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-.TH PCRE 3
-.SH NAME
-PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
-.SH SYNOPSIS OF PCRE API
-.rs
-.sp
-.B #include <pcre.h>
-.PP
-.SM
-.br
-.B pcre *pcre_compile(const char *\fIpattern\fR, int \fIoptions\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIerrptr\fR, int *\fIerroffset\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const unsigned char *\fItableptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, int \fIoptions\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIerrptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_exec(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, "const pcre_extra *\fIextra\fR,"
-.ti +5n
-.B "const char *\fIsubject\fR," int \fIlength\fR, int \fIstartoffset\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIoptions\fR, int *\fIovector\fR, int \fIovecsize\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, const char *\fIstringname\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B char *\fIbuffer\fR, int \fIbuffersize\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_copy_substring(const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, int \fIstringnumber\fR, char *\fIbuffer\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIbuffersize\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, const char *\fIstringname\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIname\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_substring(const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, int \fIstringnumber\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *\fIsubject\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int *\fIovector\fR, int \fIstringcount\fR, "const char ***\fIlistptr\fR);"
-.PP
-.br
-.B void pcre_free_substring(const char *\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B void pcre_free_substring_list(const char **\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B const unsigned char *pcre_maketables(void);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, "const pcre_extra *\fIextra\fR,"
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIwhat\fR, void *\fIwhere\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_info(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, int *\fIoptptr\fR, int
-.B *\fIfirstcharptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_config(int \fIwhat\fR, void *\fIwhere\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B char *pcre_version(void);
-.PP
-.br
-.B void *(*pcre_malloc)(size_t);
-.PP
-.br
-.B void (*pcre_free)(void *);
-.PP
-.br
-.B void *(*pcre_stack_malloc)(size_t);
-.PP
-.br
-.B void (*pcre_stack_free)(void *);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int (*pcre_callout)(pcre_callout_block *);
-
-.SH PCRE API
-.rs
-.sp
-PCRE has its own native API, which is described in this document. There is also
-a set of wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API.
-These are described in the \fBpcreposix\fR documentation.
-
-The native API function prototypes are defined in the header file \fBpcre.h\fR,
-and on Unix systems the library itself is called \fBlibpcre.a\fR, so can be
-accessed by adding \fB-lpcre\fR to the command for linking an application which
-calls it. The header file defines the macros PCRE_MAJOR and PCRE_MINOR to
-contain the major and minor release numbers for the library. Applications can
-use these to include support for different releases.
-
-The functions \fBpcre_compile()\fR, \fBpcre_study()\fR, and \fBpcre_exec()\fR
-are used for compiling and matching regular expressions. A sample program that
-demonstrates the simplest way of using them is given in the file
-\fIpcredemo.c\fR. The \fBpcresample\fR documentation describes how to run it.
-
-There are convenience functions for extracting captured substrings from a
-matched subject string. They are:
-
- \fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR
- \fBpcre_copy_named_substring()\fR
- \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR
- \fBpcre_get_named_substring()\fR
- \fBpcre_get_substring_list()\fR
-
-\fBpcre_free_substring()\fR and \fBpcre_free_substring_list()\fR are also
-provided, to free the memory used for extracted strings.
-
-The function \fBpcre_maketables()\fR is used (optionally) to build a set of
-character tables in the current locale for passing to \fBpcre_compile()\fR.
-
-The function \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR is used to find out information about a
-compiled pattern; \fBpcre_info()\fR is an obsolete version which returns only
-some of the available information, but is retained for backwards compatibility.
-The function \fBpcre_version()\fR returns a pointer to a string containing the
-version of PCRE and its date of release.
-
-The global variables \fBpcre_malloc\fR and \fBpcre_free\fR initially contain
-the entry points of the standard \fBmalloc()\fR and \fBfree()\fR functions
-respectively. PCRE calls the memory management functions via these variables,
-so a calling program can replace them if it wishes to intercept the calls. This
-should be done before calling any PCRE functions.
-
-The global variables \fBpcre_stack_malloc\fR and \fBpcre_stack_free\fR are also
-indirections to memory management functions. These special functions are used
-only when PCRE is compiled to use the heap for remembering data, instead of
-recursive function calls. This is a non-standard way of building PCRE, for use
-in environments that have limited stacks. Because of the greater use of memory
-management, it runs more slowly. Separate functions are provided so that
-special-purpose external code can be used for this case. When used, these
-functions are always called in a stack-like manner (last obtained, first
-freed), and always for memory blocks of the same size.
-
-The global variable \fBpcre_callout\fR initially contains NULL. It can be set
-by the caller to a "callout" function, which PCRE will then call at specified
-points during a matching operation. Details are given in the \fBpcrecallout\fR
-documentation.
-
-.SH MULTITHREADING
-.rs
-.sp
-The PCRE functions can be used in multi-threading applications, with the
-proviso that the memory management functions pointed to by \fBpcre_malloc\fR,
-\fBpcre_free\fR, \fBpcre_stack_malloc\fR, and \fBpcre_stack_free\fR, and the
-callout function pointed to by \fBpcre_callout\fR, are shared by all threads.
-
-The compiled form of a regular expression is not altered during matching, so
-the same compiled pattern can safely be used by several threads at once.
