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PROGRAM:

NAME

btyacc — an LALR(1) parser generator with support for backtracking

SYNOPSIS

btyacc [-b prefix] [-d] [-DNAME ...] [-E] [-l] [-r] [-S x.ske] [-t] [-v]
filename.y

Description

btyacc is a modified version of byacc (Berkeley YACC), which in turn is a public domain
version of the original AT&T YACC parser generator.

btyacc reads the grammar specification in the file filename.y and generates an LR(1)
parser for it. The parser consists of a set of LALR(1) parsing tables and a driver routine
written in the C programming language. btyacc normally writes the parse tables and the
driver routine to the file prefix.tab.c, where prefix defaults to `y'.

For a detailed description of the format of a grammar specification, and an excellent
tutorial on how to use YACC-like tools, see the info manual for GNU bison. btyacc-
specific extensions are explained below.

Note: The parser skeleton supplied by btyacc's upstream author only compiles as C++. Use
the skeleton /usr/doc/btyacc/examples/btyacc-c.ske to generate a parser that compiles both
as C and C++. (Unfortunately, this alternative skeleton does not currently check malloc()
return values.)

Options

-b prefix Change the prefix prepended to the output file names to the string denoted by
prefix. The default prefix is the character `y'.

-d Create a header file called prefix.tab.h along with prefix.tab.c,
containing the symbol definitions and a declaration for YYSTYPE and yylval.

-DNAME Define the btyacc preprocessor variable NAME, for use with %ifdef NAME
directives in the grammar file.

-E Print the preprocessed grammar to standard output.

-l Do not insert #line directives into the generated parser code.

-r Write the parser code and the associated tables to different files. Whereas the
tables can be found in prefix.tab.c as before, the code now gets written
to prefix.code.c.

-S x.ske Select a different parser skeleton. The default skeleton is hardwired into the
program, but a copy can be found in the file btyaccpa.ske.

-t Cause debugging code to be compiled into the generated parser.

-v Write a human-readable description of the generated parser to y.output. It
includes parser states, actions for a look-ahead token and information about any
conflicts.

BTYACC extensions

Backtracking support
Whenever a btyacc generated parser runs into a shift-reduce or reduce-reduce error in the
parse table, it remembers the current parse point (stack and input stream state), and goes
into trial parse mode. It then continues parsing, ignoring most rule actions. If it runs
into an error (either through the parse table or through an action calling YYERROR), it
backtracks to the most recent conflict point and tries a different alternative. If it
finds a successful path (reaches the end of the input or an action calls YYVALID), it
backtracks to the point where it first entered trial parse mode, and continues with a full
parse (executing all actions), following the path of the successful trial.

Actions in btyacc come in two flavors: {} actions, which are only executed when not in
trial mode, and [] actions, which are executed regardless of mode.

Example: In YACC grammars for C, a standard hack known as the "lexer feedback hack" is
used to find typedef names. The lexer uses semantic information to decide if any given
identifier is a typedef name or not and returns a special token. With btyacc, you no
longer need to do this; the lexer should just always return an identifier. The btyacc
grammar then needs a rule of the form:

typename: ID [ if (!IsTypeName(LookupId($1))) YYERROR; ]

However, note that adding backtracking rules slows down the parser. In practice, you
should try to restrict the number of conflicts in the grammar to what is absolutely
necessary. Consider using the "lexer feedback hack" if it is a clean solution, and
reserve backtracking for a few special cases.

btyacc runs its trials using the rule "try shifting first, then try reducing in the order
that the conflicting rules appear in the input file". This means you can implement
semantic disambiguation rules like, for example: (1) If it looks like a declaration it is,
otherwise (2) If it looks like an expression it is, otherwise (3) it is a syntax error
[Ellis & Stroustrup, Annotated C++ Reference Manual, p93]. To achieve this, put all the
rules for declarations before the rules for expressions in the grammar file.

Backtracking is only triggered when the parse hits a shift/reduce or reduce/reduce
conflict in the table. If you have no conflicts in your grammar, there is no extra cost,
other than some extra code which will never be invoked.

Currently, the generated parser performs no pruning of alternate parsing paths. To avoid
an exponential explosion of possible paths (and parsing time), you need to manually tell
the parser when it can throw away saved paths using the YYVALID statement. In
practice, this turns out to be fairly easy to do. For example, a C++ parser can just
contain [YYVALID;] after every complete declaration and statement rule, resulting in the
backtracking state being pruned after seeing a `;' or `}' - there will never be a
situation in which it is useful to backtrack past either of these.

Improved token position handling
Compilers often need to build ASTs (abstract syntax trees) such that every node in a tree
can relate to the parsed program source it came from. The YYPOSN mechanism supported
by btyacc helps you in automating the text position computation and in assigning the
computed text positions to the AST nodes.

In standard YACCs every token and every non-terminal has an YYSTYPE semantic value
attached to it. With btyacc, every token and every non-terminal also has an YYPOSN text
position attached to it. YYPOSN is a user-defined type.

btyacc maintains a stack of text position values in the same way that it maintains a stack
of semantic values. To make use of the text position feature, you need to #define the
following:

YYPOSN Preprocessor symbol for the C/C++ type of the text position attached to every
token and non-terminal.

yyposn Global variable of type YYPOSN. The lexer must assign the text position of the
returned token to yyposn, just like it assigns the semantic value of the
returned token to yylval.

