2.5.1 Declarations for mfcalc

Here are the C and Bison declarations for the multi-function calculator.

%{
  #include <math.h>  /* For math functions, cos(), sin(), etc.  */
  #include "calc.h"  /* Contains definition of `symrec'.  */
  int yylex (void);
  void yyerror (char const *);
%}
%union {
  double    val;   /* For returning numbers.  */
  symrec  *tptr;   /* For returning symbol-table pointers.  */
}
%token <val>  NUM        /* Simple double precision number.  */
%token <tptr> VAR FNCT   /* Variable and Function.  */
%type  <val>  exp

%right '='
%left '-' '+'
%left '*' '/'
%left NEG     /* negation--unary minus */
%right '^'    /* exponentiation */
%% /* The grammar follows.  */

The above grammar introduces only two new features of the Bison language. These features allow semantic values to have various data types (see section More Than One Value Type).

The %union declaration specifies the entire list of possible types; this is instead of defining YYSTYPE. The allowable types are now double-floats (for exp and NUM) and pointers to entries in the symbol table. See section The Collection of Value Types.

Since values can now have various types, it is necessary to associate a type with each grammar symbol whose semantic value is used. These symbols are NUM, VAR, FNCT, and exp. Their declarations are augmented with information about their data type (placed between angle brackets).

The Bison construct %type is used for declaring nonterminal symbols, just as %token is used for declaring token types. We have not used %type before because nonterminal symbols are normally declared implicitly by the rules that define them. But exp must be declared explicitly so we can specify its value type. See section Nonterminal Symbols.