-
-.SH CHECKING BUILD-TIME OPTIONS
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_config(int \fIwhat\fR, void *\fIwhere\fR);
-.PP
-The function \fBpcre_config()\fR makes it possible for a PCRE client to
-discover which optional features have been compiled into the PCRE library. The
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrebuild\fR
-.\"
-documentation has more details about these optional features.
-
-The first argument for \fBpcre_config()\fR is an integer, specifying which
-information is required; the second argument is a pointer to a variable into
-which the information is placed. The following information is available:
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_UTF8
-
-The output is an integer that is set to one if UTF-8 support is available;
-otherwise it is set to zero.
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_NEWLINE
-
-The output is an integer that is set to the value of the code that is used for
-the newline character. It is either linefeed (10) or carriage return (13), and
-should normally be the standard character for your operating system.
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_LINK_SIZE
-
-The output is an integer that contains the number of bytes used for internal
-linkage in compiled regular expressions. The value is 2, 3, or 4. Larger values
-allow larger regular expressions to be compiled, at the expense of slower
-matching. The default value of 2 is sufficient for all but the most massive
-patterns, since it allows the compiled pattern to be up to 64K in size.
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD
-
-The output is an integer that contains the threshold above which the POSIX
-interface uses \fBmalloc()\fR for output vectors. Further details are given in
-the \fBpcreposix\fR documentation.
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_MATCH_LIMIT
-
-The output is an integer that gives the default limit for the number of
-internal matching function calls in a \fBpcre_exec()\fR execution. Further
-details are given with \fBpcre_exec()\fR below.
-
- PCRE_CONFIG_STACKRECURSE
-
-The output is an integer that is set to one if internal recursion is
-implemented by recursive function calls that use the stack to remember their
-state. This is the usual way that PCRE is compiled. The output is zero if PCRE
-was compiled to use blocks of data on the heap instead of recursive function
-calls. In this case, \fBpcre_stack_malloc\fR and \fBpcre_stack_free\fR are
-called to manage memory blocks on the heap, thus avoiding the use of the stack.
-
-.SH COMPILING A PATTERN
-.rs
-.sp
-.B pcre *pcre_compile(const char *\fIpattern\fR, int \fIoptions\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIerrptr\fR, int *\fIerroffset\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const unsigned char *\fItableptr\fR);
-.PP
-
-The function \fBpcre_compile()\fR is called to compile a pattern into an
-internal form. The pattern is a C string terminated by a binary zero, and
-is passed in the argument \fIpattern\fR. A pointer to a single block of memory
-that is obtained via \fBpcre_malloc\fR is returned. This contains the compiled
-code and related data. The \fBpcre\fR type is defined for the returned block;
-this is a typedef for a structure whose contents are not externally defined. It
-is up to the caller to free the memory when it is no longer required.
-
-Although the compiled code of a PCRE regex is relocatable, that is, it does not
-depend on memory location, the complete \fBpcre\fR data block is not
-fully relocatable, because it contains a copy of the \fItableptr\fR argument,
-which is an address (see below).
-
-The \fIoptions\fR argument contains independent bits that affect the
-compilation. It should be zero if no options are required. Some of the options,
-in particular, those that are compatible with Perl, can also be set and unset
-from within the pattern (see the detailed description of regular expressions
-in the \fBpcrepattern\fR documentation). For these options, the contents of the
-\fIoptions\fR argument specifies their initial settings at the start of
-compilation and execution. The PCRE_ANCHORED option can be set at the time of
-matching as well as at compile time.
-
-If \fIerrptr\fR is NULL, \fBpcre_compile()\fR returns NULL immediately.
-Otherwise, if compilation of a pattern fails, \fBpcre_compile()\fR returns
-NULL, and sets the variable pointed to by \fIerrptr\fR to point to a textual
-error message. The offset from the start of the pattern to the character where
-the error was discovered is placed in the variable pointed to by
-\fIerroffset\fR, which must not be NULL. If it is, an immediate error is given.
-
-If the final argument, \fItableptr\fR, is NULL, PCRE uses a default set of
-character tables which are built when it is compiled, using the default C
-locale. Otherwise, \fItableptr\fR must be the result of a call to
-\fBpcre_maketables()\fR. See the section on locale support below.
-
-This code fragment shows a typical straightforward call to \fBpcre_compile()\fR:
-
- pcre *re;
- const char *error;
- int erroffset;
- re = pcre_compile(
- "^A.*Z", /* the pattern */
- 0, /* default options */
- &error, /* for error message */
- &erroffset, /* for error offset */
- NULL); /* use default character tables */
-
-The following option bits are defined:
-
- PCRE_ANCHORED
-
-If this bit is set, the pattern is forced to be "anchored", that is, it is
-constrained to match only at the first matching point in the string which is
-being searched (the "subject string"). This effect can also be achieved by
-appropriate constructs in the pattern itself, which is the only way to do it in
-Perl.
-
- PCRE_CASELESS
-
-If this bit is set, letters in the pattern match both upper and lower case
-letters. It is equivalent to Perl's /i option, and it can be changed within a
-pattern by a (?i) option setting.
-
- PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
-
-If this bit is set, a dollar metacharacter in the pattern matches only at the
-end of the subject string. Without this option, a dollar also matches
-immediately before the final character if it is a newline (but not before any
-other newlines). The PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option is ignored if PCRE_MULTILINE is
-set. There is no equivalent to this option in Perl, and no way to set it within
-a pattern.
