bison - Man Page
GNU Project parser generator (yacc replacement)
Examples (TL;DR)
Synopsis
bison [OPTION]... FILE
Description
Bison is a parser generator in the style of yacc(1). It should be upwardly compatible with input files designed for yacc.
Input files should follow the yacc convention of ending in .y. Unlike yacc, the generated files do not have fixed names, but instead use the prefix of the input file. Moreover, if you need to put C++ code in the input file, you can end his name by a C++-like extension (.ypp or .y++), then bison will follow your extension to name the output file (.cpp or .c++). For instance, a grammar description file named parse.yxx would produce the generated parser in a file named parse.tab.cxx, instead of yacc's y.tab.c or old Bison version's parse.tab.c.
This description of the options that can be given to bison is adapted from the node Invocation in the bison.texi manual, which should be taken as authoritative.
Bison supports both traditional single-letter options and mnemonic long option names. Long option names are indicated with -- instead of -. Abbreviations for option names are allowed as long as they are unique. When a long option takes an argument, like --file-prefix, connect the option name and the argument with =.
Generate a deterministic LR or generalized LR (GLR) parser employing LALR(1), IELR(1), or canonical LR(1) parser tables.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. The same is true for optional arguments.
Operation Modes
- -h, --help
display this help and exit
- -V, --version
output version information and exit
- --print-localedir
output directory containing locale-dependent data and exit
- --print-datadir
output directory containing skeletons and XSLT and exit
- -u, --update
apply fixes to the source grammar file and exit
- -f, --feature[=FEATURES]
activate miscellaneous features
FEATURES is a list of comma separated words that can include
- caret, diagnostics-show-caret
show errors with carets
- fixit, diagnostics-parseable-fixits
show machine-readable fixes
- syntax-only
do not generate any file
- all
all of the above
- none
disable all of the above
Diagnostics
- -W, --warnings[=CATEGORY]
report the warnings falling in CATEGORY
- --color[=WHEN]
whether to colorize the diagnostics
- --style=FILE
specify the CSS FILE for colorizer diagnostics
Warning categories include
- conflicts-sr
S/R conflicts (enabled by default)
- conflicts-rr
R/R conflicts (enabled by default)
- counterexamples, cex
generate conflict counterexamples
- dangling-alias
string aliases not attached to a symbol
- deprecated
obsolete constructs
- empty-rule
empty rules without %empty
- midrule-values
unset or unused midrule values
- precedence
useless precedence and associativity
- yacc
incompatibilities with POSIX Yacc
- other
all other warnings (enabled by default)
- all
all the warnings except 'counterexamples', 'dangling-alias' and 'yacc'
- no-CATEGORY
turn off warnings in CATEGORY
- none
turn off all the warnings
- error[=CATEGORY]
treat warnings as errors
WHEN can be one of the following
- always, yes
colorize the output
- never, no
don't colorize the output
- auto, tty
colorize if the output device is a tty
Tuning the Parser
- -L, --language=LANGUAGE
specify the output programming language
- -S, --skeleton=FILE
specify the skeleton to use
- -t, --debug
instrument the parser for tracing same as '-Dparse.trace'
- --locations
enable location support
- -D, --define=NAME[=VALUE]
similar to '%define NAME VALUE'
- -F, --force-define=NAME[=VALUE]
override '%define NAME VALUE'
- -p, --name-prefix=PREFIX
prepend PREFIX to the external symbols deprecated by '-Dapi.prefix={PREFIX}'
- -l, --no-lines
don't generate '#line' directives
- -k, --token-table
include a table of token names
- -y, --yacc
emulate POSIX Yacc
Output Files
- -H, --header=[FILE]
also produce a header file
- -d
likewise but cannot specify FILE (for POSIX Yacc)
- -r, --report=THINGS
also produce details on the automaton
- --report-file=FILE
write report to FILE
- -v, --verbose
same as '--report=state'
- -b, --file-prefix=PREFIX
specify a PREFIX for output files
- -o, --output=FILE
leave output to FILE
- -g, --graph[=FILE]
also output a graph of the automaton
- --html[=FILE]
also output an HTML report of the automaton
- -x, --xml[=FILE]
also output an XML report of the automaton
- -M, --file-prefix-map=OLD=NEW replace prefix OLD with NEW when writing file paths
in output files
THINGS is a list of comma separated words that can include
- states
describe the states
- itemsets
complete the core item sets with their closure
- lookaheads
explicitly associate lookahead tokens to items
- solved
describe shift/reduce conflicts solving
- counterexamples, cex
generate conflict counterexamples
- all
include all the above information
- none
disable the report
Author
Written by Robert Corbett and Richard Stallman.
Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to <bug-bison@gnu.org>.
GNU Bison home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/>.
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>.
For complete documentation, run: info bison.
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See Also
The full documentation for bison is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and bison programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info bison
should give you access to the complete manual.
Referenced By
bpfc(8), cdecl(1), Parse::Yapp(3), suffixes(7), yacc(1), yapp(1), zimpl(1).