Re: Reductions during Bison error handling

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Akim Demaille <address@hidden>
> Date: 20 May 2002 10:00:56 +0200

> I wholeheartedly subscribe to your suggestion: fixing the error
> handling so that it matches the documentation.  There is a side issue
> though: POSIX.  I don't know the details of what POSIX requires, and
> actually, maybe it is underspecifying wrt this point.  Paul (the
> Eggert one) will probably be able to help here.

POSIX does not require as much as the Bison documentation, but it does
require that the error action must be triggered whenever the input
does not parse; if that's not happening now, it is clearly a bug.

Sorry, I don't fully understand the example yet, and I have to run now
so I won't be able to look at it until later.  But here are the
relevant POSIX requirements, if that helps.

   The parser shall detect a syntax error when it is in a state
   where the action associated with the lookahead symbol is
   error....

   When the parser detects a syntax error, it normally calls
   yyerror( ) with the character string "syntax error" as its
   argument. The call shall not be made if the parser is still
   recovering from a previous error when the error is
   detected. The parser is considered to be recovering from a
   previous error until the parser has shifted over at least
   three normal input symbols since the last error was detected
   or a semantic action has executed the macro yyerrok....

   When a syntax error is detected by the parser, the parser
   shall check if a previous syntax error has been detected. If
   a previous error was detected, and if no normal input symbols
   have been shifted since the preceding error was detected, the
   parser checks if the lookahead symbol is an endmarker (see
   Interface to the Lexical Analyzer). If it is, the parser
   shall return with a non-zero value. Otherwise, the lookahead
   symbol shall be discarded and normal parsing shall resume.
   When YYERROR is executed or when the parser detects a syntax
   error and no previous error has been detected, or at least
   one normal input symbol has been shifted since the previous
   error was detected, the parser shall pop back one state at a
   time until the parse stack is empty or the current state
   allows a shift over error. If the parser empties the parse
   stack, it shall return with a non-zero value. Otherwise, it
   shall shift over error and then resume normal parsing. If the
   parser reads a lookahead symbol before the error was
   detected, that symbol shall still be the lookahead symbol
   when parsing is resumed.