-
- PCRE_DOTALL
-
-If this bit is set, a dot metacharater in the pattern matches all characters,
-including newlines. Without it, newlines are excluded. This option is
-equivalent to Perl's /s option, and it can be changed within a pattern by a
-(?s) option setting. A negative class such as [^a] always matches a newline
-character, independent of the setting of this option.
-
- PCRE_EXTENDED
-
-If this bit is set, whitespace data characters in the pattern are totally
-ignored except when escaped or inside a character class. Whitespace does not
-include the VT character (code 11). In addition, characters between an
-unescaped # outside a character class and the next newline character,
-inclusive, are also ignored. This is equivalent to Perl's /x option, and it can
-be changed within a pattern by a (?x) option setting.
-
-This option makes it possible to include comments inside complicated patterns.
-Note, however, that this applies only to data characters. Whitespace characters
-may never appear within special character sequences in a pattern, for example
-within the sequence (?( which introduces a conditional subpattern.
-
- PCRE_EXTRA
-
-This option was invented in order to turn on additional functionality of PCRE
-that is incompatible with Perl, but it is currently of very little use. When
-set, any backslash in a pattern that is followed by a letter that has no
-special meaning causes an error, thus reserving these combinations for future
-expansion. By default, as in Perl, a backslash followed by a letter with no
-special meaning is treated as a literal. There are at present no other features
-controlled by this option. It can also be set by a (?X) option setting within a
-pattern.
-
- PCRE_MULTILINE
-
-By default, PCRE treats the subject string as consisting of a single "line" of
-characters (even if it actually contains several newlines). The "start of line"
-metacharacter (^) matches only at the start of the string, while the "end of
-line" metacharacter ($) matches only at the end of the string, or before a
-terminating newline (unless PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY is set). This is the same as
-Perl.
-
-When PCRE_MULTILINE it is set, the "start of line" and "end of line" constructs
-match immediately following or immediately before any newline in the subject
-string, respectively, as well as at the very start and end. This is equivalent
-to Perl's /m option, and it can be changed within a pattern by a (?m) option
-setting. If there are no "\\n" characters in a subject string, or no
-occurrences of ^ or $ in a pattern, setting PCRE_MULTILINE has no effect.
-
- PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE
-
-If this option is set, it disables the use of numbered capturing parentheses in
-the pattern. Any opening parenthesis that is not followed by ? behaves as if it
-were followed by ?: but named parentheses can still be used for capturing (and
-they acquire numbers in the usual way). There is no equivalent of this option
-in Perl.
-
- PCRE_UNGREEDY
-
-This option inverts the "greediness" of the quantifiers so that they are not
-greedy by default, but become greedy if followed by "?". It is not compatible
-with Perl. It can also be set by a (?U) option setting within the pattern.
-
- PCRE_UTF8
-
-This option causes PCRE to regard both the pattern and the subject as strings
-of UTF-8 characters instead of single-byte character strings. However, it is
-available only if PCRE has been built to include UTF-8 support. If not, the use
-of this option provokes an error. Details of how this option changes the
-behaviour of PCRE are given in the
-.\" HTML <a href="pcre.html#utf8support">
-.\" </a>
-section on UTF-8 support
-.\"
-in the main
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcre\fR
-.\"
-page.
-
- PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
-
-When PCRE_UTF8 is set, the validity of the pattern as a UTF-8 string is
-automatically checked. If an invalid UTF-8 sequence of bytes is found,
-\fBpcre_compile()\fR returns an error. If you already know that your pattern is
-valid, and you want to skip this check for performance reasons, you can set the
-PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option. When it is set, the effect of passing an invalid
-UTF-8 string as a pattern is undefined. It may cause your program to crash.
-Note that there is a similar option for suppressing the checking of subject
-strings passed to \fBpcre_exec()\fR.
-
-
-.SH STUDYING A PATTERN
-.rs
-.sp
-.B pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, int \fIoptions\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIerrptr\fR);
-.PP
-When a pattern is going to be used several times, it is worth spending more
-time analyzing it in order to speed up the time taken for matching. The
-function \fBpcre_study()\fR takes a pointer to a compiled pattern as its first
-argument. If studing the pattern produces additional information that will help
-speed up matching, \fBpcre_study()\fR returns a pointer to a \fBpcre_extra\fR
-block, in which the \fIstudy_data\fR field points to the results of the study.
-
-The returned value from a \fBpcre_study()\fR can be passed directly to
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR. However, the \fBpcre_extra\fR block also contains other
-fields that can be set by the caller before the block is passed; these are
-described below. If studying the pattern does not produce any additional
-information, \fBpcre_study()\fR returns NULL. In that circumstance, if the
-calling program wants to pass some of the other fields to \fBpcre_exec()\fR, it
-must set up its own \fBpcre_extra\fR block.
-
-The second argument contains option bits. At present, no options are defined
-for \fBpcre_study()\fR, and this argument should always be zero.
-
-The third argument for \fBpcre_study()\fR is a pointer for an error message. If
-studying succeeds (even if no data is returned), the variable it points to is
-set to NULL. Otherwise it points to a textual error message. You should
-therefore test the error pointer for NULL after calling \fBpcre_study()\fR, to
-be sure that it has run successfully.
