Improving yacc error messages

Hi, guys.


I need help with improving my syntax error messages.


Right now I just have standard bison error handling where it looks at
possible tokens and


says <token> expected.


Few quetions, if you don't have time to read all, please answer just
on one or two of them.




question 1:


I am not exactly clear on contents of yytable, what does it mean
"portions for different uses" ? What do those portions contain and in
what format?
for example if I have


yyn=yypact[ystate]
yyn+=YTERROR
yyn=yytable[yyn]


what do last two expressions mean?


question 2:


if I put an error token in a rule that doesn't have a closing token
like this


stmnts: /* empty string */
                | stmnts '\n'
                | stmnts exp '\n'
                | error


is error token going to match all of the remaining output if syntax
error occurs?




question 2:


what if I have a mid rule where I decide that something's wrong and
want to ignore the whole expression


expr : part1 { some checks here } part2 part3 part4 part5


How can I go about it?




question 3:


If I get an error in lexer, for example closing comment w/o opening
comment, how can I get


the parser to ignore the token or maybe a serie of tokens?
For example if I have a construct IF outside of a function in C++ I
need to ignore the whole thing and continue parsing next function.
Is it just a matter of smart error token usage?




question 4:


In Bison code there is YYFAIL macro that goes to yyerrlab:
Is it the default action when an error is encountered?




question 5:


For example if I have a piece of program like this:


a=1
b=2;


when parser reads "b" it errors, I print "missing semicolon" but then
I want to continue parsing. How do I put back "b" so that b=2; is
parsed successfully.




thanks in advance

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