.TH PCRE 3
.SH NAME
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
.SH SYNOPSIS
.rs
.sp
.B #include <pcre.h>
.PP
.SM
.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);

.SH DESCRIPTION
.rs
.sp
This function matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject
string, and returns offsets to capturing subexpressions. Its arguments are:

  \fIcode\fR         Points to the compiled pattern
  \fIextra\fR        Points to an associated \fBpcre_extra\fR structure,
                 or is NULL
  \fIsubject\fR      Points to the subject string
  \fIlength\fR       Length of the subject string, in bytes
  \fIstartoffset\fR  Offset in bytes in the subject at which to
                 start matching
  \fIoptions\fR      Option bits
  \fIovector\fR      Points to a vector of ints for result offsets
  \fIovecsize\fR     Size of the vector (a multiple of 3)

The options are:

  PCRE_ANCHORED      Match only at the first position
  PCRE_NOTBOL        Subject is not the beginning of a line
  PCRE_NOTEOL        Subject is not the end of a line
  PCRE_NOTEMPTY      An empty string is not a valid match
  PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-8
                       validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF8
                       was set at compile time)

There is a complete description of the PCRE API in the
.\" HREF
\fBpcreapi\fR
.\"
page.