-
-This is a typical call to \fBpcre_study\fR():
-
- pcre_extra *pe;
- pe = pcre_study(
- re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
- 0, /* no options exist */
- &error); /* set to NULL or points to a message */
-
-At present, studying a pattern is useful only for non-anchored patterns that do
-not have a single fixed starting character. A bitmap of possible starting
-characters is created.
-
-.\" HTML <a name="localesupport"></a>
-.SH LOCALE SUPPORT
-.rs
-.sp
-PCRE handles caseless matching, and determines whether characters are letters,
-digits, or whatever, by reference to a set of tables. When running in UTF-8
-mode, this applies only to characters with codes less than 256. The library
-contains a default set of tables that is created in the default C locale when
-PCRE is compiled. This is used when the final argument of \fBpcre_compile()\fR
-is NULL, and is sufficient for many applications.
-
-An alternative set of tables can, however, be supplied. Such tables are built
-by calling the \fBpcre_maketables()\fR function, which has no arguments, in the
-relevant locale. The result can then be passed to \fBpcre_compile()\fR as often
-as necessary. For example, to build and use tables that are appropriate for the
-French locale (where accented characters with codes greater than 128 are
-treated as letters), the following code could be used:
-
- setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "fr");
- tables = pcre_maketables();
- re = pcre_compile(..., tables);
-
-The tables are built in memory that is obtained via \fBpcre_malloc\fR. The
-pointer that is passed to \fBpcre_compile\fR is saved with the compiled
-pattern, and the same tables are used via this pointer by \fBpcre_study()\fR
-and \fBpcre_exec()\fR. Thus, for any single pattern, compilation, studying and
-matching all happen in the same locale, but different patterns can be compiled
-in different locales. It is the caller's responsibility to ensure that the
-memory containing the tables remains available for as long as it is needed.
-
-.SH INFORMATION ABOUT A PATTERN
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, "const pcre_extra *\fIextra\fR,"
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIwhat\fR, void *\fIwhere\fR);
-.PP
-The \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR function returns information about a compiled
-pattern. It replaces the obsolete \fBpcre_info()\fR function, which is
-nevertheless retained for backwards compability (and is documented below).
-
-The first argument for \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR is a pointer to the compiled
-pattern. The second argument is the result of \fBpcre_study()\fR, or NULL if
-the pattern was not studied. The third argument specifies which piece of
-information is required, and the fourth argument is a pointer to a variable
-to receive the data. The yield of the function is zero for success, or one of
-the following negative numbers:
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument \fIcode\fR was NULL
- the argument \fIwhere\fR was NULL
- PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
- PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION the value of \fIwhat\fR was invalid
-
-Here is a typical call of \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR, to obtain the length of the
-compiled pattern:
-
- int rc;
- unsigned long int length;
- rc = pcre_fullinfo(
- re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
- pe, /* result of pcre_study(), or NULL */
- PCRE_INFO_SIZE, /* what is required */
- &length); /* where to put the data */
-
-The possible values for the third argument are defined in \fBpcre.h\fR, and are
-as follows:
-
- PCRE_INFO_BACKREFMAX
-
-Return the number of the highest back reference in the pattern. The fourth
-argument should point to an \fBint\fR variable. Zero is returned if there are
-no back references.
-
- PCRE_INFO_CAPTURECOUNT
-
-Return the number of capturing subpatterns in the pattern. The fourth argument
-should point to an \fbint\fR variable.
-
- PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE
-
-Return information about the first byte of any matched string, for a
-non-anchored pattern. (This option used to be called PCRE_INFO_FIRSTCHAR; the
-old name is still recognized for backwards compatibility.)
-
-If there is a fixed first byte, e.g. from a pattern such as (cat|cow|coyote),
-it is returned in the integer pointed to by \fIwhere\fR. Otherwise, if either
-
-(a) the pattern was compiled with the PCRE_MULTILINE option, and every branch
-starts with "^", or
-
-(b) every branch of the pattern starts with ".*" and PCRE_DOTALL is not set
-(if it were set, the pattern would be anchored),
-
--1 is returned, indicating that the pattern matches only at the start of a
-subject string or after any newline within the string. Otherwise -2 is
-returned. For anchored patterns, -2 is returned.
-
- PCRE_INFO_FIRSTTABLE
-
-If the pattern was studied, and this resulted in the construction of a 256-bit
-table indicating a fixed set of bytes for the first byte in any matching
-string, a pointer to the table is returned. Otherwise NULL is returned. The
-fourth argument should point to an \fBunsigned char *\fR variable.
-
- PCRE_INFO_LASTLITERAL
-
-Return the value of the rightmost literal byte that must exist in any matched
-string, other than at its start, if such a byte has been recorded. The fourth
-argument should point to an \fBint\fR variable. If there is no such byte, -1 is
-returned. For anchored patterns, a last literal byte is recorded only if it
-follows something of variable length. For example, for the pattern
-/^a\\d+z\\d+/ the returned value is "z", but for /^a\\dz\\d/ the returned value
-is -1.
