Bison should support counterexample generation

[andrewcmyers]

The classic problem with parser generators—and especially with LALR parser generators—is that it is often hard to diagnose what went wrong when there are conflicts. We developed some efficient algorithms for generating useful, concise counterexamples in our PLDI 2015 paper, "Finding Counterexamples from Parsing Conflicts". Unfortunately, we implemented it only in the CUP parser generator. It would be an excellent feature for Bison, though.

[akimd]

Hi Andrew,
Yes, it's an excellent idea, we should definitely do something like this. And actually, contributions are most welcome :)
Cheers!

[Xaec6]

Hi Akim,
As an update, I'm currently working on implementing this under professor Myers. It should be done in a few months.

[akimd]

Hi Vincent,
That's a wonderful piece of news! Do not hesitate to interact with the Bison team (bison-patches at gnu.org). Cheers!

[akimd]

I'm very happy to close this issue. While the feature is not released yet, there is no doubt it will be (it is now part of the master branch of Bison). @Xaec6 has reformatted his work to comply with our standards, and since then is committed to address any report about the feature, as can be seen in the Bison Patches Archive.

Many many thanks to both @andrewcmyers and @Xaec6.

Cheers!