YYREDUCEPOSNFUNC
Preprocessor symbol for a function that is called immediately after the regular
grammar rule reduction has been performed, to reduce text positions located on
the stack.

Typically, this function extracts text positions from the right-hand side rule
components and either assigns them to the returned $$ structure/tree or, if no
$$ value is returned, puts them into the ret text position where it will be
picked up by other rules later. Its prototype is:

void ReducePosn(
YYPOSN& ret,
YYPOSN* term_posns,
YYSTYPE* term_vals,
int term_no,
int stk_pos,
int yychar,
YYPOSN& yyposn,
UserType extra);

ret Reference to the text position returned by the rule. You must overwrite
this with the computed text position that the rule yields, analogous to
the $$ semantic value.

term_posns
Array of the right-hand side rule components' YYPOSN text positions,
analogous to $1, $2, ..., $N for the semantic values.

term_vals Array of the right-hand side rule components' YYSTYPE values. These are
the $1, ..., $N themselves.

term_no Number of components in the right hand side of the reduced rule, i.e. the
size of the term_posns and term_vals arrays. Also equal to N in $1, ...,
$N.

stk_pos YYSTYPE/YYPOSN stack position before the reduction.

yychar Lookahead token that immediately follows the reduced right hand side
components.

yyposn YYPOSN of the token that immediately follows the reduced right hand side
components.

extra User-defined extra argument passed to ReducePosn.

YYREDUCEPOSNFUNCARG
Extra argument passed to the ReducePosn function. This argument can be any
variable defined in btyaccpa.ske.

Token deallocation during error recovery
For most YACC-like parser generators, the action of the generated parser upon encountering
a parse error is to throw away semantic values and input tokens until a rule containing
the special non-terminal error can be matched. Discarding of tokens is simply performed by
overwriting variables and array entries of type YYSTYPE with new values.

Unfortunately, this approach leads to a memory leak if YYSTYPE is a pointer type. btyacc
allows you to supply functions for cleaning up the semantic and text position values, by
#defineing the following symbols in the preamble of your grammar file:

YYDELETEVAL
Preprocessor symbol for a function to call before the semantic value of a token
or non-terminal is discarded.

YYDELETEPOSN
Preprocessor symbol for a function to call before the text position of a token
or non-terminal is discarded.

Both functions are called with two arguments. The first argument of type YYSTYPE or YYPOSN
is the value that will be discarded. The second argument is of type int and is one of
three values:

0 discarding input token

1 discarding state on stack

2 cleaning up stack when aborting

Detailed syntax error reporting
If you #define the preprocessor variable YYERROR_DETAILED in your grammar file, you must
also define the following error processing function:

void yyerror_detailed(
char* text,
int errt,
YYSTYPE&
errt_value,
YYPOSN& errt_posn);

text error message

errt code of the token that caused the error

errt_value
value of the token that caused the error

errt_posn text position of token that caused error

Preprocessor directives
btyacc supports defining symbols and acting on them with conditional directives inside
grammar files, not unlike the C preprocessor.

%define NAME
Define the preprocessor symbol NAME. Equivalent to the command line switch
-DNAME.

%ifdef NAME
If preprocessor variable NAME is defined, process the text from this %ifdef to
the closing %endif, otherwise skip it.

%endif Closing directive for %ifdef. %ifdefs cannot be nested.

%include FILENAME
Process contents of the file named FILENAME. Only one nesting level of %include
is allowed.

%ident STRING
Insert an `#ident STRING' directive into the output file. STRING must be a
string constant enclosed in "".

Inherited attributes
Inherited attributes are undocumented. (See the README and the btyacc source code for a
little information.) If you work out how they work, contact me at <atterer@debian.org>!

Bugs

The worst-case complexity of parsing is exponential for any grammar which allows
backtracking to take place. In other words, a btyacc-generated parser constitutes a
denial-of-service bug if used in applications where an attacker is able to supply
specially crafted data as input to the parser. (For all "regular" input data, the
potentially exponential complexity is not normally an issue.)

bison's %expect directive is not supported.

There is no %else and %ifndef. %ifdefs and %includes cannot be nested.

Authors

Robert Corbett <robert.corbett@eng.sun.com> / <corbett@berkeley.edu> was one of the
original authors of Berkeley byacc. Chris Dodd <chrisd@reservoir.com> had the brilliant
idea of adding backtracking capabilities, and is responsible for the initial backtracking
changes. Vadim Maslov <vadik@siber.com> further improved the code.

This documenation was written by Richard Atterer <atterer@debian.org> for the Debian
GNU/Linux distribution, but is donated to the public domain and may thus be used freely
for any purpose.

Files

/usr/doc/btyacc/examples/btyaccpa.ske

/usr/doc/btyacc/examples/btyacc-c.ske

/usr/doc/btyacc/README

See also

bison(1) (or `info bison'), byacc(1), yacc(1), antlr(1)

btyacc(1)

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