-
- PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT
- PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE
- PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE
-
-PCRE supports the use of named as well as numbered capturing parentheses. The
-names are just an additional way of identifying the parentheses, which still
-acquire a number. A caller that wants to extract data from a named subpattern
-must convert the name to a number in order to access the correct pointers in
-the output vector (described with \fBpcre_exec()\fR below). In order to do
-this, it must first use these three values to obtain the name-to-number mapping
-table for the pattern.
-
-The map consists of a number of fixed-size entries. PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT gives
-the number of entries, and PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE gives the size of each
-entry; both of these return an \fBint\fR value. The entry size depends on the
-length of the longest name. PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE returns a pointer to the first
-entry of the table (a pointer to \fBchar\fR). The first two bytes of each entry
-are the number of the capturing parenthesis, most significant byte first. The
-rest of the entry is the corresponding name, zero terminated. The names are in
-alphabetical order. For example, consider the following pattern (assume
-PCRE_EXTENDED is set, so white space - including newlines - is ignored):
-
- (?P<date> (?P<year>(\\d\\d)?\\d\\d) -
- (?P<month>\\d\\d) - (?P<day>\\d\\d) )
-
-There are four named subpatterns, so the table has four entries, and each entry
-in the table is eight bytes long. The table is as follows, with non-printing
-bytes shows in hex, and undefined bytes shown as ??:
-
- 00 01 d a t e 00 ??
- 00 05 d a y 00 ?? ??
- 00 04 m o n t h 00
- 00 02 y e a r 00 ??
-
-When writing code to extract data from named subpatterns, remember that the
-length of each entry may be different for each compiled pattern.
-
- PCRE_INFO_OPTIONS
-
-Return a copy of the options with which the pattern was compiled. The fourth
-argument should point to an \fBunsigned long int\fR variable. These option bits
-are those specified in the call to \fBpcre_compile()\fR, modified by any
-top-level option settings within the pattern itself.
-
-A pattern is automatically anchored by PCRE if all of its top-level
-alternatives begin with one of the following:
-
- ^ unless PCRE_MULTILINE is set
- \\A always
- \\G always
- .* if PCRE_DOTALL is set and there are no back
- references to the subpattern in which .* appears
-
-For such patterns, the PCRE_ANCHORED bit is set in the options returned by
-\fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR.
-
- PCRE_INFO_SIZE
-
-Return the size of the compiled pattern, that is, the value that was passed as
-the argument to \fBpcre_malloc()\fR when PCRE was getting memory in which to
-place the compiled data. The fourth argument should point to a \fBsize_t\fR
-variable.
-
- PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE
-
-Returns the size of the data block pointed to by the \fIstudy_data\fR field in
-a \fBpcre_extra\fR block. That is, it is the value that was passed to
-\fBpcre_malloc()\fR when PCRE was getting memory into which to place the data
-created by \fBpcre_study()\fR. The fourth argument should point to a
-\fBsize_t\fR variable.
-
-.SH OBSOLETE INFO FUNCTION
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_info(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, int *\fIoptptr\fR, int
-.B *\fIfirstcharptr\fR);
-.PP
-The \fBpcre_info()\fR function is now obsolete because its interface is too
-restrictive to return all the available data about a compiled pattern. New
-programs should use \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fR instead. The yield of
-\fBpcre_info()\fR is the number of capturing subpatterns, or one of the
-following negative numbers:
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument \fIcode\fR was NULL
- PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
-
-If the \fIoptptr\fR argument is not NULL, a copy of the options with which the
-pattern was compiled is placed in the integer it points to (see
-PCRE_INFO_OPTIONS above).
-
-If the pattern is not anchored and the \fIfirstcharptr\fR argument is not NULL,
-it is used to pass back information about the first character of any matched
-string (see PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE above).
-
-.SH MATCHING A PATTERN
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_exec(const pcre *\fIcode\fR, "const pcre_extra *\fIextra\fR,"
-.ti +5n
-.B "const char *\fIsubject\fR," int \fIlength\fR, int \fIstartoffset\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIoptions\fR, int *\fIovector\fR, int \fIovecsize\fR);
-.PP
-The function \fBpcre_exec()\fR is called to match a subject string against a
-pre-compiled pattern, which is passed in the \fIcode\fR argument. If the
-pattern has been studied, the result of the study should be passed in the
-\fIextra\fR argument.
-
-Here is an example of a simple call to \fBpcre_exec()\fR:
-
- int rc;
- int ovector[30];
- rc = pcre_exec(
- re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
- NULL, /* we didn't study the pattern */
- "some string", /* the subject string */
- 11, /* the length of the subject string */
- 0, /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
- 0, /* default options */
- ovector, /* vector for substring information */
- 30); /* number of elements in the vector */
-
-If the \fIextra\fR argument is not NULL, it must point to a \fBpcre_extra\fR
-data block. The \fBpcre_study()\fR function returns such a block (when it
-doesn't return NULL), but you can also create one for yourself, and pass
-additional information in it. The fields in the block are as follows:
-
- unsigned long int \fIflags\fR;
- void *\fIstudy_data\fR;
- unsigned long int \fImatch_limit\fR;
- void *\fIcallout_data\fR;
-
-The \fIflags\fR field is a bitmap that specifies which of the other fields
-are set. The flag bits are:
-
- PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA
- PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT
- PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA
-
-Other flag bits should be set to zero. The \fIstudy_data\fR field is set in the
-\fBpcre_extra\fR block that is returned by \fBpcre_study()\fR, together with
-the appropriate flag bit. You should not set this yourself, but you can add to
-the block by setting the other fields.
