug in Bison: it was there when Bison
  was entered in the RCS version control system, in December 1987.

  Some grammar files might have to adjust their %expect-rr.

*** Parser directives that were not careful enough

  Passing invalid arguments to %nterm, for instance character literals, used
  to result in unclear error messages.

** Documentation

  The examples/ directory (installed in .../share/doc/bison/examples) has
  been restructured per language for clarity.  The examples come with a
  README and a Makefile.  Not only can they be used to toy with Bison, they
  can also be starting points for your own grammars.

  There is now a Java example, and a simple example in C based on Flex and
  Bison (examples/c/lexcalc/).

** Changes

*** Parsers in C++

  They now use noexcept and constexpr.  Please, report missing annotations.

*** Symbol Declarations

  The syntax of the variation directives to declare symbols was overhauled
  for more consistency, and also better POSIX Yacc compliance (which, for
  instance, allows "%type" without actually providing a type).  The %nterm
  directive, supported by Bison since its inception, is now documented and
  officially supported.

  The syntax is now as follows:

    %token TAG? ( ID NUMBER? STRING? )+ ( TAG ( ID NUMBER? STRING? )+ )*
    %left  TAG? ( ID NUMBER? )+ ( TAG ( ID NUMBER? )+ )*
    %type  TAG? ( ID | CHAR | STRING )+ ( TAG ( ID | CHAR | STRING )+ )*
    %nterm TAG? ID+ ( TAG ID+ )*

  where TAG denotes a type tag such as ‘<ival>’, ID denotes an identifier
  such as ‘NUM’, NUMBER a decimal or hexadecimal integer such as ‘300’ or
  ‘0x12d’, CHAR a character literal such as ‘'+'’, and STRING a string
  literal such as ‘"number"’.  The post-fix quantifiers are ‘?’ (zero or
  one), ‘*’ (zero or more) and ‘+’ (one or more).