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(bison.info)Action Types

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Data Types of Values in Actions
-------------------------------

   If you have chosen a single data type for semantic values, the `$$'
and `$N' constructs always have that data type.

   If you have used `%union' to specify a variety of data types, then
you must declare a choice among these types for each terminal or
nonterminal symbol that can have a semantic value.  Then each time you
use `$$' or `$N', its data type is determined by which symbol it refers
to in the rule.  In this example,

     exp:    ...
             | exp '+' exp
                 { $$ = $1 + $3; }

`$1' and `$3' refer to instances of `exp', so they all have the data
type declared for the nonterminal symbol `exp'.  If `$2' were used, it
would have the data type declared for the terminal symbol `'+'',
whatever that might be.

   Alternatively, you can specify the data type when you refer to the
value, by inserting `<TYPE>' after the `$' at the beginning of the
reference.  For example, if you have defined types as shown here:

     %union {
       int itype;
       double dtype;
     }

then you can write `$<itype>1' to refer to the first subunit of the
rule as an integer, or `$<dtype>1' to refer to it as a double.