-
-The \fImatch_limit\fR field provides a means of preventing PCRE from using up a
-vast amount of resources when running patterns that are not going to match,
-but which have a very large number of possibilities in their search trees. The
-classic example is the use of nested unlimited repeats. Internally, PCRE uses a
-function called \fBmatch()\fR which it calls repeatedly (sometimes
-recursively). The limit is imposed on the number of times this function is
-called during a match, which has the effect of limiting the amount of recursion
-and backtracking that can take place. For patterns that are not anchored, the
-count starts from zero for each position in the subject string.
-
-The default limit for the library can be set when PCRE is built; the default
-default is 10 million, which handles all but the most extreme cases. You can
-reduce the default by suppling \fBpcre_exec()\fR with a \fRpcre_extra\fR block
-in which \fImatch_limit\fR is set to a smaller value, and
-PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT is set in the \fIflags\fR field. If the limit is
-exceeded, \fBpcre_exec()\fR returns PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT.
-
-The \fIpcre_callout\fR field is used in conjunction with the "callout" feature,
-which is described in the \fBpcrecallout\fR documentation.
-
-The PCRE_ANCHORED option can be passed in the \fIoptions\fR argument, whose
-unused bits must be zero. This limits \fBpcre_exec()\fR to matching at the
-first matching position. However, if a pattern was compiled with PCRE_ANCHORED,
-or turned out to be anchored by virtue of its contents, it cannot be made
-unachored at matching time.
-
-When PCRE_UTF8 was set at compile time, the validity of the subject as a UTF-8
-string is automatically checked, and the value of \fIstartoffset\fR is also
-checked to ensure that it points to the start of a UTF-8 character. If an
-invalid UTF-8 sequence of bytes is found, \fBpcre_exec()\fR returns the error
-PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8. If \fIstartoffset\fR contains an invalid value,
-PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET is returned.
-
-If you already know that your subject is valid, and you want to skip these
-checks for performance reasons, you can set the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option when
-calling \fBpcre_exec()\fR. You might want to do this for the second and
-subsequent calls to \fBpcre_exec()\fR if you are making repeated calls to find
-all the matches in a single subject string. However, you should be sure that
-the value of \fIstartoffset\fR points to the start of a UTF-8 character. When
-PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK is set, the effect of passing an invalid UTF-8 string as a
-subject, or a value of \fIstartoffset\fR that does not point to the start of a
-UTF-8 character, is undefined. Your program may crash.
-
-There are also three further options that can be set only at matching time:
-
- PCRE_NOTBOL
-
-The first character of the string is not the beginning of a line, so the
-circumflex metacharacter should not match before it. Setting this without
-PCRE_MULTILINE (at compile time) causes circumflex never to match.
-
- PCRE_NOTEOL
-
-The end of the string is not the end of a line, so the dollar metacharacter
-should not match it nor (except in multiline mode) a newline immediately before
-it. Setting this without PCRE_MULTILINE (at compile time) causes dollar never
-to match.
-
- PCRE_NOTEMPTY
-
-An empty string is not considered to be a valid match if this option is set. If
-there are alternatives in the pattern, they are tried. If all the alternatives
-match the empty string, the entire match fails. For example, if the pattern
-
- a?b?
-
-is applied to a string not beginning with "a" or "b", it matches the empty
-string at the start of the subject. With PCRE_NOTEMPTY set, this match is not
-valid, so PCRE searches further into the string for occurrences of "a" or "b".
-
-Perl has no direct equivalent of PCRE_NOTEMPTY, but it does make a special case
-of a pattern match of the empty string within its \fBsplit()\fR function, and
-when using the /g modifier. It is possible to emulate Perl's behaviour after
-matching a null string by first trying the match again at the same offset with
-PCRE_NOTEMPTY set, and then if that fails by advancing the starting offset (see
-below) and trying an ordinary match again.
-
-The subject string is passed to \fBpcre_exec()\fR as a pointer in
-\fIsubject\fR, a length in \fIlength\fR, and a starting byte offset in
-\fIstartoffset\fR. Unlike the pattern string, the subject may contain binary
-zero bytes. When the starting offset is zero, the search for a match starts at
-the beginning of the subject, and this is by far the most common case.
-
-If the pattern was compiled with the PCRE_UTF8 option, the subject must be a
-sequence of bytes that is a valid UTF-8 string, and the starting offset must
-point to the beginning of a UTF-8 character. If an invalid UTF-8 string or
-offset is passed, an error (either PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 or
-PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET) is returned, unless the option PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK is
-set, in which case PCRE's behaviour is not defined.
-
-A non-zero starting offset is useful when searching for another match in the
-same subject by calling \fBpcre_exec()\fR again after a previous success.
-Setting \fIstartoffset\fR differs from just passing over a shortened string and
-setting PCRE_NOTBOL in the case of a pattern that begins with any kind of
-lookbehind. For example, consider the pattern
-
- \\Biss\\B
-
-which finds occurrences of "iss" in the middle of words. (\\B matches only if
-the current position in the subject is not a word boundary.) When applied to
-the string "Mississipi" the first call to \fBpcre_exec()\fR finds the first
-occurrence. If \fBpcre_exec()\fR is called again with just the remainder of the
-subject, namely "issipi", it does not match, because \\B is always false at the
-start of the subject, which is deemed to be a word boundary. However, if
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR is passed the entire string again, but with \fIstartoffset\fR
-set to 4, it finds the second occurrence of "iss" because it is able to look
-behind the starting point to discover that it is preceded by a letter.
-
-If a non-zero starting offset is passed when the pattern is anchored, one
-attempt to match at the given offset is tried. This can only succeed if the
-pattern does not require the match to be at the start of the subject.
-
-In general, a pattern matches a certain portion of the subject, and in
-addition, further substrings from the subject may be picked out by parts of the
-pattern. Following the usage in Jeffrey Friedl's book, this is called
-"capturing" in what follows, and the phrase "capturing subpattern" is used for
-a fragment of a pattern that picks out a substring. PCRE supports several other
-kinds of parenthesized subpattern that do not cause substrings to be captured.
-
-Captured substrings are returned to the caller via a vector of integer offsets
-whose address is passed in \fIovector\fR. The number of elements in the vector
-is passed in \fIovecsize\fR. The first two-thirds of the vector is used to pass
-back captured substrings, each substring using a pair of integers. The
-remaining third of the vector is used as workspace by \fBpcre_exec()\fR while
-matching capturing subpatterns, and is not available for passing back
-information. The length passed in \fIovecsize\fR should always be a multiple of
-three. If it is not, it is rounded down.
-
-When a match has been successful, information about captured substrings is
-returned in pairs of integers, starting at the beginning of \fIovector\fR, and
-continuing up to two-thirds of its length at the most. The first element of a
-pair is set to the offset of the first character in a substring, and the second
-is set to the offset of the first character after the end of a substring. The
-first pair, \fIovector[0]\fR and \fIovector[1]\fR, identify the portion of the
-subject string matched by the entire pattern. The next pair is used for the
-first capturing subpattern, and so on. The value returned by \fBpcre_exec()\fR
-is the number of pairs that have been set. If there are no capturing
-subpatterns, the return value from a successful match is 1, indicating that
-just the first pair of offsets has been set.
-
-Some convenience functions are provided for extracting the captured substrings
-as separate strings. These are described in the following section.
-
-It is possible for an capturing subpattern number \fIn+1\fR to match some
-part of the subject when subpattern \fIn\fR has not been used at all. For
-example, if the string "abc" is matched against the pattern (a|(z))(bc)
-subpatterns 1 and 3 are matched, but 2 is not. When this happens, both offset
-values corresponding to the unused subpattern are set to -1.
-
-If a capturing subpattern is matched repeatedly, it is the last portion of the
-string that it matched that gets returned.
-
-If the vector is too small to hold all the captured substrings, it is used as
-far as possible (up to two-thirds of its length), and the function returns a
-value of zero. In particular, if the substring offsets are not of interest,
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR may be called with \fIovector\fR passed as NULL and
-\fIovecsize\fR as zero. However, if the pattern contains back references and
-the \fIovector\fR isn't big enough to remember the related substrings, PCRE has
-to get additional memory for use during matching. Thus it is usually advisable
-to supply an \fIovector\fR.
-
-Note that \fBpcre_info()\fR can be used to find out how many capturing
-subpatterns there are in a compiled pattern. The smallest size for
-\fIovector\fR that will allow for \fIn\fR captured substrings, in addition to
-the offsets of the substring matched by the whole pattern, is (\fIn\fR+1)*3.
-
-If \fBpcre_exec()\fR fails, it returns a negative number. The following are
-defined in the header file:
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH (-1)
-
-The subject string did not match the pattern.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NULL (-2)
-
-Either \fIcode\fR or \fIsubject\fR was passed as NULL, or \fIovector\fR was
-NULL and \fIovecsize\fR was not zero.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION (-3)
-
-An unrecognized bit was set in the \fIoptions\fR argument.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC (-4)
-
-PCRE stores a 4-byte "magic number" at the start of the compiled code, to catch
-the case when it is passed a junk pointer. This is the error it gives when the
-magic number isn't present.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_UNKNOWN_NODE (-5)
-
-While running the pattern match, an unknown item was encountered in the
-compiled pattern. This error could be caused by a bug in PCRE or by overwriting
-of the compiled pattern.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
-
-If a pattern contains back references, but the \fIovector\fR that is passed to
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR is not big enough to remember the referenced substrings, PCRE
-gets a block of memory at the start of matching to use for this purpose. If the
-call via \fBpcre_malloc()\fR fails, this error is given. The memory is freed at
-the end of matching.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
-
-This error is used by the \fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR,
-\fBpcre_get_substring()\fR, and \fBpcre_get_substring_list()\fR functions (see
-below). It is never returned by \fBpcre_exec()\fR.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT (-8)
-
-The recursion and backtracking limit, as specified by the \fImatch_limit\fR
-field in a \fBpcre_extra\fR structure (or defaulted) was reached. See the
-description above.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_CALLOUT (-9)
-
-This error is never generated by \fBpcre_exec()\fR itself. It is provided for
-use by callout functions that want to yield a distinctive error code. See the
-\fBpcrecallout\fR documentation for details.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 (-10)
-
-A string that contains an invalid UTF-8 byte sequence was passed as a subject.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET (-11)
-
-The UTF-8 byte sequence that was passed as a subject was valid, but the value
-of \fIstartoffset\fR did not point to the beginning of a UTF-8 character.
-
-.SH EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NUMBER
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_copy_substring(const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, int \fIstringnumber\fR, char *\fIbuffer\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIbuffersize\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_substring(const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, int \fIstringnumber\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *\fIsubject\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int *\fIovector\fR, int \fIstringcount\fR, "const char ***\fIlistptr\fR);"
-.PP
-Captured substrings can be accessed directly by using the offsets returned by
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR in \fIovector\fR. For convenience, the functions
-\fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR, \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR, and
-\fBpcre_get_substring_list()\fR are provided for extracting captured substrings
-as new, separate, zero-terminated strings. These functions identify substrings
-by number. The next section describes functions for extracting named
-substrings. A substring that contains a binary zero is correctly extracted and
-has a further zero added on the end, but the result is not, of course,
-a C string.
-
-The first three arguments are the same for all three of these functions:
-\fIsubject\fR is the subject string which has just been successfully matched,
-\fIovector\fR is a pointer to the vector of integer offsets that was passed to
-\fBpcre_exec()\fR, and \fIstringcount\fR is the number of substrings that were
-captured by the match, including the substring that matched the entire regular
-expression. This is the value returned by \fBpcre_exec\fR if it is greater than
-zero. If \fBpcre_exec()\fR returned zero, indicating that it ran out of space
-in \fIovector\fR, the value passed as \fIstringcount\fR should be the size of
-the vector divided by three.
-
-The functions \fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR and \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR
-extract a single substring, whose number is given as \fIstringnumber\fR. A
-value of zero extracts the substring that matched the entire pattern, while
-higher values extract the captured substrings. For \fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR,
-the string is placed in \fIbuffer\fR, whose length is given by
-\fIbuffersize\fR, while for \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR a new block of memory is
-obtained via \fBpcre_malloc\fR, and its address is returned via
-\fIstringptr\fR. The yield of the function is the length of the string, not
-including the terminating zero, or one of
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
-
-The buffer was too small for \fBpcre_copy_substring()\fR, or the attempt to get
-memory failed for \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR.
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
-
-There is no substring whose number is \fIstringnumber\fR.
-
-The \fBpcre_get_substring_list()\fR function extracts all available substrings
-and builds a list of pointers to them. All this is done in a single block of
-memory which is obtained via \fBpcre_malloc\fR. The address of the memory block
-is returned via \fIlistptr\fR, which is also the start of the list of string
-pointers. The end of the list is marked by a NULL pointer. The yield of the
-function is zero if all went well, or
-
- PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
-
-if the attempt to get the memory block failed.
-
-When any of these functions encounter a substring that is unset, which can
-happen when capturing subpattern number \fIn+1\fR matches some part of the
-subject, but subpattern \fIn\fR has not been used at all, they return an empty
-string. This can be distinguished from a genuine zero-length substring by
-inspecting the appropriate offset in \fIovector\fR, which is negative for unset
-substrings.
-
-The two convenience functions \fBpcre_free_substring()\fR and
-\fBpcre_free_substring_list()\fR can be used to free the memory returned by
-a previous call of \fBpcre_get_substring()\fR or
-\fBpcre_get_substring_list()\fR, respectively. They do nothing more than call
-the function pointed to by \fBpcre_free\fR, which of course could be called
-directly from a C program. However, PCRE is used in some situations where it is
-linked via a special interface to another programming language which cannot use
-\fBpcre_free\fR directly; it is for these cases that the functions are
-provided.
-
-.SH EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NAME
-.rs
-.sp
-.B int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, const char *\fIstringname\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B char *\fIbuffer\fR, int \fIbuffersize\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIname\fR);
-.PP
-.br
-.B int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *\fIcode\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char *\fIsubject\fR, int *\fIovector\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B int \fIstringcount\fR, const char *\fIstringname\fR,
-.ti +5n
-.B const char **\fIstringptr\fR);
-.PP
-To extract a substring by name, you first have to find associated number. This
-can be done by calling \fBpcre_get_stringnumber()\fR. The first argument is the
-compiled pattern, and the second is the name. For example, for this pattern
-
- ab(?<xxx>\\d+)...
-
-the number of the subpattern called "xxx" is 1. Given the number, you can then
-extract the substring directly, or use one of the functions described in the
-previous section. For convenience, there are also two functions that do the
-whole job.
-
-Most of the arguments of \fIpcre_copy_named_substring()\fR and
-\fIpcre_get_named_substring()\fR are the same as those for the functions that
-extract by number, and so are not re-described here. There are just two
-differences.
-
-First, instead of a substring number, a substring name is given. Second, there
-is an extra argument, given at the start, which is a pointer to the compiled
-pattern. This is needed in order to gain access to the name-to-number
-translation table.
-
-These functions call \fBpcre_get_stringnumber()\fR, and if it succeeds, they
-then call \fIpcre_copy_substring()\fR or \fIpcre_get_substring()\fR, as
-appropriate.
-
-.in 0
-Last updated: 09 December 2003
-.br
-Copyright (c) 1997-2003 University of Cambridge.